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Abstract

The structure and organization of criminal justice services is an important building block in the quest for improved institutional performance. Virtually every national study commission and standardetting group has offered recommendations on structure, usually as part of larger bodies of reform doctrine. Yet, structural proposals have rarely been sorted out, compared and analyzed across the criminal justice comonents.

In 1973, the National Advisory Commission on Criinal Justice Standards and Goals issued a comprehensive set of improvement standrds. Its structural proposals evolved from prior concepts, models and trends. However, they exhibited interesting variations and emphases. With respect to court and correctional systems, the Commission took a stronger stand on statewide unification and administration than vir ually any prior group. In prosecution and defense, the Commission re isted pressures toward centralization (other than central financing) and largely endorsed the current local autonomy of service delivery, par icularly for prosecution. In the highly fragmented police area, a multi aceted program of small department consolidation, local and regional combination of services and functions, and state level staff support was offered. This was essentially "mainline" in reform wisdom, but some hat more aggressive and specific than past formulations. On total system organization, the Commission seemed to envision no structural or hierarchical linkages between system components, relying on cross ystem planning and improved information and communication capabilities to achieve coordination within the "nonsystem. "

Activity among the states in the three years since the National Ad isory Commission analysis shows a significant amount of new planning and implementation of structural reform measures, normally a politically difficult arena for change. These were undoubtedly influenced by the Commission contribution but probably reflect, in greater degree, the cumulative impact of the many groups to urge similar changes during the past decade's "rediscovery"of the criminaljustice system.

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Standards for Criminal Justice Structure and Organization: The Impact of the National Advisory Commission

Abstract

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