NCJ Number
176053
Date Published
1998
Length
256 pages
Annotation
This volume presents the text of Roscoe Pound's 1930 volume that critically examines the criminal justice system, together with an introduction by Ron Christenson that analyzes Pound's opinions and reviews his career from his undergraduate work in botany to his graduation from Harvard Law School and his deanship of Harvard Law School.
Abstract
The text argued that the criminal justice system must maintain stability while adapting to change; otherwise, it will either fossilize or be subject to the whims of public opinion. The discussion notes that law is in jeopardy when it does not keep pace with societal change. Increased conflicts arise, laws proliferate, and new problems produced by technology, drugs, and juvenile delinquency flourish when the home, neighborhood, and religion are no longer capable of social control. The text notes that one aspect of the criminal justice problem is a rigid mechanical approach that resists change. The other dimension of the problem is that change, when it comes, results from the pressure of public opinions. However, justice suffers when the public is moved by vengeance. Society should aim for a workable balance between the general security and the individual life and should not assume that it must choose between a regime of atomistic individualism or one of concentration of all powers and functions in politically ordered society. Index (Publisher summary modified)