Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Volume 89
Article 5
Issue 2 Winter
Winter 1999
Recommended Citation
Kent Roach, Four Models of the Criminal Process, 89 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 671 (1998-1999)
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THM JOURNAL OF QMINAL LAW& CRIMINOLOGY Vol. 89, No. 2
Copyright 0 1999 by Northwestem University. School of Law Psisd in USA.
CRIMINOLOGY
KENT ROACH*
I. INTRODUCTION
3 Id. at 122.
'He warned that his models were "not labelled Is and Ought... [they] merely afford
a convenient way to talk about the operation of a process whose day-to-day functioning
involves a constant series of minute adjustments between the competing demands of two
value systems and whose normative future likewise involves a series of resolutions of the
tensions between competing claims." PACKER, THE LIMITS OF THE CRIMINAL SANCTION,
supra note 1, at 153.
' Richard Ericson, The State and CriminalJusticeReform in STATE CONTROL: CIMINAL
JusncE Pormcs iN CANADA 21 (Robert S. Ratner &John L McCullan eds., 1987).
1999] FOUR MODELS OF THE CRiMiNAL PROCESS
6 See gneraly GEORGE FLETCHER, WITH JUSTICE FOR SOME: VIGTIMS' RIGHTS IN
9Se generally PATRICK DEVLN, THE ENFORCEMENT OF MORALS (1965). Packer fell into
the camp of liberals who opposed the use of the criminal law to enforce morality. For
example, he criticized prostitution laws as "an attempt to secularize an essentially
moralistic judgment" and dismissed the crime of incest as opposed to rape as
"imaginary". PACKER, THE LIMS OFTHE CRMIINAL SANCTION, supra note 1, at 312,328.
,See gMMy CATHARINE MACKINNON, ONLYWORDS (1993).
Segnmy Mayo Moran, TalkingAbout HateSpeech 1994 Wis. L. REV. 1425.
Se generaly EZZAT FATrAH, UNDERSTANDING CRUMNAL VICTIMIZATION (1993);
REALIST CRIMINOLOGY:. CRIME CONTROL AND POuCING IN THE 1990's (John Lowman &
Brian MacLean eds., 1992); HOLLYJOHNSON, DANGEROUS DOMAINS: VIOLENCE ACAINST
WOMEN IN CANADA (1996).
,See genrly H. LAURENCE Ross, DETERRING THE DRINKING DRIVER: LEGAL POLICY
AND SOCIAL CONTROL (1984); CANADIAN SENTENCING COMMISSION, SENTENCING REFORM:
A CANADIAN APPROACH 136-37 (1989).
'4 JOHN HAGAN & BuIL McCARTHY, MEAN STREETS (1997).
1999] FOUR MODELS OFTHE CRMWNAL PROCESS
"'See grnermLl RICHARD ERICSON & PAnTRuA BARANEK, TH1E ORDEING OFJUSTInE: A
STUDY OF THE ACCUSED PERSONS AS DEPENDENTS IN TBE CR PROCSS (1982);
ANTHONY E. BOTTOMS & JOHN D. MCCLEAN, DEFENDANTS IN THE CRII PROCESS
(1976).
16 John Braithwaite & Stephen Mugford, Conditions of Successful Reintegration
Ceremonies: Dealing with Juvenile Offenders 34 BRIT.J. CRIMINOLOGY 139 (1994); John
Braithwaite, Restorative Justice: Assessing an Immodest Theory and a Pessimistic
Theory (October 1997) (University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, Intensive Course
Materials) (on file with author).
17 See geneyaly MICHAEL TONRY, MALIGN NEGLEC. RACE, CRImE, AND PuNISHMENT IN
AmERicA (1995).
" ee generally MICHAEL MANDEL, T-m CHATER OF RIGMTS AND FREEDOMS AND THE
LEGALMATION OF POLrCs IN CANADA (1994).
1
9seegenerazyTOM TYLEY, WHYOPEOPLE OBEY THE LAw (1990); Braithwaite, supra note
16.
BRArMwAnTE & PErr, supranote 7.
