Public policy and criminology: An historical and philosophical reassessment

This article briefly reviews the history of the relationship between criminological research and public policy in order to explore more fully the nature of the links between social science and policy. A postpostivist critique leads to the conclusion that the distinction between science and policy, fact and value has been overdrawn. This article presents a methodology for accommodating postpostivist thought, thereby linking policy with criminology more effectively. Viewing criminology as part of a policy hermeneutic provides a way of managing the tension involved in a science/policy link that moves beyond the debate among policy pragmatists (Wilson), scientific purists (Cressey), and methodological incrementalists (Gottfredson).