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Criminal justice system behavior
Author(s) -
Gordon Cassidy R.,
Turner Ronald E.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 0005-7940
DOI - 10.1002/bs.3830230206
Subject(s) - conviction , apprehension , criminal justice , workload , economic justice , adaptation (eye) , punishment (psychology) , psychology , criminology , political science , social psychology , computer science , law , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , operating system
Much has been written recently about the underlying motivation of criminals and about the behavior of the criminal justice system itself. Typically, such studies have shown negative correlations between crime rate, probability of apprehension and probability of conviction. However, in addressing the behavior of the system, the present study examines measures of workload for the criminal justice system rather than performance indicators such as those above. Preliminary evidence is examined over several provinces of Canada and is used to investigate the hypothesis that there is adaptation by different subsystems in the criminal justice system to changing workloads in other parts. The initial findings show that present upstream, i.e., toward the beginning of the system, workload affects future behavior of the system downstream, i.e., toward the end, rather than the reverse, especially for the more serious crime types.