David Thacher, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, will write a book that examines how empirical social science can contribute to the study of values and normative issues in public policy. Rather than examining the best means to achieve a given goal, the book will show how the worthiness of a goal can be gauged by social science. His research will use case studies in the criminal justice and social policy domains, asking for example whether certain approaches to policing can be justified by their empirical results.