“McJustice”: On the McDonaldization of Criminal Justice

Abstract

This essay examines the “McDonaldization” of criminal justice or “McJustice.” In doing so, it provides another useful way of understanding the development and operation of criminal justice in the United States. The McDonaldization of various social institutions has succeeded because it provides advantages over other, usually older, methods of doing business. It has made McDonaldized social institutions bureaucratic and rational in a Weberian sense and, thus, more efficient, calculable, predictable, and controlling over people (often by nonhuman technologies). The principal problem with McDonaldized institutions, and another characteristic of the process, is irrationality or, as Ritzer calls it, the “irrationality of rationality.” A primary purpose of this essay is to expose some of the irrationalities of “McJustice” and to suggest some possible responses to them.

Keywords:

• criminal justice
• McDonaldization
• irrationality of rationality
• bureaucracy
• efficiency
• calculability
• predictability
• control

Notes

1. A popular way of understanding criminal justice in the United States is by employing metaphors. The most frequently used metaphor depicts the criminal justice process as a “system”—a “criminal justice system.” For additional metaphors of criminal justice see Kraska (2004).

2. People control human technologies (e.g., a screwdriver), while nonhuman technologies (e.g., an order window at a drive‐through) control people (Ritzer, 2004, p. 106). Machines and nonhuman technologies are employed in McDonaldized institutions for other reasons besides control, such as increasing productivity, greater quality control, and lowering costs (Ritzer, 2004, p. 107).

3. The costs of “all correctional functions” between 1977 and 2001 increased 1,100 percent (Bauer & Owens, 2004, p. 4). “All correctional functions” include the costs of operation and employment for jails, prisons, probation, parole, pardon, and correctional administration for both adults and juveniles (Bauer & Owens, 2004, p. 4). Because approximately 80 percent of all funds allocated to corrections in the United States are spent to build and run institutions, and only about 20 percent are spent on community corrections (Bonczar & Glaze, 1999, p. 2), the increase in costs of prisons and jails during the period is estimated to be about 900 percent.

4. Although an error rate of 0.5 percent may not seem high, consider that in 2001, a typical year, approximately 14 million people were arrested in the United States (US Department of Justice, 2002, p. 232). Assuming conservatively that 50 percent of all people arrested are convicted (Huff et al., 1986, p. 523)—about 7 million convictions in 2001—then approximately 35,000 people were probably wrongfully convicted.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert M. Bohm

Robert M. Bohm is a Professor of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies at the University of Central Florida. He is a past president and Fellow of ACJS as well as a recipient of its Founders Award. His research interests focus on criminal justice, criminological theory, and capital punishment.