The Future of JusticeThe Future of Justice

Crime has emerged as a significant political issue in the past 50 years: Increased public awareness of this social

problem Politics polluted the science Hard even for criminologists at times to

determine the nature and scope of the problem

Politics aside, the data do suggest that we have a crime problem, particularly a violent crime problem.

Crime destroys individuals, families, and neighborhoods, undermines social order, carries huge costs, and at times threatens civilized existence.

Crime has always existed and will exist in the future.

The Future of Justice…continuedThe Future of Justice…continuedCriminology/medical analogy (yet again) – crime and

death/disease

will always be with us, but there are some things we can do to

reduce the severity of the nature of crime and disease. As we do

this, we must deal with three conceptual realities: There are some programs/policies/strategies which can reduce the

severity of the nature of crime, but they are not politically palatable and thus are not able to be implemented.

Some programs/policies/strategies don’t work (and at times actually make the situation worse), but we do them anyway because they are politically palatable.

There are some programs/policies/strategies that do work, and they are politically palatable as we implement them. Unfortunately, there are not enough of these.

The Future of Justice…continuedThe Future of Justice…continued

We need to find more programs/policies/strategies that work,

and we need to get them implemented. To do so, we need to

Improve in the arenas of:

1. Scientific criminology

a. preventative and curative specificity

b. inter and intra crime specificity

2. Political criminology

a. be attuned to the zeitgeist

b. create a fertile environment

Two Core PerspectivesTwo Core Perspectives1. Preventative - Dissuades would-be offenders from

engaging in criminal pursuits through:

a. An iron fist orientation – specific and general deterrence, mass incarceration

b. A velvet glove perspective - bonding theory, social opportunity theory, social disorganization theory, altruistic motivation strategies.

c. Bio-chemical intervention

As in medicine, preventative measures cannot stop death

or disease, so we must also engage in curative ventures.

Two Core Perspectives…continuedTwo Core Perspectives…continued2. Curative - Identify and apprehend perpetrators, and

a. Hold the guilty (specific deterrence/incapacitation)

b. Help the guilty by making offenders:

1. More law abiding citizens (rehabilitation)

2. More productive citizens (reintegration)

There are elements of both crime control and due process

in all of these. So while there is obvious agreement that

the justice system needs to engage in preventative and

curative activities in the strategic sense, there is not a lot of

consensus as to just how to achieve that end in an

operational context.

Two Core Perspectives…continuedTwo Core Perspectives…continuedIt is important to engage in these curative and

preventative ventures:

1. Without violating the public conscience

(humane treatment)

2. Without jeopardizing public law

(constitutional rights)

3. Without emptying the treasury

(cost effectiveness/fiscal accountability)

4. Without violating the principle of pragmatism

(pragmatism quotient)

5. Without violating the principle of political practicality

(palatability quotient)

The Future of Justice…continuedThe Future of Justice…continued The future of justice? It won’t always be there.

Mistakes will be made. Justice will not always be swift and outcomes will not always seem fair, and for any semblance of justice to exist in the future, the rule of law must prevail.

The people want the justice system to do and be all things, and yet it is lucky if it can do anything consistently! The great question is, what changes in what institutions (church, school, family, corporate America (business and industry), courts, police, corrections, can cause what shifts in criminal behavior?

Thomas Murton, Thomas Murton, The Dilemma of Prison The Dilemma of Prison ReformReform, New York: Holt, Rinehart and , New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.Winston, 1976. Reform is a path, a direction; it is not a

destination

Progress is indirect, and at times even regressive (Quinney’s bureaucratic gravitation notion)

Progress is slow

Focus on the when, not the what

Reformers must hide their reformist tendencies to be successful

Cooptation

Don’t be selfish

Focus on the people, not the program

Murton’s Model of ReformMurton’s Model of Reform

+

-

Murton…continuedMurton…continued When involved in a reform effort, remember that

bureaucracies are like elephants, so: Don’t try to move/fight one by yourself, or you will lose. If

there

is going to be a confrontation, enlist the support of another

organization that is equally as powerful.

