Ceremonial Justice: Crime and Punishment in a Loosely Coupled System

Currently dominant Durkheimian and Marxian models of criminal justice assume a tight fit between structure and function in the criminal courts. This paper offers an alternative conception of crime and punishment as a loosely coupled organizational system. Our discussion focuses on the historical shift from a classical to a positivist philosophy of sentencing and the emerging profession of probation as a symbol of this transition. However, our empirical analysis of sentencing decisions in felony cases reveals that the influence of probation officers in the presentencing process is subordinate to that of prosecutors. This finding suggests that the involvement of probation officers in sentencing decisions is often ceremonial, and we suggest that the concept of "loose coupling"from organizational theory provides a means of understanding how this finding reflects the dominant legitimation and efficiency needs of contemporary criminal courts.