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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 April 2022
Prosecutors play a decisive role in contemporary criminal justice. Their decisions greatly influence the output of the system, as well as the behaviour of other criminal justice institutions. By harnessing the power to filter, select and segment the work of criminal justice, prosecutors provide structure to an otherwise unbalanced field. They thus play a key structuring role. However, the prosecutors’ position and the problems that emanate from it have mostly been studied in terms of their power and discretion. We contend that this approach neglects the core problems and challenges connected to the prosecutorial function in contemporary criminal justice and offer a reconstruction of the formal and informal influences that shape the behaviour of prosecutors in providing for structure.
The authors would like to thank the participants of the workshop ‘Political Turn(s) in Criminal Law Theory’ – especially Daniel Fryer, Sandy Mayson, Matt Matravers, Lucia Zedner, Christoph Burchard, Nicola Recchia, Jonathan Simon and Antony Duff – and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. This work was partly funded by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) through grant Fondecyt 1210444.
1 On the use of the concept of ‘prosecutors’ to refer to agencies that fulfil these two roles, see A van Aaken et al ‘Do independent prosecutors deter political corruption? An empirical evaluation across seventy-eight countries’ (2010) 12 American Law and Economics Review 204.
2 Tonry, M ‘Prosecutors and politics in comparative perspective’ (2012) 41 Crime and JusticeCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bibas, S ‘Prosecutorial regulation versus prosecutorial accountability’ (2009) 157 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 959Google Scholar; Davis, A ‘Prosecution and race: the power and privilege of discretion’ (1998) 67 Fordham Law Review 13Google Scholar. See also Fryer, D ‘Race, reform, and progressive prosecution’ (2020) 110 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 769Google Scholar at 770–771.
3 E Luna and M Wade ‘Prosecutors as judges’ (2010) 1 Washington & Lee Law Review 1413; W Stuntz ‘The pathological politics of criminal law’ (2001) 100 Michigan Law Review 505; D Sklansky ‘The problems with prosecutors’ (2018) 1 Annual Review of Criminology 451; M Miller ‘Domination and dissatisfaction: prosecutors as sentencers’ (2004) 56 Stanford Law Review 1211; Tonry, above n 2; Bibas, above n 2.
4 On this point, see the humorous piece by Bellin, J ‘Reassessing prosecutorial power through the lens of mass incarceration’ (2017) 116 Michigan Law Review 835Google Scholar, who argues that prosecutors are at most the third or fourth most powerful players in criminal justice.
5 The point has been made in the law and economics literature, although with regard to questions of optimal performance for deterrence purposes rather than simple functioning. See Easterbrook, F ‘Criminal procedure as a market system’ (1983) 12 The Journal of Legal Studies 289CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schulhofer, S ‘Criminal justice discretion as a regulatory system’ (1988) 17 The Journal of Legal Studies 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 The classic formulation can be found in Berger v United States, 295 US 78 (1935) and Jackson, R ‘The federal prosecutor’ (1940) 31 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 3Google Scholar. For reviews see Bellin, J ‘Theories of prosecution’ (2020) 108 California Law Review 1203Google Scholar; Fish, E ‘Against adversary prosecution’ (2018) 103 Iowa Law Review 1419Google Scholar.
7 A classical expression of this can be found in the President's Commission of Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice ‘The challenge of crime in a free society’ (1967).
8 K Davis Discretionary Justice: A Preliminary Inquiry (Baton Rouge: University of Illinois Press, 1976); J Jacoby The Prosecutor's Charging Decision: A Policy Perspective (Washington DC: National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, 1977).
9 For reviews see R Frase and T Weigend ‘German criminal justice as a guide to American law reform: similar problems, better solutions?’ (1995) XVIII Boston College International & Comparative Law Review 317; Weigend, T ‘Continental cures for American ailments: European criminal procedure as a model for law reform’ (1980) 2 Crime and Justice 381CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recently Luna and Wade, above n 3.
