ABSTRACT
Criminal justice systems (CJSs) education's focus on the design and functioning of the CJS can eclipse important issues of power, politics, and ideology. An ideology is a set of ideas or beliefs held by a particular group. With regard to justice, ideologies can influence how problems are defined and understood as well as the solutions that are considered and later implemented through policy and practice. Ideologies can affect the CJS in many ways. At times, the ideologies represented by the internal goals of the CJS may even conflict with one another. Packer identifies a tension between two different value systems embodied by the CJS: efficiency and fairness. As with any ideological perspective, differences exist between individual members of a particular political party. One major area of ideological disagreement between Democrats and Republicans is income inequality. Because political systems create the CJS, these ideological differences are important to examine.
