Criminal justice
Measuring the contribution of criminal justice systems to the control of crime and violence: lessons from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic
What measurement tools are employed by governments facing high levels of crime and violence to increase safety and deliver justice?
Authors:
T Foglesong; C. Stone
Publisher:
Center for International Development, Harvard University, 2007
This paper examines the measurement tools employed by governments facing high levels of crime and violence to increase safety and deliver justice. It particularly focuses on two developing countries, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
The authors argue that these governments must act through their criminal justice systems to increase safety while delivering justice, and that to do this rigorously, governments also need to improve their measurement tools. Tactics used by the police protestors and other institutions within the criminal justice system are discussed as falling under two broad strategies:
- removing criminals from society
- reducing the proximate causes of crime.
All countries depend on some combination of these two strategies, but while governments tend to favour the first, this paper argues that the second usually produces greater crime reduction.
