Read: Cochran, C. E. (2016) Chapters 1, 6, & 7
Your paper must be between 2-3 pages of actual writing (excluding References, Title page, course information, etc.) Your submission must be in Microsoft Word, double-spaced, 12pt. font, Times New Roman, APA format, and in black font. You must have a minimum of 5 academic sources. Academic sources include academic books and peer reviewed journal articles. Websites are not an academic source and will not count toward your 5 sources. Be sure to include both in-text citations and a References section.
Critical Thinking Question:
1. Poverty
Summarize the conservative and liberal/progressive analyses of the causes of poverty. What are each analysis’s strengths and weaknesses?
Why do stereotypes and negative opinions of public assistance programs and their participants persist despite proven success?
2. Punishment
What are the two rationales for punishment of crime? What makes punishment of crime effective?
Discuss why white-collar crimes are treated differently than other kinds of crimes.
Chapter 1: Public Policy: An Introduction
Summary Overview
Studying Public Policy
Public Policy is defined as an intentional course of action followed by a government institution or official to resolve an issue of public concern. It is qualified by 1) the inclusion of decisions not to take action, 2) that official actions must be sanctioned by law or accepted custom, and 3) specific laws do not constitute the whole realm of policy, nor does any given policy always meet its intended goals.
Three important reasons for studying public policy are covered. First, is the development and testing of explanatory generalizations about the political behavior of individuals and institutions? This is the theoretical reason. Second, is the application of knowledge gained from the study of public policy to solve practical problems? This is the practical reason. The final reason is to aid in the dissection of a myriad of complex issues and sophisticated policy proposals. This is the political reason.
1. Major Concepts
The interest of the population comes out of the roles that they play in social and economic systems.
Policies are also viewed through the lens of collective or public goods and private goods.
2. Models of the Policy Process
When political scientists conduct research to understand public policy, they try to reduce the complexity of the policy making process to a manageable degree by creating models that summarize the primary forces at work.
The first model we address is the institutional model. This model stresses the opportunities and constraints on policy that are part of the very structure of the American constitutional order: judiciary, bureaucracy, executives, legislatures, separation of powers, federalism, and so forth.
The second model we address is the elite model. The elite model focuses on the influence over policy exercised by powerful individuals or groups.
The third model we address is the rational-comprehensive model. In the rational-comprehensive model we take account of all information about the policy problems and of all policy options, then select the options that best fulfill the policy maker’s goals.
3. Policy Analysis Versus Policy Advocacy
Policy analysis is principally concerned with describing and investigating how and why particular policies are proposed, adopted, and implemented, while policy advocacy begins from commitment to economic interests or to principles as interpreted by specific ideological systems.
4. Policy Stages
Political scientists often use a model of the policy making process that focuses on the “stages” through which ideas and proposals move before becoming public policy.
The three pre-policy stages are (1) problem definition or issues formation, (2) policy demands, and (3) agenda formation. Before a policy issue is defined or adopted, a problem of public concern must be perceived.
Following the pre-policy stages, the next major stage in the development of a public policy is deliberation and policy adoption.
5. Policy Evaluation
Policy evaluation involves collecting and analyzing information about the efficiency and effectiveness of policies. The purpose is to determine whether goals of policy have been achieved and to improve policy performance.
6. Book Approach
Each chapter presents a major policy issues in American politics. It discusses the basic issue, problem, or dilemma toward which public policy is directed, that is, the general background, and then describes the evolution of present public policies in the areas of concern. Each chapter evaluates policy outputs and impacts empirically and normatively. Each chapter concludes by listing the major policy alternatives and their supporting arguments as specifically as possible. At the end of each chapter is a list of books and websites to assist study and reflection, as well as a glossary of major terms and concepts.
CHAPTER 6: Crime and Criminal Justice: Dilemmas of Social Control
Summary Overview
Issue Background: The Growth and Decline of Crime
The public, throughout the late twentieth century, perceived crime as having reached intolerable levels, especially in America’s major cities, not only with respect to the incidence of criminal acts but also with respect to the exponentially rising monetary costs to society.
