NCJ Number
80807
Date Published
1979
Length
216 pages
Annotation
Contending that the French justice system is in shambles, this essay examines how social change and diversification of the justice function have affected a growing metropolitan suburb and a rural community.
Abstract
Symptoms of the malaise have been unprecedented prison disorders, unionization of the legal profession, and public statements of judicial discontent. The confusion is arising from the institution of diversified court-related services and specialists (social assistance, prevention, reeducation, dispute mediation, probation, parole, diversion, etc.) whose interventions diminish the role of the judge and cloud the concept of justice. While traditionally a judge's discretion and authority punished an infraction and had a deterrent, exemplary function, the new procedures have established entire networks of disciplinary control over population elements perceived as hostile to the social order. The older model served a homogeneous society based on moral consensus; the multiple new services reflect social dissolution and complex contemporary problems. In the growing suburb, justice agencies are physically dispersed, removed from the locus of the official bench; processing is bureaucratized and impersonal and officials do not share a sense of communal involvement with the clientele. In the rural jurisdiction, local justices are trying to cope with issues that longer fit their range of experience (consumerism, the media, industrial hazards, family breakups); the juvenile court with its attendant services has emerged as a competitive institution that appears to discredit the traditional bench. These strains affect all personnel in the justice system -- lawyers, court clerks, police and correctional officers, as well as justices. A chart, footnotes, and 41 references are given.