10 See Langbein, J ‘Controlling prosecutorial discretion in Germany’ (1974) 41 The University of Chicago Law Review 439CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langbein, J ‘Land without plea bargaining: how the Germans do it’ (1979) 78 Michigan Law Review 204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Frase and Weigend, above n 9; Weigend, above n 9.
12 Stuntz, W ‘The uneasy relationship between criminal procedure and criminal justice’ (1997) 107 The Yale Law Journal 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barkow, R ‘Institutional design and the policing of prosecutors: lessons from administrative law’ (2009) 61 Stanford Law Review 869Google Scholar; W Stuntz The Collapse of American Criminal Justice (Cambrige MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).
13 The most straightforward causal theory on changes in prosecutorial behaviour and mass incarceration can be found in the work of J Pfaff ‘The empirics of prison growth’ (2008) 98 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 547; J Pfaff ‘Escaping from the standard story: why the conventional wisdom on prison growth is wrong, and where we can go from here’ (2014) 26 Federal Sentencing Reporter 265; J Pfaff Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration – and How to Achieve Real Reform (New York: Basic Books, 2017). But claims about the immense power of prosecutors can be found in many more places, see above n 2. An overview on the characterisations of the power of prosecutors is provided by J Bellin ‘The power of prosecutors’ (2019) 94 New York University Law Review 171.
14 Consider, for instance, the only work that to our knowledge has attempted to provide a systematic review (in an annual review) of ‘the problem of prosecutors’. David Sklansky offers an overview centred on power and discretion. And, except for a small, final note on ‘inertia’, all remaining problems stand linked to questions of individual decision-making: Sklansky, above n 3.
15 And still is, in some jurisdictions such as New Zealand, Ireland and in Australia, where the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions receive cases from a myriad of investigative agencies and in turn brief court prosecutors. Contrast, however, the different history and evolution of Scotland: S Moody and J Tombs Prosecution in the Public Interest (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1982) and later S Moody and J Tombs ‘Alternatives to prosecution: the public interest redefined’ (1993) Criminal Law Review 357.
16 Y Ma ‘Exploring the origins of public prosecution’ (2008) 18 International Criminal Justice Review 2. A similar phenomenon to the creation of the Crown Prosecution Service in England led to the establishment of the Public Prosecution Service in Canada. Some level of centralisation was introduced in the jurisdictions mentioned in the previous note, even if they intervene mostly after investigations are closed.
17 For instance, C Brook et al ‘A comparative look at plea bargaining in Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, and the United States England, New Zealand, and the United States’ (2016) 57 William & Mary Law Review 1147. For England and Wales see L Soubise Prosecutorial Discretion and Accountability: A comparative study of France and England and Wales (Coventry: University of Warwick, 2015); C Lewis ‘The evolving role of the English Crown Prosecution Service’ in E Luna and M Wade (eds) The Prosecutor in Transnational Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); J Hodgson ‘The democratic accountability of prosecutors in England and Wales and France: independence, discretion and managerialism’ in M Langer and D Sklanski Prosecutors and Democracy: A Cross-National Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
18 S Boyne ‘German prosecutors and the Rechtsstaat’ in Langer and Sklanski, above n 17; A Woolley and L Soubise ‘Prosecutors and justice: insights from comparative analysis’ (2020) 42 Fordham International Law Journal 587; M Wade ‘The Januses of justice – how prosecutors define the kind of justice done across Europe’ (2008) 16 European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice 433.
19 On the design ideas that inspired the Latin American reform process, see M Langer ‘Revolution in Latin American criminal procedure: diffusion of legal ideas from the periphery’ (2007) 55 The American Journal of Comparative Law 617. On the Italian case, see E Antonucci ‘The evolution of the principle of mandatory prosecution in Italy. A problematic case of gradual institutional change’ (2021) 66 International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 100481, at 4–6.
20 A Binder ‘Funciones y disfunciones del Ministerio Publico Penal’, El Ministerio Público para una nueva justicia penal (Santiago: Corporación de promoción Universitaria, Fundación Paz Ciudadana y Escuela de Derecho Universidad Diego Portales, 1994).
