Abigail A. Ramirez, BS Criminal Justice

September 29, 2021

University of Texas at Arlington

Abstract

The criminal justice apparatus has shown plenty of growth over the past 40 years and has various orientations to explain this growth. After evaluation of criminal justice orientations, the best orientation to explain this growth is criminal justice as oppression. The orientation that does not best support the growth of the apparatus is growth complex orientation. Growth complex does not offer a valid explanation of the growth of the criminal justice apparatus.

Overview of Criminal Justice as Oppression.

To understand this orientation, first oppression must be discussed. Oppression can be defined as unjust or excessive use of power by a superior. This orientation focuses on class, race, and gender biases in the apparatus. The construction of this orientation means to control threatening and dangerous groups of people. To understand criminal justice as oppression it is best to refer to the conflict model for its history. The “conflict model held that society was best characterized by the existence of conflict: criminal laws and the way in which they were administered resulted from power struggles between competing groups and opposing interests (Kraska).” This execution in administration created levels of heirchy 

 As discussed, the oppressed are the disadvantaged and less powerful in society. Oppression focuses on class, race, and gender bias. The two theories rooted in conflict tradition are pluralist and radical theory. A pluralist view would argue that society is comprised of many groups and interests with a common struggle for power and influence over processes of defining crime. Versus a radical conflict perspective would argue all conflict rooted from economics because class creates a societal belief of privileged elite creating high levels of inequality.

An example of how the oppressive apparatus regulates, controls, and destabilizes the marginalized is by seeing “our government and society choosing to respond to the fallout of racism, patriarchy, and an unjust economic system with criminal justice- based solutions designed to control the dangerous or threatening groups (Kraska).” The dangerous and threatening groups discussed are minorities. 

“As of October 15, 2016, the National Registry of Exonerations listed 1,900 defendants who were

convicted of crimes and later exonerated because they were innocent; 47% of them were African Americans, three times their rate in the population. (Gross et al., n.d.)” This research alone goes a long way in showing how much the criminal justice apparatus has grown in the past 40 years. This would not have been a topic to discuss 40 years ago. Today we can aid minorities fighting to get out of this oppressive system. 

Overview of Growth Complex.

Growth complex maintains that the criminal justice apparatus has taken on life of its own. The whole goal of growth complex is to increase in size and power. This perspective states that criminal justice as a bureaucracy whose most basic instinct is to survive and grow, similar to system orientation. This orientation can be supported by Joseph Halliman, “correctional facilities are being built more for economic gain than ameliorating the crime problem, creating a system so lucrative that its founders have become rich men (Halliman, 2010)”.  

It is no secret that there are private prisons, and someone is making money from mass incarceration (2013). Although privatized prisons do aid the growth complex argument, there is not enough support to the overall concept to say that this orientation has best supported the growth of the criminal justice apparatus. This orientation is in opposition to rational/legal which is a forced reaction to worsening crime problem. Again, growth complex is also in opposition to Crime Control v Due Process which highlights a pendulum swinging between societal values. To continue with its oppositions with criminal justice orientations, it also opposes Politics (self-interest of individual parties) and Social Construction (powerful groups create crime and offenders). Growth complex opposes four of the eight orientation Kraska & Brent discuss in Theorizing Criminal Justice, so it is highly unlikely that Growth Complex is 100 percent correct in it thinking.

Although it may not have been best suited to explain the growth of the criminal justice apparatus it did have quite an impact with the help of the other orientations it does not agree with. One example may be the analyzation of socially constructed reality. If it was not for the moral panic and boom of the war on drugs, would there still have been a mass incarceration expansion? 

Conclusion.

The criminal justice system has moved along through a rigorous path. There is still a long journey that may not stop. There is a need for constant change and development. All that has been done up until today, the amount of opportunity for growth and change over the next 40 years is enormous. Having an understanding of criminal justice as oppression should help society understand one another with more empathy. Growth complex does not offer a valid explanation of the growth of the criminal justice apparatus. Although growth complex is not the best explanation for the past 40 years of growth, it may develop into one of the main factors for growth within the next 40 years. 

References

Kraska, P. B., & Brent, J. J. (2010). Theorizing criminal justice: Eight essential orientations (2nd ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Inc. ‌

Gross, S., Possley, M., & Stephens, K. (n.d.). Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1121&context=other

Research Study Finding Benefits from Prison Privatization Funded by Private Prison Companies. (2013). Prison Legal News, 24(6), 32–33.