Since the American Bar Foundation Survey of the Administration of Criminal Justice (1953 - 1969) ""discovered"" the phenomenon of discretion in criminal justice, it has become something of a truism that the administration of criminal justice in the United States consists of a series of discretionary decisions by officials in regard to police discretion, bail, plea bargaining and sentencing. This book is a history of the attempts over the past forty years to control these discretionary powers in the criminal justice system. Walker brings together an enormous literature in a synthesis that will be of great value to professionals, reformers and students of the criminal justice system. In a field which largely produces short-ranged ""evaluation research"", this study, in taking a wider approach, distinguishes between the role of the courts and the role of administrative bodies (the police) and evaluates the longer-term trends and the successful reforms in criminal justice history.
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