Failure: A Significant Role in Evaluation Research, Essay Example

I believe that failure should play and does play a significant role in evaluation research. Criminal Justice Researchers including myself believe that there cannot be trial without any error. As human beings we learn from our past mistakes and tend to make the necessary corrections in order to avoid future mistakes which can be avoided. I believe the same holds true for projects such as DARE as well as the consent to search program in ST Louis program of the 1990’s. Since human beings including researchers can learn from past mistakes I believe that both failures and success of programs should be reported to policy makers. Unfortunately many policy makers choose to overlook some many failing programs such as the DARE program due to political reasons. For example it may not sit to well to the average joe with an average or below average IQ if the soon to be up for reelection local politician is attempting to get rid of a program that is portrayed by the local police to reduce drug use amongst teenagers especially if they have children in the towns school system. The politicians in favor of getting rid of the DARE program may be afraid of posssible political backlash. For the practioners who are in favor of some program, and they find an evaluation doesn’t show positive effects, they tend to disregard or make up excuses. On a positive note, criminal justice researchers did find some positive results from the DARE program such as increased positive attitudes towards police. Some practioners who are willing to go through trial and error have taken some succesful aspects of the DARE program and have combined them with new learning strategies and techniques to improve the program and have noticed more positive results. Trial and Error is a vital part of evaluation and should be used to inform and guide policy. Policy makers should always be looking to make improvments for programs and that means accepting that mistakes will be made along the way and learning from them.

As Criminal Justice professionals we should always keep an open mind about our expectations of programs we are researching. There is no such thing as a perfect program or idea. Every program has a flaw just like every human being has flaws. We have to weigh the positive effects to the negatives effects of a program. As a researcher I will let the tax payers, politicians, and law makers worry about the cost of the programs. I believe all researchers have different opinions on what makes a program successfull, whether its a 1 percent, 10 percent, or 50 percent reduction in crime. I don’t believe there is a golden rule to this complicated question. All I can tell you is that as a criminal justice researcher I believe in making improvements. If a program in 2010 causes a 1 percent decrease in crime and a 2 percent decrease in crime in 2011, the program is making progress. I believe progress translates into success. Whether or not the program is worth the funding is up to the politicians. The more progress a program makes in decreasing crime the more succesful the program has become. There is always room for improvement.