Introduction to Criminal Justice

Bradley D. Edwards, Lawrence F. Travis III

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429761317
• Edition: 9
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Law

Introduction to Criminal Justice, Ninth Edition, offers a student-friendly description of the criminal justice process—outlining the decisions, practices, people, and issues involved. It provides a solid introduction to the mechanisms of the criminal justice system, with balanced coverage of the issues presented by each facet of the process, including a thorough review of practices and controversies in law enforcement, the criminal courts, and corrections.

In this revision, Edwards gives fresh sources of data, with over 600 citations of new research results. New sections include immigration policy, disparities in the justice system, Compstat and problem-oriented policing, victim services in the courts, and developments in drug policy. This edition also has expanded coverage of police use of force. Each chapter now includes a text box on a policy dilemma like cash bail or stop-and-frisk policies.

Appropriate for all U.S. Criminal Justice programs, this text offers great value for students and instructors.

Chapter 1

Criminal Justice Perspectives

Important Terms

• closed system
• crime control model
• criminal justice
• criminology
• due process model
• education
• evidence-based policy
• family model
• federalism
• formal social control
• functions
• informal social control
• latent functions
• local autonomy
• manifest functions
• open system
• separation of powers
• social control
• system
• theory
• training

Imagine that you are standing on a busy street corner. You look at the people around you. What do you see?

• A woman drops a postcard in a mailbox.
• Across the street, a man carrying a small suitcase steps off a bus.
• Several feet away from you, a couple is arguing about something.
• A police car slowly passes through the intersection.
• Less than half a block away, someone is jaywalking while a small child nearby reads a street sign.
• A man deposits money in a nearby parking meter.
• A stranger approaches and asks that you sign a petition in support of banning cell phone use by drivers.

What you probably do not see is that the mix of pedestrian and vehicular traffic is orderly. You do not notice that almost everyone watches the police car, at least briefly. You do not realize that all of these strangers at the intersection are going about their own business, apparently unaware of each other. Yet, in a well-rehearsed routine, they stop and go on cue from the traffic light. You probably do not see a crime (with the possible exception of the jaywalker).

Without realizing it, you have observed the criminal justice system in action. What you did not know is that the postcard was a monthly report the woman was sending to her probation officer. Nor was it clear that the man with the suitcase just left the state penitentiary on parole. The arguing couple may be tonight’s domestic disturbance (or last night’s). The slow-moving police car is searching for the small child, who is reading the street signs because he is lost. The jaywalker crossed the street to avoid walking past a group of teens gathered on the sidewalk. The man at the parking meter wants to avoid a citation. The person with the petition hopes to ensure that motorists refrain from using cell phones by making it criminal to do so.

The workings of the criminal justice system affected the entire street corner scene just described, and all of the individuals in it. Interestingly, the individuals also directly affect the workings of that system. Should the argumentative couple become too boisterous, the shopper fail to deposit the correct coins in the parking meter, the woman not mail the postcard, and so on, you would expect some sort of official response from the justice system. Criminal justice is an integral part of our society and social living.

Sociologists often speak of the purposes of social institutions as “functions” (Parsons, 1966). Functions are the goals served by a social institution. For instance, schools serve the function of education. We can classify institutional functions as either manifest or latent. Manifest functions are the stated purposes of the institution, whereas latent functions are the unstated or hidden goals. Schools serve the manifest function of education through teaching students various academic subjects. They also meet the latent functions of providing child care and controlling the workforce by otherwise occupying millions of young people.

Social Control

Cohen (1966:3) noted, “If human beings are to do business with one another, there must be rules, and people must be able to assume that, by and large, these rules will be observed.” The making and enforcement of rules is a requirement for organized social living. Social control is the label given to the processes and structures that seek to limit rule-breaking behavior, or deviance.

There are a number of instruments of social control in any society, of which the law and criminal justice process are only one. Most discussions of social control attempt to classify the different means by which conformity is achieved (Black, 1976; Ross, 1926; Travis & Langworthy, 2008). These classifications focus on the procedures and processes that support conformity. The social control mechanisms in a society or a community can influence individual behavior by assigning “blame” and sanctions, or by prevention and education.

Types of Social Control

One of the most common ways of classifying social control processes is to distinguish between “formal” and “informal” social controls. Formal social control includes those sanctions applied by some authorized body after a public finding of fault. Informal social control, in contrast, refers to mechanisms that influence behavior without the need for a public finding of fault or the use of group-“authorized” sanctions. We can formally sanction a student who is disruptive in class by expulsion. In this case, the instructor, acting in his or her “official” (formal) capacity, or the educational institution itself, can apply the sanction of “banishment” on the offender. Alternatively, other members of the class can “hush” the offender by showing their disapproval without going through any formal process and punishment.

