NCJ Number
185992
Date Published
1998
Length
15 pages
Annotation
The author articulates the values supporting two models of the criminal justice process, noting the gulf between the due process model of criminal justice administration with its emphasis on rights of the individual and the crime control model which sees the regulation of criminal conduct as the most important function of the criminal justice system.
Abstract
The two models give operational content to a complex set of values underlying criminal law, and the polarity of the two models is not absolute. The value system underlying the crime control model is based on the proposition that the repression of criminal conduct is by far the most important function to be performed by the criminal justice system. The crime control model places heavy reliance on the ability of investigative and prosecutorial officers to elicit and reconstruct a reasonably accurate account of what took place in an alleged criminal event. The due process model rejects this premise and substitutes for it a view of informal, non-adjudicative fact-finding that stresses the possibility of error. The mechanism by which the due process model implements its anti-authoritarian values involves the doctrine of legal guilt, and the due process model locates at least some of the sanctions for breaching operative rules in the criminal process itself. The author discusses both models in the context of competing policy claims about the criminal justice system and the criminal process. 1 note