Avoid a fight if you can and instead appeal to the conscience of

the administrators through a velvet glove/carrot approach.

Murton…continuedMurton…continued When involved in a reform effort, remember that

bureaucracies are like elephants, so: Recognize your ignorance, and remedy that deficiency (you

don’t understand the nature of the entire elephant/the

organization as a whole, ie., Aesop's fable).

Recognize your information base limitations and move with

deference (elephants can hear and smell and see more things

than we can and consequently make decisions based on

understandings and pressures and information:

that we don’t even know exists

that we have no way of acquiring

Footnote: A Fundamental Footnote: A Fundamental Principle of Bureaucracy Principle of Bureaucracy

Individuals two levels up in the bureaucracy

do things for reasons that we, who are two levels

down, generally do not even begin to understand,

Because they have access to information that we

don’t have, they see things differently than we do,

and must react to/respond to pressures that we don’t

even know exist.

What Have We Learned So FarWhat Have We Learned So Far 1. Shifts in criminal justice system

operations to date have had rather minor potential positive impacts, and they tend to be short-term.

2. Answers to the crime problem lie primarily outside the justice system and consequently await a more active and attuned public.

Justice officials have a role, but citizens have a bigger role.

What we have learned so far…What we have learned so far…continuedcontinued

3. Why is there so much crime? It is a more of a demand issue than a supply issue.

4. We have been asking the wrong question – we should not be asking why there is crime, but why there is virtue, and build upon the latter.

5. Strive with perseverance.

The salvation of the state is watchfulness in the citizen.Nebraska state motto

Take sides. Silence encourages the tormentor, never thetormented.

Elie Wiesel (Nobel Prize winner, Nazi death camp survivor)

Do not go gentle into the night. Rage, rage at the dying of

the light.Dylan Thomas

Take arms against a sea of trouble, and by opposing, end

them.Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Silence gives consent. They came first for the Communists

and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up

because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the unionists

and I did not speak up because I was not a unionist. Then

they came for the Catholics and I did not speak up because

I was not a Catholic. They the came for me, and by then,

there was no one left to speak.

Martin Niemoeller Nazi death camp survivor

The Night of the Long Knives

The Night of the Long Knives (or Operation Hummingbird), was a purge that took place in Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when Hitler and the Nazi regime carried out a series of politically-based executions. Concerned with presenting the massacre as legally sanctioned, Hitler had the cabinet declare, "The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defense by the State."

The Night of the Long Knives represented a turning point for the Nazis and the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme judge of the German people", placing him de jure and de facto above the law. Centuries of Jurisprudence proscribing the principles of the rule of law were pointedly and violently swept aside. The purge established a pattern of violence that would characterize the next ten years of the Nazi regime.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives)

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish and ulterior

motives.  Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will

win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The

biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by

the smallest people with the smallest minds.  Think big

anyway. What you spend years to build may be destroyed

overnight.  Build anyway. The good you do today will be

forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway. Give the world the

best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth.  Give

anyway.                       

Winston Churchill

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold

two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still

retain the ability to function. One should, for example,

be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be

determined to make them otherwise.                       

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to

meet the horrible truth and be shattered….yet I keep them,

because in spite of everything I still believe that people are

really good at heart. I dimply can’t build up my hopes on a

foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I

see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I

hear the ever approaching thunder, I can feel the sufferings

of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that

it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that

peace and tranquility will return again.

Anne Frank

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to

do nothing

Edmund Burke

It is not the critic who counts or he who points out how the

strong stumble or the doer of the deed could have done

better. The credit belongs to those who are in the arena,

whose faces are marred with blood and sweat, who have

failed and may well fail again, but who continue to strive

valiantly.

paraphrased from Teddy Roosevelt

Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of

persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common

than unsuccessful individuals with innate/natural

talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is

almost a proverb. Education alone will not. The world

is full of educated derelicts. Persistence is singularly

omnipotent.

Never, never, never, never, never give up.

Winston Churchill