Progress and Prospects—The 50th Anniversary of the 1967 President's Crime Commission Report in Today's Criminal Justice Environment

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12372
• Date: 01 May 2018
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Author: Ted Gest,Cynthia Lum

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

PRESIDENT’S CRIME COMMISSION:

PAST AND FUTURE

Progress and Prospects—The 50th

Anniversary of the 1967 President’s Crime

Commission Report in Today’s Criminal

Justice Environment

Cynthi a Lum

George Mason University

Ted G est

Criminal Justice Journalists

The past year marked the 50th anniversary of the report by the U.S. President’s

Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (commonly

known as the President’s Crime Commission or just “the Commission”), The

Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967). The Commission, chaired by Nicholas Katzen-

bach, included 19 commissioners with a staff of 63, featuring now-famous criminologists

like Lloyd Ohlin (who served as an associate director of the Commission’s staff) and Alfred

Blumstein, the staff-director of science and technology. The Commission’s goal was decep-

tively straightforward: to create recommendations for federal, state, and local governments

that could lead to “a safer and more just society” (1967: v). The Commission’s report is

considered to be a criminal justice landmark in the United States, laying out issues and

recommendations that have provided a framework for policy development for more than a

half-century.

From the Commission’s(1967) work, over 200 recommendations emerged, organized

into 13 chapters that were focused on explaining and exploring many justice topics. These

include crime in the United States, juvenile delinquency and youth crime, police, courts,

corrections, organized crime, narcotics and drug abuse, drunkenness offenses, control of

firearms, science and technology,and research in criminal justice. As the authors in this issue

Direct correspondence to Cynthia Lum, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason

University, 4400 University Drive, MS 6D12, Fairfax, VA 22030 (e-mail: clum@gmu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12372 C2018 American Society of Criminology 265

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 2