676 KENT ROACH[ [Vol. 89
and used to either emphasize the rights of crime victims and de-
mands for punishment or the needs of crime victims for better
forms of crime prevention and restorative justice. Each new
model will continue, however, only to offer a partial explanation
of criminal justice and its conflicting values. Punitive and non-
punitive forms of victims' rights will co-exist in different parts of
the criminal justice system. Like Packer's models, victims' rights
models will eventually have to be re-evaluated in light of new
knowledge, practices, and politics. At present, however, punitive
and non-punitive victims' rights models can explain much about
the practices, norms, and discourses of criminal justice.
-2 Id. at 160.
" See ALBERT V. DICEY, INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF THE CONSITruION
193 (10th ed. 1959).
"People
41
v. Defore, 150 N.E. 585, 587 (N.Y. 1926).
S
&.PACKER, THE IMIS OFTHE CkumAL SANCION, supra note 1, at 162.
SId. at 206.
4Id at 211-14.
4 Id. at 222.
Id. at 223.
United States v. Garsson, 291 F. 646, 649 (S.D.N.Y. 1923).
680 KENT ROACH [Vol. 89
&4Id.
at 203.
Id. at 191.
'6Id at 180.
5 id.
'Id. at 168.
KENT ROACH [Vol. 89
screening job any more than the police can."59 Because of the
presumption of innocence and the harmful effects of pre-trial de-
tention on the preparation of a defense, an accused should be de-
tained awaiting trial only when absolutely necessary to ensure
attendance at trial. Alternatives to cash bail should be used be-
cause "a system that makes pre-trial freedom conditional on fi-
nancial ability is discriminatory." Neither the prosecutor nor the
judge should encourage guilty pleas by offering deals to an ac-
cused who pleads guilty.61 "A criminal trial should be viewed not
as an undesirable burden but rather as the logical and proper
culmination of the process."62 The criminal trial is concerned not
with factual guilt, but with whether the prosecutor can establish
legal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of legally ob-
tained evidence. Only defense lawyers and appointed judges can
be relied upon to appreciate the importance of legal guilt.63
Because of the concern about even minor risks of convicting
the innocent, the accused should have wide rights of appeal. Ap-
pellate courts should reverse convictions whenever trial judges
failed to protect the accused's rights. "The reversal of a criminal
conviction is a small price to pay for an affirmation of proper val-
ues and a deterrent example of what will happen when those val-
ues are slighted."64 Just as the legislature sets the tone by
criminalizing much conduct in the crime control model, the Su-
preme Court is the most important institution in the due process
model because it defines the legal rights and remedies of the ac-
cused.0
9 Id at 207.
6
at 217.
Id.
61Id at 224.
6
2 id.
Iat 167.
Id at 231-32.
6 a at 173.
1999] FOURMODELS OF THE CRIM1NAL PROCESS 683
lieved that the criminal process "is being turned from an assembly
line into an obstacle course."6 The most important factor was the
activism of the United States Supreme Court under the leadership
of ChiefJustice Earl Warren. 67 In less than a decade, the Warren
Court fundamentally changed the rules of the game and moved
the American criminal justice system in the direction of due proc-
ess.
In 1961, the Warren Court imposed on the states the exclu-
sionary rule, which rendered unconstitutionally seized evidence
inadmissible in criminal trials.6' The exclusionary rule was in-
tended to deter constitutional violations by removing the incen-
tive for police to disregard the Constitution. 69 Courts excluded
involuntary confessions not on the crime control ground that they
might be unreliable, but because they infringed the accused's
rights and were obtained through police misconduct.70 The War-
ren Court also regulated the ability of police to conduct searches
incident to arrest;" obtain search warrants;7 engage in electronic
surveillance;7 and conduct investigative stop-and-frisk searches. 74
Defense counsel play a key role in the due process model and
Packer believed the Warren Court's most significant decision was
Gideon v. WainwrighPwhich required the states to provide defense
counsel to those charged with felonies who could not afford to
hire their own lawyer. The famous Mirandad6 rules required that
the police inform suspects subject to custodial interrogation of
their right to counsel, including publicly funded counsel. Failure
to provide these warnings or allow an accused to, obtain a lawyer
Id. at 239.