In the ideal, of course, the disruption would not have happened in the first place because the student would view the disruptive behavior as wrong or inappropriate. No matter how we achieve control over the behavior—formal sanctions, informal influence, or self-control—we stop or prevent the disruption. The social business of the class can continue with relative order and predictability. The means of control vary, but the goal of social control remains the maintenance of order in social relations. Because the goal is uniform regardless of the means, the distinction among types of social control is often artificial. Rather than being completely distinct types of control, informal and formal mechanisms lie along a continuum of controls ranging from those that are internal to the individual to those imposed on the individual externally.

Suppose the student wishes to be disruptive, but refrains from doing so because of a fear of expulsion. The student has demonstrated self-control, but the impetus for control is the threat of a formal sanction. Has social control in this case been established by informal or formal methods? In general, if the use or threat of a formal sanction is the mechanism by which we maintain social order, we call the process “formal social control.” If a formal sanction is not necessary (even if such a sanction exists), then we call it “informal social control.”

Criminal Justice as Social Control

The primary function of criminal justice is social control. The components of the justice process are police, courts, and corrections. These components have the manifest function of controlling different kinds of deviance defined as crime. “Crime” is only a small part of the total activities and behaviors that are the targets of social control. Most social control works through “informal” mechanisms, such as shunning or ostracizing the person who is rude, insensitive, or bothersome. Other forms of deviance defined as mental illness are handled through the mental health system. Pound (1929:4) remarked, “Law does but a part of this whole task of social control; and the criminal law does but a part of that portion which belongs to the law.”

Criminal justice is the formal social institution designed to respond to deviance defined as crime. Crime control is the primary purpose of the criminal justice system, but it also serves other latent functions. Police, courts, and corrections do much more than merely fight crime. Still, our examination of the criminal justice process cannot progress until we understand this central purpose. Whatever other functions it may serve, and whatever methods it may employ, we can judge or measure the justice system as an institution of formal social control.

Focusing on the social control function of criminal justice (specifically, the control of crime) makes it easier to study and understand criminal justice practices and policies. We assess the value of a policy and procedure, or proposed changes in them, by how well they meet the objective of crime control. Theoretically, it seems easy enough to maintain an “objective” perspective, but it is often very difficult to do so in practice. Kellogg (1976:50) has observed that this perspective:

has never made much of an impact on the administration of criminal justice, most likely because there is so little agreement as to the “objectives” of criminal justice, the purposes of punishment, and the most appropriate strategy to reduce crime.

The disagreement to which Kellogg refers concerns the means by which the justice system is expected to achieve crime control. It is not enough that criminal justice efforts control crime, those efforts must protect individual rights and otherwise be acceptable to our society. While it is true that criminal justice practices may be controversial in particular instances, the overriding interest in controlling crime is a constant goal. Although we may disagree over the use of the death penalty, wiretaps, plea bargaining, or probation, we can agree that what we want to do is reduce the incidence of crime. Unfortunately, criminal justice practices too often become focal points for debates stated in terms of the purposes of the justice system. The President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967:70) aptly illustrated this confusion in its report:

Any criminal justice system is an apparatus society uses to enforce the standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community. It operates by apprehending, prosecuting, convicting, and sentencing those members of the community who violate the basic rules of group existence. The action taken against lawbreakers is designed to serve three purposes beyond the immediately punitive one. It removes dangerous people from the community; it deters others from criminal behavior; and it gives society an opportunity to attempt to transform lawbreakers into law-abiding citizens.

A debate may arise over whether deterring others from criminal behavior or transforming violators into law-abiding citizens is the best means of achieving the objective of social control, but no one questions the objective itself. This confusion of means and ends is not limited to disagreements over specific practices such as capital punishment but also includes ideological conflicts. People disagree not only over the appropriate forms of capital punishment (e.g., beheading, burning at the stake, electrocution, poison gas, lethal injection) but also over the appropriateness of capital punishment in general (e.g., the sanctity of life versus “an eye for an eye”). Yet, what would happen to these debates if the justice system could eliminate murder?

To further complicate an already complicated picture, the justice system is not the only social control institution in operation. The mental health system deals with many of the “rule violators” deemed inappropriate subjects for the justice system. Families, churches, schools, social organizations, and the media all serve social control purposes by informing us of what is acceptable behavior. The usefulness of the justice system must be understood within the total context of social control institutions. These other social control devices are often very effective (perhaps more effective than the criminal law), as illustrated in Box 1.1. Markowitz (2006:63) reported that when we lower the capacity of mental hospitals, the criminal justice system workload increases, writing, “In sum, public psychiatric hospital capacity is an important source of control of those whose behavior or public presence may at times threaten the social order.”

That most of the pedestrians and vehicles in the illustration that opens this chapter obey the traffic lights and signs is evidence of social control. How are these individuals controlled? Some may be controlled by fear of a citation (justice system); others may react as a result of learning traffic safety at home, in school, or from the media. All of the...