Automation of American Criminal Justice

Abstract

Criminal Justice has been one of the public sectors in the forefront of the move toward automation and digital government. The effect of computerization on American criminal justice has been profound and it has transformed the criminal justice process in many fundamental ways. Starting with President Lyndon Johnson’s government commission, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society: A Report by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, public and private experts in criminal justice and technology laid out the information needs of the criminal justice system and the computer systems to meet those demands. At a time when computerization was minimal throughout the criminal justice system, these task force members developed the blueprint for today’s multilayered automated criminal justice environment (Dallek, 1998, pp. 405-407, 409-411; Challenge of crime in a free society, 1967, pp. 268-271).