Prosecutors and politics
Subtitle: a comparative perspective
By: edited by Michael Tonry
Series: Crime and justice -- volume 41; Crime and justice (Chicago, Ill.) -- v. 41.
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 366
ISBN-13: 9780226009674; 9780226009704; 9780226010182
Subjects: Administration of Justice; Public prosecutors
Description: Prosecutors are powerful figures in any criminal justice system. They decide what crimes to prosecute, whom to pursue, what charges to file, whether to plea bargain, how aggressively to seek a conviction, and what sentence to demand. In the United States, citizens can challenge decisions by police, judges, and corrections officials, but courts keep their hands off the prosecutor. In the United States and elsewhere, very little research is available that examines this powerful public role. And there is almost no work that critically compares how prosecutors function in different legal systems, from state to state or across countries. Police, courts, and prisons are much the same in all developed countries, but prosecutors differ radically. The consequences of these differences are enormous: the United States suffers from low levels of public confidence in the criminal justice system and high levels of incarceration; in much of Western Europe, people report high confidence and support moderate crime control policies; in much of Eastern Europe, people's perceptions of the law are marked by cynicism and despair. This volume unpacks these national differences and provides insight into this key area of social control.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Prosecutors and politics in comparative perspective / Michael Tonry; title: The prosecutor in Swedish law / Petter Asp; title: Prosecution in Washington state / David Boerner; title: The Dutch prosecution system / Jean-Louis van Gelder and Henk van de Bunt; title: Japan's prosecution system / David Johnson; title: Prosecution and prosecutors in Poland in quest of independence / Krzysztof Krajewski; title: Practical problems, prosecutorial accountability, and local solutions: prosecution in Arizona / Mark Miller; title: Persistent localism in the prosecutor services of North Carolina / Ronald Wright.