21 Most recent contributions are still tracing the emergence of discretion, see D Pulecio-Boek ‘The genealogy of prosecutorial discretion in Latin America: a comparative and historical analysis of the adversarial reforms in the region’ (2014) 13 Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business 1 and D Tuesta ‘Rethinking prosecutorial discretion: towards a moral cartography of prosecutors’ (2021) 61 The British Journal of Criminology 6.
22 Fiercely critical, B Schünemann Gesammelte Werke Band III: Strafprozessrecht und Strafprozessreform (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), especially chs 9 and 11. For a moderate account, M Langer ‘From legal transplants to legal translations: the globalization of plea bargaining and the Americanization thesis in criminal procedure’ (2017) 1 Comparative Law Methodology 814.
23 K Gössel ‘Überlegungen zur Bedeutung des Legalitätsprinzips im Rechtsstaatlichen Strafverfahren’ in EW Hanack et al (eds) Festschrift für Hanns Dünnebier zum 75. Geburtstag am 12. Juni 1982 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1982); A Vitu ‘Légalité ou opportunité des poursuites?’ Traité de droit criminel (Paris: Éditions Cujas, 1989); M Rodríguez Vega ‘Principios de Obligatoriedad y Discrecionalidad en el Ejercicio de la Acción Penal’ (2013) 26 Revista de Derecho 181; M Caianiello ‘Increasing discretionary prosecutor's powers: the pivotal role of the Italian prosecutor in the pretrial investigation phase’ (2016) Oxford Handbooks Online 1; H van de Bunt and J van Gelder ‘The Dutch prosecution’ (2016) 41 Crime and Justice 117.
24 E Grande ‘Italian criminal justice: borrowing and resistance’ (2000) 48 American Journal of Comparative Law 227; M Duce ‘El Ministerio Público en la Reforma Procesal Penal en América Latina’ (2005) Revista Mexicana de Justicia 65.
25 For reviews see J McEwan ‘From adversarialism to managerialism: criminal justice in transition’ (2011) 31 Legal Studies 519; R Salet and J Terpstra ‘Criminal justice as a production line: ASAP and the managerialization of criminal justice in the Netherlands’ (2019) European Journal of Criminology; J Hodgson ‘The changing prosecution role’ in The Metamorphosis of Criminal Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); C Brants and A Ringnalda Issues of Convergence: Inquisitorial Prosecution in England and Wales? (Oisterwijk: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2011).
26 M Wade and J Jehle Coping with Overloaded Criminal Justice Systems: The Rise of Prosecutorial Power Across Europe (Berlin: Springer, 2014); G Gilliéron Public Prosecutors in the United States and Europe: A Comparative Analysis with Special Focus on Switzerland, France, and Germany (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014).
27 See for instance Antonucci, above n 19.
28 This common problem is highlighted by K Hawkins ‘Order, rationality and silence: some reflections on criminal justice decision-making’ in L Gelstrope and N Padfield (eds) Exercising Discretion: Decision-Making in the Criminal Justice System and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2012).
29 As a sample of some well received proposals, see Bellin, above n 6; RA Duff ‘Discretion and accountability in a democratic criminal law’ in Langer and Sklanski, above n 17; Schünemann, above n 22.
30 On legal scholarship missing the point of the normative problems implied, for instance, in low-level criminal justice, see I Kohler-Hausmann Misdemeanorland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).
31 JM Jehle et al ‘The public prosecutor as key-player: prosecutorial case-ending decisions’ (2008) 14 European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 161.
32 For England and Wales, see J Baldwin and M McConville ‘Plea bargaining and plea negotiation in England’ (1979) 13 Law & Society Review 287. For the US, see A Alschuler ‘Plea bargaining and its history’ (1979) 79 Columbia Law Review 1; M Feeley ‘Perspectives on plea bargaining’ (1979) 13 Law & Society Review 199; J Langbein ‘Understanding the short history of plea bargaining’ (1979) 13 Law & Society Review 261. More recently in continental Europe, see R Rauxloh ‘Formalization of plea bargaining in Germany: will the new legislation be able to square the circle?’ (2010) 34 Fordham International Law Journal 296.
