Criminal Justice in America

Roscoe Pound

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138521520
• eBook ISBN: 9781351288828
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Law

Roscoe Pound believed that unless the criminal justice system maintains stability while adapting to change, it will either fossilize or be subject to the whims of public opinion. In Criminal Justice in America, Pound recognizes the dangers law faces when it does not keep pace with societal change. When the home, neighborhood, and religion are no longer capable of social control, increased conflicts arise, laws proliferate, and new menaces wrought by technology, drugs, and juvenile delinquency flourish. Where Pound saw the influence of the motion pictures as part of the "multiplication of the agencies of menace," today we might cite television and the Internet. His point still holds true: The "old machinery" cannot meet the evolving needs of society.  In Criminal Justice in America,Pound points out that one aspect of the criminal justice problem is a rigid mechanical approach that resists change. The other dimension of the problem is that change, when it comes, will result from the pressure of public opinion. Justice suffers when the public is moved by the oldest of public feelings, vengeance. This can result in citizens taking the law into their own hands--from tax evasion to mob lynchings--as well as in altering the judicial system--from sensationalizing trials to producing wrongful convictions.  Ron Christenson, in his new introduction, discusses the evolution of Roscoe Pound's career and thought. Pound's theories on jurisprudence were remarkably prescient. They continue to gain resonance as crimes become more and more sensationalized by the media.Criminal Justice in America is a fascinating study that should be read by legal scholars and professionals, sociologists, political theorists, and philosophers.

Index

Adams, John, 137

Administration, contrasted with law, 59

function of, 29

judicial supervision of, 98

lack of continuity in, 180

of justice, difficulties in, 36ff.

of justice, scientific standards in, 45

pioneer jealousy of, 24, 87, 150

Puritan aversion to, 24

unification of, 179

Administrative agencies, organization of, 202-3

Administrative functions, diferentiation of judicial from, 86

Administrative justice, 28-9, 39, 132

Administrative lawlessness, 203-4

Administrative machinery, inadequacy of, 13

Administrative régime, American, 149

Administrative tribunals, 49

Administrative violation of guaranteed rights, 53

Admiralty, 118-19

Advocates, 155-6

“Age of reason,” 115

Alienists, 127-8

American administrative régime, 149

American Bar Association, 11

American Colonies, 39

American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 11

American judicial organization, 99-100

American polity, divergence from English, 82

American Revolution, 132, 133-4, 137, 150-51, 154, 157, 165, 174

Anglo-Saxon law, 83

Anti-cigarette laws, 204

Anti-trust laws, 44

Application of law, nature of, 78

Appeal (in the old law), 90

Appellate courts, pressure of business in, 210

Arrest, 108

Assize, commissions of, 89

Assizes, 98

Attorney General, 107, 150, 182

Attorneys, 156

Austin, John, 10

Bail, 186

Ballantine, Serjeant, 73, 74

Bar, admission to and training for, 45, 157-8, 194-5

as a check on courts, 46, 196

associations, 156, 193, 196, 207

circuit, 158, 196

deprofessionalizing of, 49

discipline o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Preface
• I The Problem of Criminal Justice
• II The Difficulties of Criminal Justice
• III Our Inheritance from England
• IV Criminal Justice in Nineteenth-Century America
• V Criminal Justice Today
• Index