Comparative Criminal Justice

Theoretical Orientations

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 abroad for examples. The interest generated by the success of zero-tolerance policing in New York City is an example: police scholars visited New York to assess whether one might replicate the success of the New York approach elsewhere. The positivist approach assumes that one can understand criminal justice arrangements in general terms. It further assumes that officials can transplant or transfer criminal justice arrangements easily into other contexts, which is called policy transfer. Positivist comparative study is often inspired by the desire to “shop around” for effective criminal justice arrangements.

In contrast, the relativist orientation stresses the uniqueness of systems of social control. It emphasizes that one can properly understand criminal justice arrangements only in their own contexts and that analyzing parts of them in isolation is unnecessarily reductionist. It argues that one can analyze criminal justice cultures, institutions, and processes only within their natural habitats. Relativist research projects are often anthropological in nature and might involve participant observation, that is, the substantial immersion of the researchers into the culture, institution, or process studied. To the relativist approach, policy transfer is a nonissue: There is no a priori argument that what works in one country, for instance, Japan's “Koban” community policing model, will work elsewhere. It works because it fits the Japanese context and cannot be transferred without transferring that context as well.

Methods of Research

Scholars commonly mention four methods of research. First are case studies, the in-depth analysis of one case. That can be some criminal justice aspect within one jurisdiction or one jurisdiction as a whole. Crucial here is how and why one selects a case. Most common are representative cases; they are a typical example of a wider category. Second, a prototypical case is one that might become representative in the future. Prototypical cases are often frontrunners in certain aspects, for instance, in the case of legalizing certain behaviors, such as euthanasia or cannabis use, or, conversely, in the establishment of new measures against cybercrime or corruption.

Third are so-called deviant cases that can help shed light on the unconventional or atypical. Finally, archetypical cases are those that generate a new category. One can say that the archetypical jury system is in England, in place for centuries, just as France is the archetype for the inquisitorial system of penal trials.

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