NCJ Number
210390
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 33 Issue: 3 Dated: May/June 2005 Pages: 203-211
Date Published
May 2005
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article uses the general systems theory (GST) to analyze the American criminal justice system.
Abstract
While GST has provided insights in the fields of natural, behavioral, and social sciences, this particular theory has not been used to understand the criminal justice system. Some theorists contend that the criminal justice system is not a system at all and site a lack of integration among its institutions as evidence of this argument. In this article, the authors argue that the criminal justice system is indeed a system and use GST to provide insights into the structure and functioning of criminal justice agencies and organizations. The basic concepts of GST are enumerated before the theory is applied to the criminal justice system. The analysis focuses on how criminal justice agencies and organizations share many similarities on the functional level, all of which are related to and derived from the flow of cases through the system. In fact, it is argued that the criminal justice system is a case driven system and processes cases rather than people. Pressures generated from within the system, specifically as they relate to closing cases, are analyzed as the authors show how each part of the criminal justice system is better understood within the context of the whole system. The goal of the criminal justice system, it is argued, is to close cases so that they remain closed in order to decrease the input to the next criminal justice agency. Thus, from the perspective of GST, the criminal justice system is indeed a system characterized by backward and forward pressures generated from each criminal justice agency as cases make their way through the system. Notes, references