Dear Student:
Greetings and welcome to a fascinating excursion across the world of Comparative Criminal
Justice Systems. My name is Gene Straughan and I am the course instructor. My educational
background is in political science, law, and criminal justice. Along with this course I
teach introduction to criminal justice, criminal law, criminal procedure, introduction to
the social sciences, American national government, law and society, constitutional law,
and other courses at Lewis-Clark State College. My research interests focus on how public
policy seeks to work out conflicts within the United States between a dominant culture and
various subcultures, probing the significance of the unwritten character of the law and
calibrating the weight to be assigned to societal values. I also work closely with various
agencies on projects dealing with juvenile delinquency, adult corrections, management,
policing, and so on. Underscoring my experiences is a keen interest in how and why the
laudable, but sometimes overzealous efforts to control criminal behavior must be carefully
tempered by a democratic spirit to do justice.
What makes the study of global criminal justice so exciting is the ageless struggle to
control crime without sacrificing the commitment to due process and equal protection of
the law. The right of the people to live free of crime must be delicately balanced with
respect for individual autonomy, dignity, and diversity. No doubt the control of crime is
a significant concern of the populace. Public opinion polls consistently show that
Americans perceive crime as the number one problem of today. For every 500 serious crimes
known to the police, only 100 people are arrested and just 20 adults and 5 juveniles are
sent to jail or prison—a ratio of 1 in 20. Highly publicized events of the past few
years have generated a heightened fear about crime. The rape trials of William Kennedy
Smith and Mike Tyson focused attention on the dangers of intimate violence. Police
brutality against Rodney King and the subsequent Los Angeles riots directed concern toward
the conflict between police officers and minority groups. Other cases range from the
murder trials of Susan Smith and O.J. Simpson to the terrorist bombings of Timothy McVeigh
and unabomber Theodore Kaczynski. Such events have coalesced to cause citizens and public
officials to rush forward to do something to control lawlessness. The conventional wisdom
has been to get tough on crime through the gradual adoption of punitive sanctions and the
erosion of constitutional protections. Still, a disquieting reality remains for Americans
who are no more safer today from being a victim of crime than they were twenty years ago
But why is crime so difficult to bring under control? One reason is that criminal behavior
is a complex phenomenon. Since time immemorial the problem of ameliorating crime has
plagued society. It is interwoven with intractable cultural, political, and economic
forces of society. It is associated with biological, psychological, and sociological
traits of individuals. Even during the best of times there are no simple solutions to the
endless problem of crime. Another reason is that the criminal justice
system—legislatures, police, courts, and corrections—is a reflection of
competing goals within society. It is formally motivated by concerns for maintaining order
and safety through the apprehension and punishment of the guilty. Informally, the process
of criminal justice is affected by pervasive discretion, scarce resources, bureaucratic
rules, and other factors. The arrest of an individual is only the first part of a complex
process designed to separate the guilty from the innocent. Police work often occurs in a
hostile environment with crucial questions of life and death, honor and dishonor at stake.
Officers are given discretion to deal with many situations and thereby function as the
initial gatekeepers of the criminal justice system. The process under which guilt is
determined shifts to the work of prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and juries. It is
during the adjudication stage that the goals of an overloaded judicial system blunt the
force of the adversarial process. Most decisions relating to the final disposition of a
case are made outside of the courtroom, raising the question of whether justice is served
by processes more akin to bargaining than to adversarial combat.
Further complicating criminal justice is the enterprise of corrections. Throughout
American history, there has been little consensus about what sanctions adequately punish
offenders and prevent others from committing similar crimes. Over time the process of
corrections has risen to peaks of excited reform, only to drop to valleys of despairing
failure. Thirty years ago the public seemed to know very little about the correctional
dimension of criminal justice. Prisons were alien big houses, infused with mystery and
located in remote places. The average person was largely unaware of prison, probation, and
parole conditions. But since the early 1970s, the rising fear of crime and the
corresponding growth of the corrections industry have transformed the punishment phase
into a top priority for the public. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a rising sentiment among
Americans to impose stronger penalties against criminal offenders. In several states, the
legislatures responded by enacting laws requiring tougher sanctions and mandatory prison
terms. In 1971 the incarceration rate was only 96 per 100,000 Americans, but by 1996 the
rate had mushroomed to 403 per 100,000. Budgets for correctional agencies have increased
by over 500 percent since the 1970s. Over 3,000 offenders are now on death row and another
70,000 are serving life sentences. Counting all its forms—prisons, jails, probation,
parole, and community corrections—a total of 5.1 million or 2.7 percent of the adult
population (1 of every 20 men; 1 of every 100 women) are now under some form of
correctional control. Minorities make up a disproportionate share of the correctional
population. About one-third of all African American males are under the supervision of a
correctional program. As such, the five million or so offenders who are now part of the
corrections system and the additional 900,000 who are convicted of a felony every year
paint a rather pervasive picture of the criminal justice system.
After nearly two decades of crime control policies, the American public is still facing a
host of challenging issues about criminal justice. How can the criminal law be written and
enforced to regulate harmful while protecting harmless conduct? Is pornography and rap
music connected to violence? What is the relationship between deviant behavior and
sociological, biological and psychological factors? Other questions are equally
compelling: How can the guilty person be apprehended and convicted without sacrificing
individual freedom and discriminating against people of color and the poor? What can be
done about escalating rates of imprisonment, prison overcrowding, and inmate violence?
Should other correctional programs be sacrificed to build more prisons? Does incarceration
really work? Are there more effective and efficient ways of attacking the crime problem?
There is no panacea to the problems the criminal justice system is expected to solve.
Commonly cited solutions might work or might be only symbolic and even make the problems
worse. Neither is anyone immune from such far-reaching and contentious issues. And yet
people seem more apathetic about crime and justice than ever before. The past thirty years
reflect a growing public cynicism toward such matters. There is some truth to the popular
complaint that public officials and institutions are unsympathetic to the criminal justice
concerns of many people. It is also true that the people are out of touch with the
shortcomings of the criminal justice system and the ability of the state to solve the
crime epidemic. Much of the apathy of the public stems from the failure of Americans to be
informed about and make contributions to government efforts to maintain a safe, fulfilling
society for everyone.
Many students taking a course on comparative criminal justice systems will share much of
the same cynicism and apathy. Students should come to realize that crime and justice is
neither an altruistic nor an egotistic process, but a human enterprise—one with moral
spirit, widespread discretion, and dangerous arrogance. Indeed the human capacity for
fairness makes criminal justice possible, but the human inclination to unfairness makes
criminal justice necessary. The students should also be willing to shed their own
prejudices and think critically about leading criminal justice issues by considering how
alternative public policies would make life better for everyone, especially for the
unpopular or less fortunate person. As the eminent Judge Walter Schaefer once explained,
"the quality of a nation’s civilization can be largely measured by the methods
it uses in the enforcement of the criminal law." At few times has there been a
greater challenge to learn about the formal and informal methods to control crime and do
justice. One way to develop a keener understanding of the American criminal justice system
is to study how other countries approach crime and justice. But with challenges come
rewards for students who are more informed about what other countries are doing to control
crime, punish offenders, and protect the innocent. Such a richer appreciation can only
lead students to become more committed to keeping government responsive to dealing with
the problems of crime and justice. Remember that nothing is graven in stone. There are no
final lessons to understanding the worldwide struggle to control crime in an effective and
efficient, but humane way.
Sincerely yours,
Gene T. Straughan, Ph.D., Justice Studies/Social Science Professor
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