The impact of the site on the field will be substantial.
The reason is because people are always seeking to find out what works and what doesn't across
a wide range of areas.
This website is going to bring that information together in a very systematic way, in a way that's
easy for people to understand.
It's very transparent; they can see kind of what we did and how we did it; and it will
summarize what we know in those areas.
We're in the infancy now, we're basically reviewing individual studies across the topic areas:
corrections, crime prevention, policing, and so forth.
My hope is that as we move into topics in more specific areas, we're not only going to review
individual studies, but we're going to be able to bring together the information in a way that
will help people understand the body of knowledge in an area.
For example, not a question of whether a drug court is effective, but rather how effective are
drug courts?
What makes them more effective?
Can we learn from the research who is best suited for a drug court, how long they should last,
and so forth?
So, I really see this as a process where we start out by reviewing studies, we eventually start
to systematically pull out from those reviews, and at some point, this becomes a jumping off
point for more research because we can see what gaps exist, and researchers then can start to
fill in those gaps, rather than spending time plowing through territory we already know, so I'm
very optimistic that this can be a very important addition to the field.
