Researching Law Volume 31 Issue 1 - Flipbook - Page 6
R ESEA RC HI N G L AW
them with feedback by checking
for ambiguities in the research and
noting issues that needed further
investigation. Remington was also
the editor of five books based on
the ABF Survey findings.
Lloyd E. Ohlin served as the chief
research consultant in the ABF
Survey team. He was a sociologist
for the Illinois Parole and Pardon
Board. At the time of the Survey,
he became Director of the Center
for Education and Research in
Corrections at the University of
Chicago. Ohlin also served as
a staff criminologist actuary at
the Illinois State Penitentiary
in Joliet, which allowed him to
understand the complexities of the
administration of justice.
The Ford Foundation
The ABF Survey received over
$500,000 in grants from the Ford
Foundation, the single largest grant
for criminal justice research at that
time. The Ford Foundation was
known for investing in pioneering
research, the development
of expertise, and institution
building. As the wealthiest private
foundation at the time, it was able
to support large projects, including
those deemed too politically
sensitive to be funded by private
agencies. The Ford Foundation
was attracted to the ABF’s goal of
exploratory research in a relatively
neglected area of American social
policy. With this generous funding,
the Ford Foundation also aimed
to help establish the ABF as a new
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institution, which would carry on
valuable work in the field of law.
KEY FINDINGS OF THE
ABF SURVEY
Creating a new Criminal
Justice Paradigm
The Progressive Era paradigm
regarded the administration of
justice in terms of discrete agencies
and actors. In this view, it was the
police who acted first, then courts,
then correctional agencies, with
little interaction between them.
The findings of the ABF Survey
turned this idea upside down,
creating a new modern paradigm.
The results showed that the police,
courts, and correctional agencies
were interconnected, with multiple
actors and officials interacting
in complex patterns to shape
decisions. It also revealed that the
administration of criminal justice
included the pervasiveness of
discretionary decision-making.
The ABF Survey was the first to
use empirical research to reveal the
complexity of the administration
of criminal justice. According
to Malcolm Feely, Professor of
Law Emeritus at the University
of California-Berkeley, the
term “‘administration’ implies
discretion, the need for leadership,
adjustments, coordination, and
in short the ‘human touch.’”
Before the ABF Survey, there
was no field of criminal justice
administration. The results of
the Survey helped expand this
idea, including viewing criminal
justice as a “system.” According
to Feeley, the term “system” is “a
reference to system theory that
developed from complicated
machines and assembly lines and
then was transferred to ‘human’
interactions whose parts should
be synchronized to work…as a
whole.” The term now widely used
as criminal justice “system” was
later populated by the President’s
Crime Commission’s Task Force
Reports on Courts and Science and
Technology.
Law on the Books vs.
Day-to-Day Administration
The ABF Survey increased the
visibility of previously confidential
and not widely understood
practices, including police
questioning, prosecutors reducing
charges in exchange for guilty
pleas, and parole release decisions.
These processes were rarely
reflected in formal literature about
criminal justice.
Before the ABF Survey, substantive
criminal law was viewed as a
given. The criminal process was
assumed to consist of simple
law enforcement such as arrests,
prosecutions, and punishment of
criminal offenders. The ABF Survey
shifted the focus to the day-to-day
administration of the criminal
justice agencies. In the everyday
work of the criminal justice
administration, various problems
were solved not only through law