This text describes two models of the criminal justice system. What are they, and how do they differ? Which model do you think is more useful? Which is more accurate? Why?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

This chapter describes the consensus model, which assumes that the component parts of the criminal justice system strive toward a common goal, and that the movement of cases and people through the system is smooth due to cooperation between the various components of the system; and the conflict model, which says that criminal justice agency interests tend to make actors within the system self-serving, and that pressures for success, promotion, pay increases, and general accountability fragment the efforts of the system as a whole, leading to a criminal justice nonsystem.

Given the great variation in attitudes about crime and punishment, varying propensities toward liberalism or conservatism, the strength of local government leadership, the degree of citizen activism or ambivalence, etc., it would be difficult to label either model as “more accurate” than the other. To a large extent, it is a matter of perspective.

For example, many view the consensus model as the ideal of the criminal justice system and the conflict model as the reality. An incumbent state attorney general running for reelection, therefore, might well depict the criminal justice system within his or her state as a shining example of the consensus model at its best—while his or her opponent depicts it as a chaotic example of the conflict model at its worst.

Many academicians, in contrast, will say that the conflict model is the most accurate—that is, it depicts the criminal justice system in terms of its everyday realities. In fact, the various agencies that make up the justice system are often at odds and are concerned only with their own interests rather than with system-wide goals. Similarly, individual agencies rarely focus on society-wide values such as social justice and procedural fairness, but instead are primarily concerned with meeting legislative, budgetary, and administrative requirements.