General systems theory and criminal justice

    Authors

    T. J. Bernard; E. A. Paoline;P. P. Pare

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Crim. Justice

    Keywords

    PEACE RESEARCH; Criminology & Penology

    Abstract

    Criminal justice agencies are organized sequentially - "output" from one agency is "input" to the next -but most scholars argue that criminal justice is not a system in a theoretical sense. In this article, it is argued that general systems theory (GST) reveals important insights into criminal justice structures and functions. Specifically, it is argued that the criminal justice system processes "cases" rather than people, and that the common goal of criminal justice processing is to "close cases so that they stay closed." It also is argued that processing capacity progressively declines, in that at each system point the subsequent agency cannot input as many cases as the previous agency can output. Each agency therefore experiences "backward pressure" to close cases in order to reduce input to the next agency. Overall, this article highlights that criminal justice agents and agencies are best understood as operating in the context of the larger whole, thus it is concluded that criminal justice is a system in the sense of general systems theory. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Criminal Justice

    Volume

    33

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2005

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    203

    Last Page

    211

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000229488500001

    ISSN

    0047-2352

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