NCJ Number
188470
Date Published
2002
Length
14 pages
Annotation
In reviewing challenges for the future in policing, courts, and corrections, this chapter examines several methods for determining the nature of the future and then discusses forecasted changes in technology to aid in coping with crime and the criminal justice processing of criminals.
Abstract
The chapter opens by examining several methods by which futurists had attempted to determine what the future holds (tools for prediction). The author advised that contemporary futures research had two major aspects: environmental scanning and scenario writing. Environmental scanning puts a social problem under a microscope, with an eye toward the future. Through scanning, futurists can examine the factors that seem likely to "drive" the environment. "Drivers" are factors or variables that will have a bearing on future conditions. Three categories of drivers identify possible trends and impacts on the American criminal justice system by and beyond the year 2000: social and economic conditions; shifts in the amounts and types of crimes; and possible development in the criminal justice system itself. Scenario writing is the application of drivers to three primary situations or elements: public tolerance for crime, amount of crime, and the capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with crime. Following this overview of prediction tools, this chapter then discusses what the experts portend in terms of police technology to cope with crime, as well as forecasted changes in both courts (including possibilities for reform) and corrections (population growth and the need to build more prisons). The chapter closes with discussions of how computers have changed and will continue to change justice administrations, as well as how AIDS has affected personnel, policy, litigation, and clients of the justice system.