NCJ Number
144577
Editor(s)
L E Ohlin,
F J Remington
Date Published
1993
Length
382 pages
Annotation
Seven essays examine subsequent developments concerning the issues and practices identified in the American Bar Foundation Survey of Criminal Justice, which was conducted in the 1950's to determine the dynamics of criminal justice decisionmaking from defendants' first contacts with the police through processing by prosecutors and courts to probation and parole supervision and revocation.
Abstract
The essays are by leading scholars in law and criminal justice who worked on the project. Following a review of the survey origins, research methodology, and major observations of the survey, an essay examines the complexity of the policing function and its implications for the structuring of police discretion. Developments in policing since the survey are examined, along with contemporary police decisionmaking. An essay on prosecutorial discretion considers charging and guilty-plea decisions before and since the survey, along with the changing roles of trial judge, prosecutor, defense counsel, and victim in the charging and guilty-plea decisions. Survey research and postsurvey research and developments are then examined for sentencing, parole, and community supervision. This is followed by an essay on the evolution of criminal justice responses to domestic violence. Another essay addresses police rule making in response to court decisions pertinent to police search-and-seizure legal parameters. The final essay discusses the implications of survey findings for the development of criminal justice higher education, including a section on the creation of the State University of New York and the first school of criminal justice. Chapter notes and a subject index