ABSTRACT
Social control is a complex task involving a variety of social institutions and agencies, of which criminal justice is only one. Criminal justice is a formal (as opposed to informal) mechanism of social control. One of the most flexible ways to look at criminal justice is with a “systems approach,” a perspective that encourages us to see the complexity of criminal justice and helps us to understand its operation. The criminal justice process in the United States is an open system that interacts with its environment. An important part of that environment is ideology. The American system of criminal justice must balance the desire for freedom with the need for order, so due process versus crime control is a core conflict. Agents of the justice system exercise discretion because they make decisions about whether and how to proceed with cases, and this results in variations in how cases are treated.
