Build to sustain: collaborative partnerships between university researchers and criminal justice practitioners

Abstract

Sustainable, collaborative partnerships provide a dynamic and fluid environment for studying and implementing policy and practice in justice agencies. However, these relationships take work to develop, grow, maintain, and sustain. Bridging the gap between academics and criminal justice practitioners requires solid partnerships built on access, agreement, goal setting, feedback, and relationship maintenance. When these components merge, both groups benefit from a resilient partnership with the potential for dramatically improving outcomes. A researcher-practitioner partnership is a challenging and complex process requiring careful attention to detail and an endless supply of energy and determination. This paper highlights some of the many successful researcher-practitioner partnerships our research team at the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE!) has with criminal justice agencies. We detail four specific partnerships with federal, state, and county criminal justice organizations spanning from probation and parole to problem-solving courts.

University Researcher and Law Enforcement Collaboration

“…Collaborators must actively work to maintain a long-term relationship (Rudes et al, 2014). Several issues are relevant here: turnover, trust , and scale .…”

“…There are several ways to institutionalize a long-term collaboration: for example, signing a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) between organizations, which specifies long-term goals of collaboration; seeking and receiving grants for research or collaboration; inviting police to serve as speakers in classes or seminars; or sending university students to intern with law enforcement (cf. Rudes et al, 2014). The Benton County collaboration engaged in two of these practices: seeking grants for collaboration and engaging student interns.…”

“…A robust relationship requires researchers to gain the trust of police (Braga & Hinkle, 2010) and to respect the position that these officials occupy. This involves, at least, open and regular communication between the parties, in which researchers seek feedback on data collection, analysis, and interpretation from their practitioner partners (Rudes et al, 2014). Also important is for researchers to acknowledge their collaborators in official documents produced from the collaboration.…”

“…The first challenge in collaboration is to define the nature of the relationship (Rudes, Viglione, Lerch, Porter, & Taxman, 2014). This means, at least, defining the tasks to be accomplished and defining time lines for completing them.…”

Reflecting on Researcher/Practice Relationships in Prison Research: A Contact Hypothesis Lens

“…Currently, studies of the benefits of partnerships are predominantly in the US context and little is known about the processes in the European context or any theorisation through which these benefits can be managed. Rudes et al (2014) developed a framework spelling out the five key dimensions with which to manage CJS-academic partnerships effectively. These dimensions comprise means of negotiating access, having written agreements in place, goal setting, continual and iterative feedback and relationship building.…”