Sentencing Reform in Texas: Can Criminal Justice Research Inform Public Policy?

This article reviews how criminal justice research that responds to the needs of policymakers can have a significant impact in informing and shaping public policy. It examines recent major sentencing reforms in Texas in the context of how policy research was a critical element in the development and adoption of a new sentencing system. It then argues that, for researchers to be effective in the public policy arena, they have to use judgment to synthesize massive amounts of data into a contextual framework useful for informing policymakers.