Prosecution in Middle County: An Application of Organization Theory to Criminal Justice

Abstract

It has long been recognized that the prosecutor is a crucial actor in the criminal justice process. Comparatively little study has been done however on prosecutors'offices as such: how they function, what criteria they use, what principles might explain their conduct. In this regard it should be noted that the most-studiedjurisdictions, the largest urban centers, are perhaps those least representative of prosecutorial practices in the nation as a whole. The present study explains the prosecutorial decision-making process in one middle-sized Midwestern city by applying to the operations of this office the precepts of Cvert and March's A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (1963). The author finds that this office behaves in ways remarkably similar to those of the business firms examined by Cyert and March. The article describes how the Middle County prosecutor follows Cyert and March's principles of avoiding uncertainty by using standardized decision rules; avoiding over-complexity by keeping these rules themselves very simple, while relying on professional judgment to determine to what extent to modify them in particular cases; and avoiding learning costs by resisting changes in the rules. One of the most important rules was " We'll give anybody half for pleading guilty" and data are presented to show that this rule was rather consistently followed from 1968 to 1973. Although the author's own observations covered only the single jurisdiction of Middle County, his review of the published literature on prosecution leads him to conclude that many if not most other prosecutors' offices behave in similar fashion, and therefore that the Behavioral Theory may, prove to be a useful approach to prosecution generally as well as in Middle County.