Criminal Justice Review

An earlier forecast that the criminal justice system will be effective in reducing crime and in preserving civil liberties is modified to account for an ambiguous criminal justice system that exhibits both autocratic and democratic policies and procedures. Social surveys confirm that the United States today enjoys a high degree of civil liberties. However, contemporary criminal justice is ambiguous, promoting policies that are autocratic and democratic. This is seen in the prevalence of police brutality at the same time that many police departments have adopted community policing, a democratic approach to police administration and operations.

This essay examines four sociopolitical concepts to explain the ambiguous criminal justice system within a liberal democracy: American exceptionalism, moral panics, "governing through crime," and the "great disruption" concept. Next, the construct of the quasi-autocratic state is proposed: a regime this is genuinely democratic and liberal for one part of its population (mostly white middle-class) while a distinct group of people (mostly lower-class people of color) live under autocratic conditions. The conclusion asserts that the criminal justice system is ambiguous and will continue to be so in the next 20 to 40 years. It also poses the lager question, without offering a definite answer, of whether the autocratic elements of criminal justice practice define the contemporary American polity as a quasi-autocratic state.

This paper outlines several models of probation for the future: rehabilitation, law-enforcement, "broken windows " new-penology, public-safety, intermediate-sanction, restorative-justice, balanced-approach, and spiritual. Positive and negative aspects of each model are examined. Abolition and privatization are also discussed. The authors conclude that restorative justice and the spiritual model are the most promising models for the future of probation. Ways to incorporate a concern for spirituality into probation practice are noted.

America has moved swiftly from an urbanized to a metropolitan society. That momentous shift has affected most social institutions, including the police. But contemporary discussions of policing often ignore the objective conditions of concentrated poverty and racial segregation that have accompanied metropolitanization. Those conditions have become the elephant in the living room—obvious but ignored. This paper describes the recent changes in communities and examines their implications for policing.

Stalking is a phenomenon increasingly targeted as a problem in need of social and legal control. Although, to date, the focus on stalking has been on incidents between strangers, recent research has shown that the majority of stalking incidents involve individuals who are acquainted or who are or have been intimates, with a high correlation between stalking and domestic violence. The following essay is a review of the research on stalking. Emphasis is placed on providing a new direction for future policy and research on stalking, and on the conclusion that research needs to focus on the link between domestic violence and stalking and the impact of criminal justice intervention.