33 A Natapoff ‘The penal pyramid’ in S Dolovich and A Natapoff (eds) The New Criminal Justice Thinking (New York: New York University Press, 2017). See also McEwan, above n 25.
34 We leave aside the police, who play a central role and whose behaviour may substantially affect the patterns of interorganisational work of prosecutors, defenders and judges, but who are not part of the courtroom workgroup. For an analysis of the influence that policing trends of arrests and summons may play on criminal processing, with a comparative outlook, see DH Choe ‘Discretion at the pre-trial stage: a comparative study’ (2014) 20 European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 101.
35 C Mouhanna and B Bastard ‘Procureurs et substituts: L’évolution du système de production des décisions pénales’ (2010) 74 Droit et société 35, at 51–52.
36 See the classic D Sudnow ‘Normal crimes: sociological features of the penal code in a public defender office’ (1965) 12 Social Problems 255. Similarly, Mouhanna and Bastard, above n 35. For how these relations are playing out in England and Wales, see L Soubise ‘Prosecuting in the magistrates’ courts in a time of austerity’ (2017) 11 Criminal Law Review 847.
37 On a more formal line, Fryer, above n 2, has made a similar point to criticise the assumptions of the progressive prosecutors movements that the unrestrained power of prosecutors puts them in the best position to change criminal justice practices.
38 On retaliation and punishment for breaking interorganisational working arrangements, see C Perrow ‘A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations’ (1967) 32 American Sociological Review 194.
39 CB Hessick ‘The myth of common law crimes’ (2019) 105 Virginia Law Review 965; D Sklansky and M Langer ‘Epilogue prosecutors and democracy – themes and counterthemes’ in Langer and Sklanski, above n 17; SB Baughman ‘Subconstitutional checks’ (2017) 92 Notre Dame Law Review 1071; L Beck ‘The administrative law of criminal prosecution: the development of prosecutorial policy’ (1978) 2 American University Law Review 1977; R Barkow ‘Separation of powers and the criminal law’ (2010) 58 Stanford Law Review 989; A Davis Arbitrary Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
40 B Kelker ‘Die Rolle der Staatsanwaltschaft im Strafverfahren: Objektives Organ der Rechtspflege oder doch “parteiischer” Anwalt des Staates?’ (2006) 118 Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft; Fish, above n 6.
41 Langbein, above n 32; Alschuler, above n 32. There is certainly controversy about the historical accuracy of Langbein's reconstruction of the evolution of plea bargains out of professionalism. See G Fisher Plea Bargaining's Triumph (Redwood: Stanford University Press, 2003).
42 JM Jehle ‘The function of public prosecution within the criminal justice system aim, approach and outcome of a European comparative study’ in JM Jehle and M Wade (eds) Coping with Overloaded Criminal Justice Systems: The Rise of Prosecutorial Power Across Europe (Berlin: Springer, 2006).
43 This is not to say that administrative obligations to maintain a balance are non-existent in common law countries. In England and Wales, for example, the police have the legal obligation to register all formal inputs and outputs (Police Act 1996, s 44 as amended). The Home Office also issues Counting Rules for Recorded Crime.
44 This is the general rule for charging decisions in England and Wales, where police retain control over most out-of-court disposals. Dutch prosecutors can autonomously issue penal orders for offences punishable by up to six years’ imprisonment.
45 In England and Wales, some offences require by statute the consent of the Attorney General or the Director of Public Prosecutions. In some countries, the approval of the regional head of the prosecution office is required to stay investigations, particularly for more serious offences (eg archivo provisional in Chile).
46 In Chile and Germany the conditions and requirements for all diversionary measures are controlled by courts. Drops, if not of very minor offences, are too. Victims are only substantively involved in compensation agreements. In England there is no intra-procedural control of dispositional decision-making, only the possibility of judicial or administrative review. There, prosecutors should not be involved in the sentence reduction obtained as a consequence of a guilty plea, which is quite different to the position in the US.
