ABSTRACT
Law is something more than an aggregate of rules. Hence enforcement of law is much more than applying to definite detailed states of fact the preappointed definite detailed consequences. The authors have considered difficulties and causes of popular dissatisfaction which affect the whole administration of justice, both civil and criminal. In addition, there are difficulties and causes of dissatisfaction peculiar to criminal law. Perhaps the most deep rooted and universal of these difficulties arises immediately from the history of this branch of the law. But it is intimately connected with the task of the criminal law and, indeed, with the task of social control through organized society. It grows out of a condition of internal contradiction, which goes back to the historical origins of the system of precepts imposing absolute duties and enforced through penalties. It might be called the antinomy of criminal justice.