A: CRIME, LAw AND POimcs, 111-217 (1983); CRAIG
See generaly, LVA BAKER, Mm
BRADLEY, E FAmURE OF E CRIMINAL PROCEDURE REVOLUTION (1993); FRED GRAHAM,
THm DUE PROCESS REVOLUnON: THEWARREN COURT'S IMFACr ON CRIMINAL LAW (1970).
"' SeeMapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
69Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206 (1960).
Se4 eg., Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534 (1961).
' See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969).
ee Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969).
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).
7
Terryv. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
73372 U.S. 335 (1963). See PACKER, THE IMITS OF THE CRI SANCrION, supra note
1, at 236-37.
" Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436,479 (1966).
KENT ROAC[ [Vol. 89
ON THE CRIMnALJUSUCE SysTEM (Jamie Cameron ed. 1996); Guido Calabresi, Foreword:
Anti-Disaiminationand ConstitutionalAccountability105 HARV. L Ritv. 80,91 (1991).
FRED GRAHAM, THE SELF INuCIED WOUND 319 (1970); See also BAKER, supra note 67;
BRADLEY, supranote 67 at 30.
6Herbert Packer, Criminal CodeReviion, 23 U. TORONTO. LJ. 1, 13 (1973).
'7id
"PAcKER, THE LIMT OFTHE CRIMINAL SANCnON, supra note 1, at 151.
Id. at 284.
See geneally TROY DusrER, THE LEGISLAION OF MORAI=v. LAW, DRUGS, AND MORAL
JUDGMENr (1970); EDwIN SCHUR, CRIMES WITHOUT VICIMS: DEVIANT BEHAviouR AND
PuBuc PoucY (1965); Sanford Radish, The Crisis of Overciminalization, 374 ANNALS OF
POL Sa. 157 (1967); Jerome Skolnick, Coerdon to Vntue: The Enforcenent of Morals, 41 S.
CALL. REv. 588 (1968).
686 KENT ROACH [Vol. 89
ments for decriminalization did not win the day and today seem
dated and insensitive in light of new understandings of harms and
risks and skepticism about whether disadvantaged individuals
genuinely consent to such activities.
Packer's models also seem outdated today because they ig-
nore crime victims.91 Packer wrote before victimization studies re-
vealed high levels of unreported crime and he assumed that
efficiency in processing the minority of cases reported to the po-
lice would actually control crime. Of all the crime victims that
Packer neglected, the most influential have been women. 92
Packer failed to include women in more important ways than his
constant use of the masculine pronoun. He wrote at a time when
sexual and domestic violence against women and children was
publicly ignored and seen as a private matter. Feminism only
emerged as a powerful intellectual and political force after Packer
had articulated his models and this should be considered in any
evaluation of his work.
Legality requires that officials be governed by law, the law is based on post hoc deci-
sions. Legality requires each case to be judged on it own facts; the law makes previous
convictions grounds for defining behaviour as an offence. Legality requires incriminat-
ing evidence as the basis for arrest and search; the law allows arrest and search in order
to establish it. Legality embodies individual civil rights against public or state interests;
the law makes state and the public interest ajustification for ignoring civil rights.
KEfNTROACH [Vol. 89
DOREEN MCBARNET, ARREStr THE LEGAL CONTEXT OF POLING, TIE BmTsH PoLICE 39
(1979).
. ERICSON & BARANEx, supra note 15, at 230. Ericson writes:
The critical claim that due process has legitimated crime con-
trol is more problematic. It is one thing to accept that due proc-
ess will not empty the jails or even restrain prison growth, but it is
quite another to suggest that the crime control business would
not have boomed in the absence of due process. The media im-
perfectly transmits due process decisions for public consumption.
When publicized, due process decisions seem to offend public
sensibilities by creating the impression that the courts allow the
factually guilty to go unpunished. As Packer recognized, due pro-
cess decisions are fragile and subject to subtle judicial and legisla-
tive revision. Due process decisions constitute an indirect and
somewhat strange way to legitimate the criminal sanction to the
public.
