NCCD Research Review : Wider, Stronger, and Different Nets: the Dialectics of Criminal Justice Reform
Authors: Austin James , Krisberg Barry 
Published: March 2007

Criminal justice reformers often speak of their concern with the widening net of the criminal justice system, but they demonstrate little understanding of this phenomenon. Despite considerable reform activity during the past two decades, the reach of the justice system has remained unchanged or even has been extended. This paper examines the dialectics of reform movements and their intended or unintended consequences in widening, strengthening, or creating different nets of social control.

Six major reform movements (diversion, decarceration, due process, decriminalization, deterrence, and just deserts) are reviewed to illustrate how organizational dynamics function to resist, distort, and frustrate the reform's original purposes. The authors also argue that potential reformers cannot ignore the surrounding social, political, economic, and ideological context. Reformers must recog nize that legal, programmatic, and administrative reforms are themselves circum scribed by political and economic forces. Future efforts at change must include detailed analyses of the larger political-economic structure and its interconnections with the social control apparatus if more substantive results are to be realized.

1. It is ironic that, on the issue of criminal justice, conservatives and liberals exchange their traditional positions with regard to fiscal policy. Conservatives advocate increasing state expenditures for police, courts, and prisons, while liberal reformers are likely to espouse the opposite position.

2. LEAA officials note that these figures are conservative estimates because of incomplete and inaccurate records of state LEAA grants. In addition, these figures do not include Department of Labor, National Institute of Drug Abuse, and Health, Education and Welfare grants awarded to promote diversion.

3. As used here, delinquent describes youths who commit acts that would be criminal if committed by adults.

4. Since numerous crimes are committed by staff and inmates within prison settings, crime is displaced by imprisonment but not prevented.

5. It did "materialize" for 1,132 offenders, who were sentenced to indeterminate "lifetime" prison terms between 1974 and 1975. It also materialized for New York's citizens, who paid a cost conservatively estimated as $55 million to implement the new law (Bar Association, 1976).

6. An important exception is Ehrlich (1975). However, his study has been criticized (as have Sellin's, Passell's, and others') for failing to control for relevant confounding variables.

7. Another reform similar to determinate sentencing is the development of parole guidelines. Each shares the common goal of reducing the discretionary power of judges and correctional officers.

8. Other factors that have contributed to prison overcrowding include increased arrest rates, worsening economic situation, demographic population shifts, and a more conservative political climate. Since almost all fifty state correctional systems are overcrowded, determinate sentencing cannot be considered the causal variable.

9. Sumner's position is revealed clearly in his essay, "The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over" (1894).

10. See Stanley Cohen (1979) for an illustration of how criminal justice reforms contribute to the nightmare of unfettered state control.