Legal Policy Reform

What are your own ways of thinking about legal policy reform? Do you take the stance of a researcher or practitioner? How might these two perspectives differ? What are some of the issues that might be important for researchers to consider when striving to change policy? What are some of the factors that might impede policy change?

Legal policy reform focuses on the interest of the community that could affect them internally and externally. The process of legal policies varies from community to community so each community may have different policies. There is no clear, specific direction on how legal policy reform should be handled. Legal policy reform consists of written or unwritten guidelines and gives power to the local government to

They often overlook the science behind why people behave the way they do and how legal policies may affect the community. Practitioners also find methods or tools that can be applied to the effectiveness of legal policy reforms while the researchers are conducting research to find answers and expand the knowledge on the topic. However, researchers should consider how their findings may be applied and interpreted in real-life situations and relevant to legal policies. When conducting research, it tends to be in a controlled setting which misses the complexity found in real-life situations. Another issue is that researchers should measure more than one effect in order to analyze all possible effects that surface in real life situations. Real life situations tend to be messy and filled with uncertainty because we do not know how people will react. Researchers should consider if their findings are reliable and consist of a representative sample of the community. The research should be prepared to follow and explain all possible effects of legal policies reforms in communities. However, there are several factors that can impede policy change including financial cost, public safety, and victim’s rights. Legal

Prosecutors are the ones that help determine policies and procedures and what evidence to use to charge and convict the offender. Police officers help the prosecutors by gathering evidence, and turning it over to them. Police officers are more likely to identify flaws in policies and procedures and welcome change to ensure that they are effective. They suggest improvements and help determine if the policy is effective. For example, police officer often mistakes in eyewitness testimonies because they witness the likelihood of misidentifications during police lineups. While the prosecutors see misidentifications as a failure because they cannot use this evidence to make a case. Police officers are behind the scenes of what occurs during the courtroom while prosecutors are in charge of presenting the information and evidence to the judge to help charge and convict offenders. In other words, prosecutors are responsible for evaluating the evidence and determine if it sufficient to use against the offender. Police officers are similar to researchers since they use their experiences to expand their knowledge to ensure that their policies and procedures are accurate and