Critics who claim that due process has legitimated crime con-
trol often ignore the role that victims' rights play in legitimating
the criminal sanction and giving crime control a new and power-
ful human and rights-bearing face. Because he defines the disad-
vantaged in class terms, Michael Mandel1 6 does not emphasize
the ability of politicized, post-materialise1 7 groups such as femi-
nists and crime victims to lobby for and legitimate increased
crime control. Victims' rights legitimate the criminal sanction
more directly and emotionally than due process. Although some
victims' rights initiatives are vulnerable to judicial review, they are
generally more stable than due process initiatives because they of-
ten originate from populist advocacy and result in legislative and
administrative reform. The contingency, fragility and controver-
sial nature of due process makes it difficult to see it as an elabo-
rate legitimation technique, especially when compared to victims'
rights.
8
SeeMANDEL, supra note 18, at 239-40.
n17Post-materialist because their sense of identity is defined in terms of common
gender, race, cultural or ethnic origin rather than class. See gmenrally ALAN C. CAIRNS,
REcoNFiGuRAUONS: CANADIAN CnTZNSHI AND CoNsTrrTroNAL CANGE (1995); see also
Frederick L Morton, The CharterRevolutionand the CourtPany, 30 OSGoODE HAL LJ. 627,
631-35 (1992).
KENT ROACH [Vol. 89
C. THE LIMITED LIBERAL AND ADVERSARIAL VISION OF PACKER'S
MODELS
Packer's due process and crime control models have been
criticized for their procedural and political assumptions. They
were designed to operate "within the framework of contemporary
American society"18 and assumed an adversarial system, even
though most of the world employs inquisitorial procedures. This
has political as well as procedural implications. The adversarial
system is based on a vision of a reactive state that is only con-
cerned with settling discrete disputes as opposed to an activist
state which attempts to "manage the lives of people and steer so-
ciety."" 9 Victims' rights initiatives can move the state beyond its
minimalist position and result in attempts by the state to manage
risks and harms and redress feelings of insecurity, alienation and
disrespect among crime victims and potential victims of crime.
Packer conceived of rights in a traditional liberal manner as a
negative check on government. They were to protect the individ-
ual from the state and remedies were limited to the "sanction of
nullity"120 in which evidence was excluded and prosecutions re-
jected. He did not imagine rights as a positive guarantee of secu-
rity or equality or conceive the criminal sanction as a remedy
required to respect the rights of victims and potential victims of
crime. The limited vision of Packer's models did not go unno-
ticed at the time he wrote. In 1970, John Griffiths criticized
Packer for operating within the "prevailing ideology" of liberal,
American legal thought. 21' Packer's models were united in their
assumption that individuals had interests opposed to those of the
state and the community. They only differed in whether the indi-
vidual or the state had the upper hand.
Griffiths presented a third "family" model that assumed that
the state and the accused, like a parent and child, had common
interests if only because they continued to live together after pun-
ishment. 2 2 The needs of the accused were more important than
his or her rights and the state was assumed to act in good faith.'"
The closest example of this "family" model were juvenile delin-
quent acts which allowed the state to pursue the child's best inter-
ests in a parental manner.12 4 John Braithwaite has returned to
Griffiths' family model as a source of inspiration for his influential
model of re-integrative shaming through informal, non-punitive
and non-adversarial interventions which shame offenders for their
crimes, but offer support and re-integration through families and
communities.'2 Braithwaite criticizes the crime control model for
taking disputes out of the hands of offenders, victims and the
larger community: "The assembly-line justice of contemporary
court systems puts insufficient emphasis on reprobation in its
preoccupation with efficient dispensing of formal sanctions."26
He supports due process as an option, but suggests that the inter-
ests of offenders and victims are not fundamentally at odds and
that lawyers and judges should not appropriate disputes from of-
fenders, victims, and their families and their communities.1 2 The
family model of juvenile justice is now being re-invigorated
through contemporary interest in family conferencing, restorative
justice, and victim-offender reconciliation.
Both Griffiths' and Braithwaite's work owe important debts to
Aboriginal justice which most clearly and eloquently reveals the
liberal and adversarial assumptions of Packer's models. Drawing
on his study of dispute resolution among the Cheyenne, 8 Karl
12 Id.
"'I" at 388. This parental approach was, however, subject to due process challenges.
See supra notes 81-82.
"'See generallyB1-ArrHwArrF, supranote 7.
at 180-81.