47 In many countries, the arrangements that are referred to as plea bargain typically change the mode of decision-making by the court instead of implying direct decision-making by the parties. In Chile, for instance, ‘plea bargains’ typically implies a simplification of the procedure, with a single judge instead of a panel involved, and probably leading to a conviction because of the admission of guilt. Judicial control of decision-making is of more limited importance but does not disappear. For Germany, see L Meyer-Goßner ‘Rechtsprechung durch Staatsanwaltschaft und Angeklagten? – Urteilsabsprachen im Rechtsstaat des Grundgesetzes’ (2007) Neue Zeitschrift für Strafrecht 425.
48 For the English experience with the Victim's Right to Review see M Iliadis and A Flynn ‘Providing a check on prosecutorial decision-making: an analysis of the victims’ right to review reform’ (2018) 58 British Journal of Criminology 550. On how the position of the victim relates to the growth in ambits of discretion, see B Schünemann ‘Der Ausbau der Opferstellung im Strafprozeß – Fluch oder Segen?’, Festschrift für Rainer Hamm zum 65. Geburtstag am 24. Februar 2008 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) p 700.
49 See J Turner ‘Plea bargaining and disclosure in Germany and the United States: comparative lessons’ (2016) 57 William & Mary Law Review 1549. In other jurisdictions, such as Canada, it has been the courts who have established disclosure duties: see Woolley and Soubise, above n 18, at 601.
50 Pfaff, above n 13; J Pfaff ‘Prosecutorial guidelines’ (2017) 3 Reforming Criminal Justice 101; Barkow, above n 12.
51 The sheer number of lower-level offences is part of this pressure. However, this is mediated by the lower limit of the criminal law, and whether there is a separate regime for contraventions or Ordnungswidrigkeiten, or if it is the same criminal justice system which deals with minor offences. Decriminalisation efforts and downgrading of offence severity reduce the scope of prosecutorial action and determine the alternatives available. See R Frase ‘Comparative criminal justice as a guide to American law reform: how do the French do it, how can we find out, and why should we care?’ (1990) 78 California Law Review 539; Jehle, above n 42.
52 R Barkow Prisoners of Politics (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019); Tonry, above n 2.
53 M Langer ‘Rethinking plea bargaining: the practice and reform of prosecutorial adjudication in American criminal procedure’ (2005) 33 American Journal of Criminal Law 223.
54 But see S Bibas ‘Plea bargaining outside the shadow of trial’ (2004) 117 Harvard Law Review 2462, contending that this criticism, even when right, continues the model of the ‘shadows of the trial’ as a rationale to judge plea bargains and discounts other forms of distortion based on prosecutorial and defence personal incentives.
55 W Pizzi Trials without Truth (New York: New York University Press, 1999).
56 We thus focus on the concept of ‘internal legal culture’ as defined in L Friedman The Legal System (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1975).
57 See D Kenneth The State Tradition in Western Europe (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980). The conceptions that we expose below may seem naïve and not reflect Continental political thought in its best light. That would certainly be a misunderstanding: from Lorenz von Stein to Karl Marx and Max Weber, many of the most sophisticated and influential analyses of the state have emerged from the Continental tradition. We are not concerned with Continental political thought, but rather with legal thought. In contrast to England and to the US, the legal profession and legal academia adopted a central role in the deployment of legal dominance much earlier in Continental Europe. Both remain overall committed to the idea that a well-ordered and legitimate modern order needs to overcome political factionalism and economic dominance. The objectified conceptions of the state and law express this.
58 So famously von Savigny: ‘Wächter des Gesetzes zu sein und als solche darauf zu achten, wie dem Gesetze und nur diesem Genüge geschehe’, cited in Kelker, above n 40, p 392.
59 The slightly ironic portrayal by von Liszt of the prosecutor as ‘the most objective civil servant in the world’ was adopted as a heartfelt motto. HC Schaefer ‘Die Staatsanwaltschaft – Ein politisches Instrument?’ in Festschrift für Rainer Hamm zum 65. Geburtstag am 24. Februar 2008 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008).
