As someone who has claimed to be a part of the wider world of criminology, I am a bit puzzled how you could postulate that criminologists are not deeply involved in the criminal justice structure in the United States. Criminologists have been structurally incorporated into CJ at every level of policy making and implementation. Sociologists formulate the very rules for conducting studies (via IRB), sociologists gather, collate, shape, and deliver the data, sociologists write the papers, journals, and articles that use the data, and sociologists run the bodies and organizations that advise law enforcement, government, and universities that define values, decide policy, and force conformity (A/B/C C/B/A order).
Probation over incarceration was a criminological theory made policy. Decriminalization of (x) are criminologists postulating about causal relationships. More importantly, criminologists are heavily consulted by the entertainment industry in terms of form and content.
Regardless, I feel completely comfortable to comment on the state of abysmal reasoning I see in my school. I did it to the PoliSci department for the same reasons. People who cannot define/explain the mathematical and/or computational logic underpinning their methodology have no place in relating conclusions and analysis from said studies. The methodology for encoding of life factors, interactions, and ethno-social details alone should be the biggest red flag. There are so many little biases, arguments from consensus, and cognitively dissonant perspectives that it becomes death by a thousand errors.
I hope these "data thugs" rip sociology to shreds. It is a good thing. These are all my opinions and observations, of course, but I truly believe that all of the social sciences are at an alchemical state; whoever can convince the patrons that they can cull prosperity/equality/justice/peace/wellness from the data gets the support and favor. But it is bullshit. Rather, it isn't science. Not yet. There are too many taboos, too much common knowledge, too much politicking, currently. Sociology needs to be culled in a compassionately dispassionate way by external forces, with the hope of the dross being scraped away so the concrete value, however much or little is there, can be recognized and built upon.