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Race, Arrest, and Sentencing as Social Policy

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Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

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Definition

Social policy, a subset of public policy, is “a course of government action or inaction” regarding social issues via “formally approved goals and means, as well as the regulations and practices of agencies that implement programs” (Kraft and Furlong 2013).

Not to be confused with public policy, social policy is limited to policy influencing the course of human lives, improving a citizen’s well-being and action on issues affecting their welfare.

Public policy moves beyond solving social issues and as Thomas Dye explains is what government chooses to do or not. This choice is made on issues that may or may not affect a person directly. Those issues include but are not limited to tax, environmental, or international policy. Though they eventually affect a person’s welfare, tax or environmental policy is not directly connected to it. Thus, all social policy is public policy, but not all public policy is social policy.

Social policy is focused on policy formulation and...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jackson State University, Jackson, MS, USA

    Carmela F. Staten

  2. Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, MS, USA

    Carmela F. Staten

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  1. Carmela F. Staten
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Correspondence to Carmela F. Staten .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

    Ali Farazmand

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Staten, C.F. (2016). Race, Arrest, and Sentencing as Social Policy. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2639-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2639-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

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