| Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in Criminal Justice, 1950-1990 Contributor(s): Walker, Samuel (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0195078209 ISBN-13: 9780195078206 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA OUR PRICE: $142.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 1993 Annotation: It is a truism that the administration of criminal justice consists of a series of discretionary decisions by police, prosecutors, judges, and other officials. Analyzing the origins, nature, and impact of various efforts to control discretion, Taming the System is the first comprehensive history of the reform attempts in the past forty years. Of enormous value to scholars, reformers, and criminal justice professionals, Walker's 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 historical approach, distinguishes between the roles of administrative bodies (the police) and evaluates the longer-term trends and the successful reforms in criminal justice history. Serving as an "interim report" on what does and does not work in the system, Taming the System concludes that not only has the effort to control discretion been a unifying theme in criminal justice history, but that there have actually been some successes, resulting in reducing disparities in race and social class. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Law | Criminal Law - General - Law | Criminal Procedure - Political Science | Law Enforcement |
| Dewey: 347.305 |
| LCCN: 92020014 |
| Lexile Measure: 1370 |
| Physical Information: 0.82" H x 5.78" W x 8.57" (0.91 lbs) 208 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1950-1999 - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
