Citation

Edwards A, Sheptycki J. Criminol. Crim. Justice 2009; 9(3): 379-397.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1748895809336698

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Evidence-based policy-making implies greater clarity in the relationship between science, politics and crime control. This is especially the case with a highly polarizing topic like gun-crime. Specifically, the enrolment of social science by pressure groups, political parties and other political actors raises questions about the possibility and desirability of a scientifically detached appraisal of the problem. One resolution is to reject the feasibility of objective detachment, treat science and politics as synonymous and locate criminology firmly in the domain of politics and morality—to 'take sides' as it were. This renders the purpose of academic criminology problematic, for if its practitioners are to be regarded as inevitably partisan, what do they contribute as social scientists to public issues defined as political and moral in content? Why should criminological knowledge claims be especially valued over that of other political and moral actors? More recently, attempts to define concepts about the formative intentions, intrinsic and extrinsic to the politics of scientists' work, suggest ways of demarcating science from politics in this and other criminological disputes. They provide a rationale for the distinctive contribution of social science to public controversies over crime and control.