Criminal Justice

I worked for a brief time in the Mid-70's for an group in New York called the Pre-Trial Services Agency (PTSA). They were a branch of the Vera Institute of Justice that handled an arcane piece of the criminal justice system called 'ROR services'. Their mission was to provide research and follow up on people who were arraigned before the city courts. The rationale was that, with better information and more feet on the street, the courts could better decide who should be released on recognizance pre-trial, what appropriate bail should be, etc. Absent such information, the courts would often remand people to an already overcrowded and increasingly unmanageable jail system (see Rikers Island).

While working at PTSA, I visited an official who had an interesting chart on his wall. It depicted the Criminal Justice system as a flow chart - with 'Crime' on the left - flowing toward 'Corrections' on the right. I was impressed with the scope and detail shown. I recently found out that the chart was done as part of a report "The challenge of crime in a free society" done by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration
of Justice, 1967.
You can find an updated version here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/flowchart.htm

This chart and the accompanying text do a remarkably complete job of providing a '10000 foot' level overview of what is really quite a complex system in America. As the overview states: "There is no single criminal justice system in this country. We have many similar systems that are individually unique." There are obvious Federal, State, and local jurisdictions with often overlapping concerns, and many historically and politically based differences. It is a remarkable system, of which we should, by and large, be proud. It is essential to our sense of order and justice, and embodies many of the principles on which our country is based - our system of rights - and our determination that 'all men are created equal'. The chart, and the presidential commission which created it, were a response to political pressures in the Mid-60's when large segments of our society did not feel as good about our police and courts as we do today.

I recently started looking for an overview of the american healthcare system that would be as broadly conceived and coherent as this chart. I am still looking.