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Selected Issues in Criminal Justice

NCJ Number
103245
Date Published
1985
Length
94 pages
Annotation
Six papers discuss characteristics of the criminal justice systems of Japan and Singapore, the social functions of criminalization, criminal justice as an alternative in dispute settlement, Scandinavian crime control ideology, and Scandinavian juvenile justice research.
Abstract
The Japanese criminal justice system is analyzed in terms of the general character of Japanese social control and the characteristics of Japan's crime, policing, case processing, and corrections. The paper on Singapore's criminal justice system considers how this city state has dealt with crime since its independence in 1965, particularly drug abuse, and reviews police and corrections practices. An analysis of the social functions of criminalization minimizes the effectiveness of law in molding behavior compared to sociocultural ethical influences. Another paper reports on a 1980 survey of selected residents in Russian, Polish, and Bulgarian communities, which revealed their preferences for various types of dispute settlement mechanisms. Two papers examine the (1) Scandinavian ideology of crime control (which emphasizes predictable and certain punishment and rejects the use of indeterminate sentences) and (2) Scandinavian criminological research organizations, juvenile delinquency research, and the link between such research and policymaking. For individual papers, see NCJ 103246-50.