Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Evaluation Review
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Nuttall, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Nuttall, C.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
Medline Plus Health Information
*Family Issues
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The Home Office and Random Allocation Experiments

Christopher Nuttall

Consultant to Attorney General of Barbados

By examining the history of the random experiment in the Home Office in the United Kingdom, this article demonstrates that research is not an altogether rational process and that fashion, personality, and politics are at least as important as science and evidence when setting research and policy programs and determining methodologies. The article also shows that even in 1970, the research world was a village and that issues and fashions on one side of it could determine the outcome of decisions on the other side, even though they had no direct relevance. On a more optimistic note, the article shows how the fashions go in cycles so that if you could not get the research funded in the last cycle, just wait 20 years for the cycle to come around and try again.

Key Words: random experiments treatment • fashion research

Evaluation Review, Vol. 27, No. 3, 267-289 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0193841X03027003004
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 American Journal of EvaluationHome page
L. M. van der Knaap, F. L. Leeuw, S. Bogaerts, and L. T. J. Nijssen
Combining Campbell Standards and the Realist Evaluation Approach: The Best of Two Worlds?
American Journal of Evaluation, March 1, 2008; 29(1): 48 - 57.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Criminal JusticeHome page
C. R. Hollin
Evaluating offending behaviour programmes: Does only randomization glister?
JCriminology and Criminal Justice, February 1, 2008; 8(1): 89 - 106.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceHome page
D. Weisburd
Hot Spots Policing Experiments and Criminal Justice Research: Lessons from the Field
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 1, 2005; 599(1): 220 - 245.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceHome page
D. P. Farrington
British Randomized Experiments on Crime and Justice
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1, 2003; 589(1): 150 - 167.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Eval RevHome page
D. Weisburd
Ethical Practice and Evaluation of Interventions in Crime and Justice: The Moral Imperative for Randomized Trials
Eval Rev, June 1, 2003; 27(3): 336 - 354.
[Abstract] [PDF]