Evidence-based practice in the U.S. pretrial services system: Examining heuristically-driven organizational symbolism in the public sector

The adoption of the evidence-based practice (EBP) paradigm into professions based in the behavioral sciences raises the question of the degree to which the paradigm is being used functionally, to promote organizational effectiveness, or symbolically, to promote organizational legitimacy. The current case study examines the U.S. pretrial services system as an example of a public organization that has adopted EBP as a strategic orientation. Through the use of summative content analysis, organizational communications were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the extent to which the EBP framework was being used to enhance organizational efficacy or to promote organizational legitimacy. Findings indicate that the paradigm is used largely symbolically to express organizational legitimacy and to justify the continuation of organizational existence and operations. Such findings suggest that EBP is used in a performance-based manner indicative of institutional organizational theory, which contrasts with commonly held assumptions and assertions that the paradigm is used functionally to improve organizational effectiveness as classical organizational theory would stipulate. These findings imply that EBP's use within the pretrial services system does not so much operate to improve organizational functionality, but that the paradigm is used to communicate legitimacy. Such an implication has relevance in that it contradicts the purported benefits of the paradigm and it encourages the expenditure of public resources on programming unlikely to improve the pretrial services system or further its mission. While such implications may extend to other fields using EBP, generalizing these conclusions beyond the pretrial services system should be done with caution.