60 Boyne, above n 18. More generally on the scientific endeavour of German criminal law: M Dubber ‘The promise of German criminal law’ (2005) 6 German Law Journal 1049. Further on the self- and public perception of prosecutors in Germany, J Kottkamp Öffentlichkeitsarbeit von Staatsanwaltschaften in der Mediengesellschaft (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013).
61 Even for the relationships between prosecutors and police, the focus is on describing the appropriate interplay of the relevant legal rules: FL Knemeyer and M Deubert ‘Kritische Überlegungen zum Verhältnis Staatsanwaltschaft-Polizei/Polizei-Staatsanwaltschaft’ (1992) 3131 NJW. Central for German practice and scholarship are the Kommentare on the criminal procedure code (StPO) and on the constitutional law of organisation of the courts (GVG). Discussions on the extent of the concepts ‘lesser culpability’ or ‘public interest’ in §153 ff StPO are the object of papers and monographs; the question of whether there was any place for agreements between the prosecutor and the defence were studied from a normative relation between § 170 II, §153ff. § 305 StPO and §§ 1, 150 GVG. In Chile, the most relevant sources of academic commentary are undergraduate theses that usually cover the relevant provisions in a doctrinal manner. Examples abound in Arts 167, 170, 237 Criminal Procedure Code.
62 J Eisele and C Trentmann ‘Die Staatsanwaltschaft – “objektivste Behörde der Welt”?’ (2019) NJW 1; Gössel, above n 23. Notable exceptions, of course, exist, for instance E Blankenburg ‘Die Staatsanwaltschaft im System der Strafverfolgung’ (1978) 11 Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik 263.
63 J Simonson ‘Police reform through a power lens’ (2021) 130 Yale Law Journal. Simonson provides a useful overview of the type of approaches that pervade thinking about legal institutions in the US, centred on policing: instrumental, outcome-based approaches; empirical legitimacy approaches, seeking to define the conditions under which state institutions are accepted by the public; and critical, power-based accounts. All these accounts share a realist baseline that separates them from Continental legal thought and, to an important extent, also from Britain and Ireland.
64 On the general polemic pointing at prosecutors as drivers of mass incarceration, see B Capers ‘Against prosecutors’ (2020) 105 Cornell Law Review 1561. Here England and Wales shows itself again to be in an intermediate position, with some pragmatism in discussing, for example, the potential of private prosecutions: C Lewis et al ‘Evaluating the case for greater use of private prosecutions in England and Wales for fraud offences’ (2014) 42 International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 3.
65 For instance, the English Crown Prosecution Service has internally defined a principle against overloading or overcharging. On the ethical questions, see R Young and A Sanders ‘The ethics of prosecution lawyers’ (2004) 7 Legal Ethics 190. For Canada see Woolley and Soubise, above n 18.
66 An eminent exception is L Campbell et al The Criminal Process (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
67 J Savelsberg ‘Knowledge, domination, and criminal punishment’ (1994) 99 American Journal of Sociology 911.
68 D Sklansky ‘The nature and function of prosecutorial power’ (2016) 106 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 473; Fish, above n 6; Bellin, above n 6.
69 Bibas, above n 54.
70 On the concepts of formal versus substantive criminalisation see N Lacey ‘Historicising criminalisation: conceptual and empirical issues’ (2009) 72 The Modern Law Review 936.
71 F Zimring The City That Became Safe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Kohler-Hausmann, above n 30. Even if in Europe most prosecutors’ offices have formal control over investigations, in fact they more passively receive cases after the police hand them over. Rather than leading express arrest policies, what is found there is de facto or de jure powers of disposition of the police: see B Elsner et al ‘Police case-ending possibilities within criminal investigations’ (2008) 14 European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 191.
72 P Nardulli ‘The caseload controversy and the study of criminal courts’ (1979) 70 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 89, at 97, refers to this idea as ‘the adherence to legal men assumption’. See also the explanation of the ‘problem of resources’ by M Lipsky Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1980) p 29.