The homicide rate, at 5.4 murders per 100,000 populations in 2008, is down about 50 percent from the 1993 figure of 9.3 per 100,000. It should be noted, however, that even this lower homicide rate still places the United States significantly higher in this category than any other Western democracy. The United States is not particularly higher than other nations in other categories of crime.
2. Issues in Equal Protection and Government Response to Crime
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause as prohibiting selective enforcement of the law based on race. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s constitutional pronouncements, measures enacted by government to respond to crime do not always impact all racial, religious and cultural groups equally. In fact, there is a strong sense among the African-American population that they experience a particular injustice at the hands of the government’s criminal justice system.
3. Contemporary Policy: Constitutional Rights and the Deterrence of Crime
Because in our system the accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise, the rights of the accused are the rights of the innocent. These rights require the judicial system to proceed according to the rules of evidence, rules that prevent people from being punished on the basis of hearsay, rumor, emotional prejudice, or other factors that do not objectively establish guilt.
4. Policy Evaluation: Flaws in the Criminal Justice System
The evolution of contemporary policy in the area of constitutional rights and the deterrence of crime with an emphasis on the two reasons for the expansion of such rights: (1) the expanded meaning of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment to incorporate more of the federal Bill of Rights guarantees, and (2) the broadened interpretation of existing rights. It is this second category that has generated the most controversy in three areas:
The right to counsel and the admissibility of confession;
the exclusionary rule and the admissibility of illegally obtained evidence;
constraints on the use of capital punishment
5. Continuing Debates: Policy Options for Reducing Crime
Estimates vary on what proportion of street crime (for example, mugging, robbery, and auto theft) is committed to support an addiction to illegal drugs; however, such estimates uniformly place the figure at over half and sometimes as high as three-quarters.
Whatever deterrent effect the punishments of the criminal justice system may provide, it does not apply to teenagers, the age group most likely to commit crimes against persons and property.
CHAPTER 7: Poverty and Social Welfare Policy
Summary Overview
This chapter discusses social insurance programs, which provide for the aged, disabled, widowed and orphaned, and unemployed; public assistance programs, which aim to alleviate poverty for those not covered by social insurance; and work/employment programs, designed to provide jobs, job training, or other assistance to those needing help to lift themselves out of poverty.
1. Issue Background: Poverty
The U.S. Welfare State is bifurcated, with social insurance policies and programs being contributory and valued, and with social assistance programs being means-tested and generally stigmatized.
2. Contemporary Policy: Social Insurance and Social Assistance Programs
Generally, the social insurance programs are contributory in their funding, universal in their coverage, effective in reducing poverty, and popular among the public and politicians.
It is important to understand the difference in approach to social welfare between the United States and Western Europe.
3. Policy Evaluation: Do Social Welfare Policies Reduce Poverty?
Growth in public assistance caseloads and associated spending during the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the media’s “welfare queen” images, contributed to the unpopularity of these assistance programs among the American public. Widespread dislike of and dissatisfaction with public assistance in the 1990s had shifted by the turn of the 21st century when caseloads appeared to have eliminated any perceived to be undeserving, retaining only the hardest to serve.
4. Continuing Debates: Social Welfare Policy Change
While social insurance programs enjoy broad popularity and are relatively efficient and effective in meeting their goals, social assistance policies remain charged with addressing two primary intractable dilemmas: (1) the large number of children spending all or part of their childhood in poverty, and (2) the availability of jobs that lift people out of poverty.
The consequences of child poverty and family breakup are severe, including poor education,
teenage pregnancy, child abuse, suicide, drug addiction, and high crime rates.
Current social insurance and social assistance programs in the U.S. combine features in tension with each other. Sympathy for the plight of the elderly, widows, and children drives policy in a progressive direction; that is, toward the notion that all members of society deserve an income and sufficient economic dignity to support a decent life in a prosperous, democratic society.
Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fecourses.pvamu.edu%2F&source_ve_path=MTY0NTAz&feature=emb_share&v=mlxLX8Fto_A
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