&'Ia
'2Id. See also Nils Christie, Conflict asPmpny, 17 Brr.J.CRIINOLOGy 1, 10-12 (1977).
12 See geneamiy KARL N. LLEwEmYN &E. ADAMSON HOEBL, THE CHEYENNE WAY (1941).
Much anthropological work of this era is justifiably suspect because of its value
assumptions that non-western cultures were "primitive." Nevertheless, much work by
Aboriginal commentators has defined the difference between Aboriginal and western
concepts of justice in similar terms by stressing the emphasis placed on healing and
restorative justice within Aboriginal justice in contrast with the emphasis placed on rights
and adversarial relations in western models of criminal justice.
For example, the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry has observed that "[i]n the
Ojibway concept of order, when a person is wronged it is understood that the wrongdoer
must repair the order and harmony of the community by undoing the wrong." REPORT
OF THE ABORIGINAL JUSTICE INQUHW OF M NOBA,VOLUME 1: THE JuSI E SYSIEM AND
KENT ROACH [Vol. 89
ABORIGINAL PEOPLE 86 (1991). Mary Ellen Turpel has stressed the parental role of elders
in Aboriginal justice by stating that
[e]iders do notjudge. They see the whole person and find ways (through stories, medi-
tations, prayers and ceremonies) of helping an individual understand the shortcomings
or problems that led to anti-sodal acts. They focus on harmony, rehabilitation, reinte-
gration of an offender into the family, clan and community-not on guilt.
Mary Ellen Turpel, On the Question of Adapting the Canadian CriminalJustice System for
Aboriginal Peoples: Don't Fence Me In, in ABORIGINAL PEOPLES AND THE JUSTICE SWrEM:
REPORT OF ThE NATIONAL ROuNDTAmE ON ABORIGIAL JusrIcE ISUES 176 (Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1993). Other Aboriginal commentators, however,
have expressed punitive victims' rights concerns that elders and Aboriginal justice will
not take crime, particularly crime against women, seriously enough and will be
excessively lenient. See Teressa Nahanee, Dancingwith a Gorilla:Aboriginal Women, Justice
and the Charter,inABORIGINAL PEOPLES AND TBEJUSIICE SYsmm REPORT OF TEE NATIONAL
ROUNDTABLE ON ABORIGNALJUSnCE IsSU 360-61 (Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples 1993).
12
1 KARL N. LLEwELLYN, JuisPRUDE Nm REALIsm M NITHEORAND PRACncE 448 (1962).
" & at 448 (emphasis in original). Judge Murray Sinclair has explained that "[tihe
primary meaning of justice' in an Aboriginal society would be that of restoring peace
and equilibrium to the community through reconciling the accused with his or her own
conscience and with the individual or family that is wronged." Murray Sinclair, Aboriginal
Peoples,Justice and the Law, in CONTNUING POUNDMAKE'S AND RI'S QUEST 178 (Richard
Gosse et al. eds., 1994). This definition includes both restorative justice and healing.
Sometimes more stress is placed on restoring harmony, sometimes more on healing.
Official discussions of Aboriginal justice tend to emphasize restorative justice in part
because of the world-wide movement towards restorative justice and the involvement of
spirituality in the complex process of healing. See &g., REPORT OF THE ABORIGMALJUSTTCE
INQUIRY OF MANITOBA, supranote 128, at 22; ROYAL COMMSON ON ABORIGIL PEOPLES,
BRmI_,wGTm CuLTURAL DIVIDE 214 (1996).
1999] FOURMODELS OF THE CRIMINAL PROCESS 695
"' A 1993 Canadian victimization survey found that 90% of sexual assaults, 68% of
assaults, 53% of robberies, 54% of vandalism, 48% of motor vehicle theft or attempted
theft and 32% of break and enters or attempted break and enters were never reported to
the police. The researchers concluded that "for the most part, the reasons for non-
reporting appear to relate to the perceived usefulness of reporting. Generally speaking,
victims who did not report the incident to the police saw the event as one that was best
dealt with another way, that was too minor to report, or that they thought the police
could not do anything about." Rosemary Gartner & Anthony Doob, Trends in Cririnal
Vctimization 1988-93,,14JUmsTAT 4 (1994).
