The Administration of Justice in a "Get Tough " Era

My aim in this lecture is to address the role of the criminal justice system- the police, courts, and prisons- in controlling and reducing crime. An important question I want to ask is whether "getting tough " on crime through such means as a greater use of imprisonment or more police can yield the benefits claimed by proponents of such policies. The more general question I am concerned with is the impact of law on human behaviour- not so much the Law of the statute book, which is remote, abstract, and impersonal, but (small 'l') law as it is embodied in the actions of police on the street or in the hurried decisions of the magistrate in a busy court. Thus my concern is with one side of the "triangle " which has traditionally preoccupied the sociologist of law. This triangle has at its apex the public, official presentation of Law, and, at the base, routine legal events at one end and the behaviour of the general population and of the unfortunates caught in the legal system at the other. I want to know about any "horizontal " effects at the base of that triangle: does it, in the final analysis, matter very much to the youth contemplating stealing a car or to the offender hauled into court what precise policies and procedures th