Criminal justice expertise: wicked problems, governance, and the power of knowledge

Increasing numbers of people claim to have expertise about criminal justice, whether it is the causes of coercive control that led to the creation of new domestic abuse offences, public health approaches to youth violence, harm reduction strategies for problematic drug use, trauma-informed practice for sexual offences trials, or sundry suggestions for improving penal policy. But what exactly is criminal justice ‘expertise’, and on what basis can people call themselves ‘experts’ in this area?

I begin by arguing that wicked problems – i.e. complex, intractable, value-laden issues prone to public controversy and political contestation – such as crime and punishment tend to attract the attention of researchers in different institutions (e.g. universities, think-tanks and charities). Their policy-relevant knowledge can be appealing to political decision makers, especially when faced with new or emerging challenges, or in respect of long standing, highly contentious issues. I then explain that modern governance occurs within overlapping political orders (e.g. global, regional, national and local), where policymaking is dispersed across multiple networks of public officials, experts, practitioners and other stakeholders. This enables a wide array of input from different epistemic authorities, including paradigmatic forms of expertise (e.g. systematic research conducted by university professors according to recognised social scientific methodologies) but also the professional know-how of those who work in the criminal justice system, and the personal experiences of individuals who have been affected by crime and punishment.

How can we validate these different claims about expert status, how much weight ought to be given to each of them, and how should we adjudicate on competing expert claims? In short, what should be the relationship between power and knowledge? These are the central questions I shall address in the presentation.