It is a truism that the administration of criminal justice consists of a series of discretionary decisions by police, prosecutors, judges, and other officials. Taming the System is a history of the forty-year effort...

Buy Now From Amazon

It is a truism that the administration of criminal justice consists of a series of discretionary decisions by police, prosecutors, judges, and other officials. Taming the System is a history of the forty-year effort to control the discretion. It examines the discretion problem from the initial "discovery" of the phenomenon by the American Bar Foundation in the 1950s through to the most recent evaluation research on reform measures. Of enormous value to scholars, reformers, and criminal justice professionals, this book approaches the discretion problem through a detailed examination of four decision points: policing, bail setting, plea bargaining, and sentencing. In a field which largely produces short-ranged "evaluation research," this study, in taking a wider approach, distinguishes between the role of administrative bodies (the police) and evaluates the longer-term trends and the successful reforms in criminal justice history.


Similar Products

Criminological Theory: Past to Present: Essential ReadingsHow Do Judges Decide?: The Search for Fairness and Justice in PunishmentThe Practice of Research in Criminology and Criminal JusticeDecision Making in Criminal Justice: Toward the Rational Exercise of Discretion (Law, Society and Policy)Correctional Theory: Context and ConsequencesThe Behavior of Law, Special EditionThe Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America (The Wadsworth Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice Series)Police: Streetcorner Politicians