DESIGN PROBLEMS IN PUBLIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT: The Case of the Community Anti‐Crime Program

This essay explores the issues involved in designing public policies. It suggests that those programs not well designed will generate inappropriate expectations for success. This lack of design sophistication may not lead well‐conceived methods .for achieving stated objectives. Taking the Low Enforcement Assistance Administration's Cornmunit. Anti‐Crime Program as an example, the paper analyzes the implicit sociological theory which guided the development of this new and important program. The essay concludes by highlighting some of the important contributions the Community Anti‐Crime Program can make in the criminal justice policy arena despite its conceptual shortcomings. While design problems may hinder the implementation of programs, they do not necessarily have to cripple them.