Partnerships between community corrections and researchers: the view from the probation/parole chiefs

ABSTRACT

Calls to improve the interaction between academics and practitioners have been repeatedly pronounced by scholars and government leaders alike. A number of publications have focused on examining the experience and views of police leaders on partnerships with researchers. However, there is a general lack of knowledge about community corrections leaders’ receptivity to research and the experience and view of research partnerships. Our study addressed this limitation with a statewide survey of probation/parole chiefs in Pennsylvania. Guided by prior research on research partnerships in policing, the survey in the current project included questions about potential correlates of researcher-practitioner partnerships in addition to the questions measuring the experience and opinions of probation/parole chiefs in Pennsylvania on such partnerships. The current research results provide greater insight to inform practitioners and researchers on how to encourage the research utilization and tailor researcher-practitioner partnerships to the context and conditions within community corrections.

KEYWORDS:

• Research Partinerships
• Community Corrections
• Evidence-Based Practice

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.

Notes on contributors

Bitna Kim

Dr. Bitna Kim is a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Co-director of the Center for Research in Criminology (CRC) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Her primary research interests include evidence-based crime prevention practice, program and policy, multi-agency partnerships, international/comparative criminology and criminal justice, domestic homicide, and prison rape.

Daniel Lee

Dr. Daniel Lee has been a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) since 2001. Dr. Lee’s research experience and expertise include assessments of perceptions of crime and criminal justice, perceptions of victimization risk and fear of crime, theoretical causes to crime and delinquency, and evaluations of criminal justice programming.