How Big Data can save America's out of control criminal justice policies

Criminal justice policy in the US is out of control and needs fixing, argues Daniel P. Mears. He writes that many policies designed to tackle crime lack an evidence base, and combine with punishment-based responses to create what he terms a 'cycle of dysfunction.' In the current era of Big Data, he calls for a move away from 'correctional quackery' towards a criminal justice and correctional policy that is informed by data and analytics.