Comparative Criminal Justice

Francis Pakes

Comparative criminal justice is the study of criminal justice arrangements in more than one country, usually at home and abroad. By means of documenting, analyzing, and contextualizing criminal justice processes and institutions in a variety of settings, one can acquire a deeper understanding of the essence of criminal justice. More specifically, comparative criminal justice leads to insights about exotic or outlandish arrangements in foreign jurisdictions. That knowledge may serve to deepen the understanding of domestic arrangements and, in conjunction, may lead to novel conceptualizations of criminal justice and social control. Comparative criminology focuses on offending patterns across countries, while comparative criminal justice is concerned with society's responses to those patterns. Two metatheoretical orientations underlie comparative criminal justice research. The first is positivist. In this approach, one analyzes criminal justice elsewhere in terms of domestic arrangements. Positivist research often occurs when domestic issues are under consideration and policy makers look policy ...

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