73 A classic contribution in this line is M Feeley The Process Is the Punishment (New York: Rusell Sage Foundation, 1979); J Dixon ‘The organizational context of criminal sentencing’ (1995) 100 American Journal of Sociology 1157; J Eisenstein and H Jacob Felony Justice: An Organizational Analysis (Little, Brown and Co, 1977); J Eisenstein et al The Contours of Justice: Communities and Their Courts (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1988); Feeley, above n 32. The notion of an ‘assembly-line’ has also permeated the English debate: see L Marsh ‘Leveson's narrow pursuit of justice’ (2016) 45 Common Law World Review 51.
74 Eisenstein et al, above n 73.
75 C Spohn ‘Specialized units and vertical prosecution approaches’ in RF Wright et al The Oxford Handbook of Prosecutors and Prosecution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
76 Hodgson highlights for England the trends of de-professionalisation and delegation to caseworkers, while the prosecutor has become a manager. Also, she shows how cases pass through several pairs of hands at different stages, resulting in a dissolution of responsibility: Hodgson, above n 25. Boyne points to the case assignment procedures to individual prosecutors, the documentation practices and the level of independence as features that determine the performance and the reinforcement of the principles understood to lie behind it in Germany: S Boyne The German Prosecution Service: Guardians of the Law? (Berlin: Springer, 2014). For France, see P Milburn ‘Les Procureurs de La République: Passeurs de Justice ou Gestionnaires des “politiques pénales”?’ (2010) 74 Droit et société 73.
77 Indeed some have suggested that the current organisation of prosecutors’ offices should be more adequately conceptualised as post-bureaucratic: W Simon ‘The organization of prosecutorial discretion’ in Langer and Sklanski, above n 17.
78 See the work of N Lacey The Prisoner's Dilemma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); N Lacey et al ‘Understanding the determinants of penal policy: crime, culture, and comparative political economy’ (2018) 1 Annual Review of Criminology 195; M Tonry Punishment and Politics: Evidence and Emulation in the Making of English Crime Control Policy (London: Routledge, 2004); Tonry, M ‘Determinant of penal policies’ (2007) 36 Crime and Justice 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
79 See for instance M Bonner Tough on Crime: The Rise of Punitive Populism in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019).
80 The classic piece is Savelsberg, above n 67.
81 See the literature on the determinants of penal policies Tonry ‘Determinant of penal policies’, above n 78; Lacey et al, above n 78.
82 This is the main line of argument in the recent anti-adversarialism/anti-instrumentalism drive in US legal scholarship. See Sklansky, above n 68; Fish, above n 6.
83 A Davis ‘Prosecutors, democracy, and race’ in Langer and Sklanski, above n 17.
84 For an excellent overview see C Hessick and M Morse ‘Picking prosecutors’ (2020) 105 Iowa Law Review 1537.
85 See Stuntz, W ‘The political constitution of criminal justice’ (2006) 119 Harvard Law Review 780Google Scholar; Stuntz, above n 3.
86 See Barkow, above n 52; Stuntz, above n 3.
87 Fish, above n 6; Bibas, above n 2.
88 Wright, RF ‘Prosecutors and their state and local polities’ (2020) 110 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 823Google Scholar, at 831–833, noting the influence of the main control mechanism of general prosecutorial policies in the US elections.
89 Such as in Italy and France, and until recently in several countries in Latin America.
90 Such as in Germany.
91 See CJA Mittermaier Das Englische, Schottische und Nordamerikanische Strafverfahren: Im Zusammenhange mit den Politischen, Sittlichen und Socialen Zuständen und in den Einzelnheiten der Rechtsübung (Erlangen: Ferdinand Enke, 1851) p 37, contrasting what he saw as a perilous situation in Germany and France compared to a much better one in England, and the consequent roles of prosecutors and judges across the channel.
92 Hodgson, above n 17.
93 A notable recent exception is S Voigt ‘Prosecutors: a cross-national political perspective’ in W Thompson (ed) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
94 Boyne, above n 76, ch 6.
95 Ibid, p 138.