I" See generallyJULUAN ROBERTS & RENATE M. MOHR, CONFRONIING SEXUAL ASSAULT: A
DECADE OF LEGAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE (1994); CAsSIA SPOHN &JulE HORNEY, RAPE LAW
REFORM: A GRASS ROOTS REVOLUnON AND ITS IMPACr (1992).
- See generally REAST CRIMINOLOGY, supranote 12.
S37RANDAUL KENNEDY, RACE, CUMAE AND THE LAw 76 (1997); RobertJ. Sampson &
Janet L Lauritson, Racial and Ethnic Disparitiesin Crime and CriminalJustice in the United
States, 21 ETHNCrIY, CRIME & IMMIGR. 311, 312-14 (1997).
1999] FOUR MODELS OF THE CRIMINAL PROCESS
an average of two women every week were killed by their partners. Researchers and
professionals working with assaulted women estimate that each year one in eight
women, living in a relationship with a man, will be assaulted. In addition, research indi-
cates that as many as 35 violent episodes may have occurred before a women seeks po-
lice intervention.
and its desire to manage risk and to recognize group and positive
rights. At the same time, old paradigms die hard. One of the
dangers of victims' rights is that it will replicate Packer's crime
control assumption that the criminal sanction controls crime and
now risk. New knowledge about risk of crime can produce an un-
ending demand for the criminal sanction and criminal justice re-
form. The risk of crime will always be easier to calculate than to
control. Attempts to achieve zero risk through zero tolerance may
produce unending dissatisfaction, as well as conflict with due pro-
cess claims. At the same time, however, this new knowledge about
the failure of the criminal law to control the pervasive risk of
crime could de-center the criminal sanction as a means to prevent
and to respond to crime. Victims' rights can move toward the
criminal sanction and reformulate Packer's crime control model
by adding considerations of rights and risks. At the same time,
however, victims' rights could move away from reliance on the
criminal sanction, but without relying on Packer's confident asser-
tion that much crime was victimless.
and can merge into general issues of health, well-being, and social
justice, whereas the punitive model promotes the criminalization
and legalization of these issues. "
" The legalization of politics reflects a process in which legal debates in courts and
rights claims dominate political and legislative debate. See, eg., MANDEL, supra note 18, at
61-64. In my view, legalized politics are often derived from the criminalization of politics
which refers to a process in which social, economic, cultural, and political problems are
addressed primarily through criminal law reform.
SeeFLr-cHER, supranote 6, at 152.
See e.g., KENNEDY, supra note 137, AT 311; Christine Boyle, The Role of Equality in
CriminalLaw, 58 SAS& L. REV. 203,215-16 (1994).
1999] FOUR MODELS OFTHE CRMIUNAL PROCESS
being concerned with challenging the accused's due process protections. See
FEDERAL/PROVINaALTASKFORCE ONJUSTICE FORVICTIMS OF CRIME, TASKFORCE REPORT 8,
10-11 (1983).
"6 See ELAs, supra note 92, at 233-35 (1986); ROBERT ELIAS, VICTIMS STruL ThE
POLInCAL MANWUIAnON OF CARE VIcTIMS 2-3 (1993). See generally THE PLIrr OF CIM
VICMISINMODERNSOCEIY(Ezzat Fattah ed. 1989).
117 Scheingold et al., supranote 154, at 759.
" See Daniel E. Lungren, Victims and the Fxdusionary Rvd 19 HAv. J.L & PUB. POLY
695 (1996).
"" See, e.g., Diana Majury, Seaboyer and Gayme, A Study In Equality, in CONFRONTrNG
SEXUAL ASSAULT. A DECADE OF LEGAL AND SOciAL CHNGE, (Julian Roberts & Renate
Mohr eds. 1994). In Canada, Supreme Court decisions striking down "rape shield"
704 I4 _NTROA CH[ [Vol. 89
See MACKINNON,
"'t supra note 10, at 206-07.
Mari Matsuda, Public Responses to Racist Speech: Consid ing the Victim's Story, 87 MICH.
