New York City's Criminal Justice System, 1895-1932

• NCJ Number: 78637
• Author(s): E Fishman
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 451 pages
• Grant Number(s): 76-NI-99-0068; 1F31 MH07341-01
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare; National Science Foundation; National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Publication Format: Dissertation/Thesis
• Publication Type: Thesis/Dissertation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Columbia University - doctoral dissertation

Annotation

This study analyzes how innovations came into the legal system of New York as part of the Progressive legacy of the early 20th century, what their intent and their impact was, and how well they succeeded in decreasing crime and contributing to better administration of justice.

Abstract

Progressive proposals designed to curb increases in lawlessness and to make the administration of justice more effective in turn-of-the-century New York included probation, juvenile court, and legal aid for indigent defendants. This study of their origin and early impact describes how the criminal justice system of that time operated, interacted with other agencies, and changed over the course of time. Legal and sociological literature was researched and statistical methods used (with a sample of 3,618 felony prosecutions for the time frame) to determine the parameters of New York's crime problem and how the courts dealt with it. The study finds that various factors unrelated to guilt or innocence of the offender (age, prior record, social and financial status, relationship with victim) often influenced the decisionmaking process and that certain categories of defendants were handled more severely than others. Progressive theories of crime causation, based on a deterministic view of crime, adopted innovations modeled on the image of the court as parent. Other proposals, based on the idea of individual responsibility, were modeled on the image of the state as a business enterprise. These included plans to streamline operations of the courts, remove politics from the courts, and make judicial decisionmaking processes more scientific. Finally, an examination of the response of New York's legal community to the crime problem focuses on two main areas: efforts to upgrade membership quality of the criminal bar and the development of legal aid to serve indigent offenders. Approximately 400 references are listed. Tabular data and footnotes are included. (Author abstract modified)