Herbert Packer: Models of Justice

Whilst writing in the 1960s, Herbert Packer, a professor at Stanford University created a theory based on two polarised models of justice.

The first of these models was the Crime Control model. Its principal focus was protecting the rights of the law abiding citizen through the strict enforcement of law and sanctions. The law must prevent and control crime and system must repress criminal conduct. A failure of law would be the break down of public order causing chaos and lack of control. The implementation of the crime control model is heavily based on investigative and prosecutorial officers. The role of police is central to this idea. More police should be out on the streets preventing crime rather than doing administerial work inside police quarters. There should be harsher laws and harsher sentencing designed with deterrence and retribution in mind. At the center of this model is the presumption of guilt.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Due Process model. This is based much more around the presumption of the accussed's innocence and the rights of the defendant. Ultimate failure of the system is resulted from an innocent person being found guilty of a crime. It is based on ideas surrounding Rule of Law and procedural safeguards. The Humans Rights Act 1998 is very much in line with this train of thought as it produces many general rights and justice is not and can not be done if it does not comply with these rights. The fact that the due process model follows a foundational constitutional idea, the Rule of Law means that it must have stronger grounds than the crime control model. Rule of Law is the idea that no one is above the law and arbitrary power can be defined or limited by it. It prevents the system from being so corrupt as to find a defendant guilty of a crime they didn't commit.

Packer acknowledges that both these models are extreme and that anyone who falls completely on one side could be labelled as a fanatic. The perfect legal system is somewhere in between these two models. Though I would argue that the weight sways according to many factors. The media will put pressure on governments to enforce stricter sanctions on certain crimes that warrant particular public anger this is perhaps an area of crime control. An example would be the harsher sentences on knife crime as a result of various instances of stabbing in London in 2008 or general attitudes towards drunk driving have now changed from being a mitigating factor to an aggravating factor when judges or magistrates consider sentences.

The due process model, as mentioned above, is supported by ideas surrounding human rights and in particular the Human Rights Act 1998. An example of a failure in the system with regards to the due process model is the treatment of the Burmingham four.

F.L.P