162
L. REV. 2320, 2322-23 (1989). Packer was concerned about equality, but writing in the
height of the civil rights era, he assumed that the Warren Court's due process decisions
would protect "the urban poor, and particularly those who belong to minority groups,
[who] provide most of the raw material for the criminal process." Herbert L Packer, The
Courts, The Police and the Rest of Us, 57J. CRIM. L, CRIMINOLOGY & POIICE ScI. 238, 241
(1966).
" See generaly Sampson & Lauritson, supra note 137.
706 70_ENT ROACH [Vol. 89
and restorative justice once crime has occurred. Both the proc-
esses of prevention and restoration can be represented by a circle.
One manifestation of the circle may be the gated community with
its own private police force. Another example would be a success-
ful neighborhood watch or the self-policing of families and corn-
munities.' Once a crime has occurred, the circle represents
processes of healing, compensation, and restorative justice. Nor-
matively, the circle model stresses the needs of victims more than
their rights, 1' and it seeks to minimize the pain of both victimiza-
tion and punishment.
Victimization studies revealing high levels of unreported
crime are seen more as a failure of social policy than a failure of
the criminal justice system to control crime. Unlike in the puni-
tive version of victims' rights, unreported crime is not automati-
cally viewed with suspicion or alarm. Many crime victims are
remarkably non-punitive in their decision not to report crime to
the police. To be sure, some non-reporting is related to the in-
adequacy and inhospitality of the criminal justice system and fears
of retaliation from offenders. Some victims, however, do not re-
port crimes because they have found a better way to deal with
their victimization that may draw upon strategies such as avoid-
ance, shaming, apologies, and informal restitution. They may also
judge the matter to be too minor or inconvenient tojustify official
intervention, or prefer the privacy, time, and control of non-
reporting. Unlike in the punitive victims' rights, crime control, or
due process models, the victim's decision not to invoke the crimi-
nal process deserves respect unless it can be shown that it only re-
flects coercion or the inadequacies of the present system. "Only a
'victim-centered' model would prioritize the interests of victims at
the expense of the public interest. No-one has yet managed to
develop a victim centered model which is also consistent with due
process or crime control."' Victims are allowed to define their
own interests and their wishes are not pathologized as a product
67
' Lenore Walker's controversial idea that battered women suffer from a syndrome of
learned helplessness can inspire policies such as mandatory arrest and prosecution
policies which discount the victim's desires in the prosecution process. See generaly
LENORE WALKER, THE BATIERED WOMEN (1979); DONALD DOWNS, MORE THAN VICmis:
BATiEREDWOMEN, THESYNDRoME SOCIEXYAND THE LAw (1996).
'' See Garland, supra note 140, at 453. The 1985 United Nations Declaration of the
Basic Principles ofJustice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power 4(a) promotes a
non-punitive model of victims' rights in part by calling on states "to implement social,
health, educational, economic and specific crime prevention policies to reduce
victimization and encourage assistance to victims in distress." Id. at 4. Unlike most
domestic victims' bills of rights, it also endorses a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to
victimisation by recognizing that "victims should receive the necessary material, medical,
psychological and social assistance through governmental, community-based and
indigenous means." Id. at A.14.
61See Richard Tremblay & Wendy Craig, Developmental Cime Prevention, in BUiLDING A
Martha Minow, Behwn Vengeance and Frgiveness: Feminist Reponses to Violent Injustice, 23
NEwENG. L. REV. 967, 969-70 (1998).
' See genera/!y RUTH MORRIS, CRUMBLUNG WALtS: WHY PRISONS FAIL (1989); see also
Dianne Martin, Retribution Re:isited A Reconsiderationof Feminist CriminalLaw Strategies, 36
OSGOODE HALLLJ. 151 (1998).
18 Martha Minow has observed that "most feminists are not among those advocat-
ing forgiving, restorative approaches towards offenders who commit violence against
women, or other kinds of violent crime." Minow, supranote 186, at 974.
1999] FOUR MODELS OF THE CRIMINAL PROCESS
VI. CONCLUSION
189 See, e.g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991); Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496
(1987); Austin Sarat, Vengeance, Victims and the Identities ofLaw, 6 Soc. & LEGAL STUD. 163,
171-80 (1997).
714 KENT ROACH [Vol. 89