NCJ Number
191018
Journal
Criminal Justice Review Volume: 25 Issue: 2 Dated: Autumn 2000 Pages: 181-206
Editor(s)
Richard J. Terrill
Date Published
2000
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This article examined four sociopolitical concepts in hypothesizing the likely impact of an altered nature of criminal justice on civil liberties as seen today. The thesis of this essay was that some criminal justice developments were consistent with liberal democracy, such as community policing while others were not, such as the "war on drugs." An ambiguous criminal justice system was identified operating simultaneously in democratic and autocratic modes.
Abstract
This article examined four sociopolitical concepts to explain the ambiguous criminal justice system within a liberal democracy. These four concepts were American exceptionalism, moral panics, "governing through crime," and the "great disruption." The article begins by drawing on social evidence to support the self-congratulatory view of America as a liberal, constitutional democracy. Second, it proceeded to examine policies and procedures in criminal justice that point to ambiguity and inconsistency: a criminal justice system that operated in democratic and autocratic modes. Thirdly, it canvassed several analyses of criminal justice that helped to explain this state of affairs. Fourth, it defined a "quasi-autocratic state," asking whether the undemocratic features of contemporary criminal justice were so pervasive as to modify the view of the United States as a liberal democracy. Lastly, the article forecasted the likelihood of American criminal justice becoming unambiguously democratic in the next generation. In summation, the article asserted that the criminal justice system was ambiguous and will continue to be so in the next 20 to 40 years. In addition, it presented a larger question, with no definitive answer, of whether the autocratic elements of criminal justice practice define the contemporary American polity as a quasi-autocratic state. References