After your topic of choice has been approved, you will take on the role of a Pol

After your topic of choice has been approved, you will take on the role of a Policy Analyst and write a proposal about the importance of conducting an evaluation of your chosen policy/program/practice to policy makers who are deciding how to allocate limited criminal justice funds. In this proposal, you will go through the key components of the evaluation hierarchy providing information and proposing the types of data you would use in conducting these evaluations. You can use the provided recommendation for how many pages to dedicate to each section. Please use scholarly sources throughout to strengthen the proposal.

Background: Please introduce the policy, program, or practice (you may use information from your topic proposal for this section of the paper). (~2 pages)
• Name or title of policy, program or practice
• History or context that led to the use of this policy/program/practice
• A brief descriiption of the policy, program, or practice (i.e. what are the main components)
• Main goals of the policy, program or practice
• Why this is an important topic to evaluate
• Use at least 2 scholarly sources in this section
Needs Evaluation: Please explain why a needs evaluation is necessary and go through some of the key steps of conducting a needs evaluation for this policy/program/practice. (~2 pages)
• Explain the importance of conducting a needs evaluation
• Define the problem:
o Assess the nature & extent of the problem (please find statistics or sources of information to discuss the problem)
o Explain the history of the problem.
o Examine potential causes of the problem.
o Who does this problem affect?
• Who is the target population for the intervention?
• Determine what type of data you would gather if you were going to conduct a needs evaluation to understand this problem (You will not actually be collecting the data, but rather explaining what type of data would be sufficient)
o i.e. arrest records, surveys, interviews, focus groups
• Evaluate existing resources
o Are there other policy or program efforts that already exist that could address this problem?
o If so, is there an argument for why this particular program/practice/policy is still a better option?
• Use at least 2 scholarly sources in this section
Theory Evaluation: Please include the following for this section (~2 pages)
• Explain why a theory evaluation is important
• Explain the theoretical rationale for the policy/program/practice (how is the policy/program/practice supposed to achieve its goals?)
• Assess the logic of the theory (Does it make sense? Are there limitations to the theory?)
• Is the theory backed by research? Include a source that has tested or evaluated the theory.
• Are there any potential harms or unintended consequences that you can theorize about this policy/program/practice?
Process Evaluation: Please be sure to include this in your paper (~2 pages)
• Discuss the importance of process evaluations & why it is important to evaluate the process of your policy/program/practice
• Explain which practitioner(s) you would want to develop a partnership with to understand the process of the policy/program/practice (not actual names of people, just roles (i.e. judges, police officers, etc.))
o What steps might you take to develop a trusting relationship with the practitioner?
• Develop at least 3 process measures that would assist you in understanding whether this policy/program/practice is being implemented as intended
• Determine what types of data you would use to assess these measures if you were to conduct a process evaluation
o What challenges might arise by trying to access these data?
Impact evaluation: Although impact evaluations are still limited, this is the one area of evaluation research that is prioritized. Please address the following points in this section (~3-4 pages)
• Discuss the importance of outcome and impact evaluations
• Develop at least 3 outcome measures that you think would measure success of the policy/program/practice
• Discuss the types of data you would need for these outcome measures and any challenges you may face accessing these data
• Find at least 3 studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of this policy/program/practice
o Summarize the purpose and findings of each study
Cost-efficiency evaluation: Here you will not be asked to actually conduct a cost-efficiency evaluation, but rather identify some costs and benefits should be considered. (~1-2 pages)
• Explain why a cost-benefit analysis is important
• Identify at least 2 costs and 2 benefits
o The costs/benefits you include can be direct or indirect, recurring or nonrecurring, or tangible or intangible
• Identify any opportunity costs (what are we missing out on if we choose to use this policy)
Conclusion: Wrap up your proposal. (~1 page)
• Make an argument for why the steps of the evaluation hierarchy are needed to understand whether we should continue this policy/program/practice
• What do we know about this policy/program/practice at this time?
• What do we still need to know?
• What recommendations do you have at this time about the policy/program/practice