Compliance Theory and the Criminal Process: Toward an Understanding of Interface Problems in the Criminal Justice System

• Author: Ralph A. Rossum
• Published date: 01 October 1975
• Date: 01 October 1975
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/027507407500900412
• Subject Matter: Articles

Compliance Theory and the Criminal Process:
Toward an Understanding of Interface Problems
in the Criminal Justice System
RALPH A. ROSSUM
Memphis State University
The criminal justice system has as its goal the prevention of crime,
or barring that, the successful apprehension, conviction, and correction of
the offender. Presently, however, it is failing to accomplish either. As
rapidly escalating crime rates serve to illustrate, the criminal justice
system has been singularly unsuccessful in preventing crime. During the
decade of the 1960s, the number of serious crimes committed in the United
States increased 196.9 per cent from 2,190,000 offenses to 5,995,200 of-
fenses. This increase much more than kept pace with the growth in popu-
lation. The rate of offenses per 100,000 inhabitants jumped from 1,126.2
to 2,906.7, an increase of 158.1 per cent.’ These figures, of course, include
only those crimes brought to the attention of the police. A 1974 Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration IL. E. A. A.) study of the nation’s
five largest cities reveals that the actual rates of victimization are two to
five times greater than the number of crimes reported to law enforcement
authorities.2
2
Statistics also reveal that the criminal justice system has failed in
its efforts to apprehend, convict, and correct the offender. The experience
of New York City is perhaps typical. In 1970, there were 74,000 reported
robberies within its jurisdiction; but only 13,000 suspects were arrested,
only 4,000 were convicted, and only 300 were sentenced to prison.3 All
three components of the criminal justice system are in part to blame.
Thus, the police in 1973 cleared by arrest only 21.2 per cent of the
6,412,766 known offenses that occurred in metropolitan areas that year 4
4
However, even that low clearance rate has been sufficient to inundate the
1
Michael J. Hindelang, et. al., Sourcebook on Criminal Justice Statistics, Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration, U. S. Department of Justice (Washington,
D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 198.
2
Crime in the Nation’s Five Largest Cities, Law Enforcement Assistance Admin-
istration, U. S. Department of Justice (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing
Office, 1974), pp. 28-29.
3
See Ward Elliot, "Crime, Punishment, and Professional Paradigms," a paper
delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Wash-
ington, D. C., 1972, p. 44.
4
Crime in the United States — Uniform Crime Reports — 1973
,
U. S. Depart-
ment of Justice (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1974), p. 109.
209

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judiciary. As a consequence, the courts are compelled to tolerate and even
encourage the use of plea bargaining, so much so that it is now employed
in approximately 90 per cent of all criminal cases in the United States.5
In plea bargaining, the defendant agrees to plead guilty in return
for a reduced charge or sentence. But in doing so, he waives an entire
array of constitutional rights designed to protect him against unjustified
conviction, including the right to remain silent, the right to confront wit-
nesses against him, the right to trial by jury, and the right to be proven
guilty by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Plea bargaining is efficient
in that it spares the criminal justice system of the need for a trial. As a
consequence, it is favored by the entire court organization, from the judge
who is anxious to clear his docket, to the prosecutor who is eager to achieve
a high rate of convictions (even if it is for lesser offenses), to the clearly
guilty defendant who seeks to minimize the punitive sanctions that can be
imposed on him, to the defense attorney 1 or public defender) who wants
to get the best deal for his client. Despite these advantages, however, plea
bargaining comes at a high cost. To begin with, clearly innocent defendants
find themselves enmeshed in an operation where defendants are presumed
to be guilty -
after all, over 90 per cent of all defendants ultimately enter
guilty pleas. Once enmeshed, there is little opportunity to escape unscathed.
As Abraham S. Blumberg has noted, &dquo;It would appear at least tentatively
that once one is caught up in the system as an accused (indicted) individ-
ual, there is little chance of escaping conviction.&dquo;6 The cost of plea
bargaining is also borne by society as a whole. Thus, a common result
of plea bargaining is that defendants (especially professional criminals)
are not dealt with as severely as might be appropriate. This leniency re-
duces the deterrent impact of the law. Likewise, plea bargaining also
endangers society’s interests in protection and security by making the cor-
rectional task of rehabilitation more difficult. It reinforces the defendant’s
belief that he can manipulate the criminal justice system and, as a result,
5
See Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s "Speech Delivered Before the American
Bar Association," August 10, 1970 in 56 American Bar Association Journal (Octo-
ber 1970), p. 931: "There is another factor. It is elementary, historically and statisti-
cally, that systems of courts — the number of judges, prosecutors, and courtrooms —
have been based on the premise that approximately 90 per cent of all defendants will
plead guilty leaving only 10 per cent, more or less, to be tried
The
...
consequence
of what might seem on its face a small percentage change in the rate of guilty pleas
can be tremendous. A reduction from 90 per cent to 80 per cent in guilty pleas requires
the assignment of twice the judicial manpower and facilities—judges, court reporters,
bailiffs, clerks, jurors, and courtrooms. A reduction to 70 per cent trebles this demand."
6
Abraham S. Blumberg, Criminal Justice (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970),
p. 31.
210

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minimizes his motivation to participate in correctional programs. As
Jonathan D. Casper perceptively observes:
The situation the defendant faces in the period preceding his
eventual plea is, in many respects, an extension of his life in the
streets. You scuffle around, trying to accumulate a little wealth or
power; you con others and are conned by them; you exploit those
you can and are exploited by those who are more powerful; you
use people for your own ends and are, in turn, used by others.
You lie, you cheat, you care little about abstract moral principles.
How you make out on the street depends upon what you’ve got
and how you use it. In addition, luck and fate are crucial elements
of life in the streets ... These same characteristics seem to the
defendants to characterize their experience within the legal system.
Their initial arrest is often simply the product of bad luck: they
are arrested for an activity that they have been engaging in fre-
quently. Something goes wrong, and they are caught. They then
must attempt to make the best of their situation and use the tech-
niques that they already know well in order to attempt to ameliorate
their plight. The other participants in the system seem to be doing
the same things. They are going about their jobs in fashions that
seem to the defendants quite similar to the hypocritical and manipu-
lative ways in which they themselves treat people. And they are
probably correct.’
If the courts have failed to convict and sentence as they should,
correctional agencies have failed to rehabilitate as they should. Recent
statistics from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports reveal that 65 per cent of
those persons arrested during the period from 1970 to 1972 (184,809 of a
total of 228,032) had been arrested before. &dquo;The 228,032 offenders had a
total of 867,000 documented charges during their criminal careers, with
244,329 reporting convictions and 87,358 imprisonments of six months or
more.&dquo;8
Clearly, the criminal justice system is failing to achieve its goals.
This paper offers a possible explanation for this failure. Utilizing an
adaptation of Amitai Etzioni’s compliance theory as developed in his
A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations,9 it considers the crim-
inal justice system from an organizational perspective, explores the inter-
7
Jonathan D. Casper, American Criminal Justice: The Defendant’s Perspective
(Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972), p. 81.
8
Crime in the...