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Many countries aim to improve public services by use of information and communication technology (ICT) in public service supply chains. However, the literature does not address how inter-organizational ICT is used in redesigning these particular supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to explore this important and under-investigated area.

An explorative multiple-case study was performed based on 36 interviews, 39 documents, extensive field visits and observations providing data on digital transformation in four European criminal justice supply chains.

Two different design approaches to digital transformation were found, which are labelled digitization and digitalization. These approaches are characterized by differences in public service strategies, performance aims, and how specific public characteristics and procedures are dealt with. Despite featuring different roles for ICT, both types show the viable digital transformation of public service supply chains. Additionally, the application of inter-organizational ICT is found not to automatically result in changes in the coordination and management of the chain, in contrast to common assumptions.

This paper is one of the first to adopt an inter-organizational perspective on the use of ICT in public service supply chains. The findings have scientific and managerial value because fine-grained insights are provided into how public service supply chains can use ICT in an inter-organizational setting. The study shows the dilemmas faced by and possible options for public organizations when designing digital service delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss key risk factors in the use of forensic science in the criminal justice system by adopting a holistic and systemic approach that examines the collection and use of forensic evidence from crime scene to court.

The research on which the paper is based was a mixed-method five-year study of the effectiveness of forensic science in the criminal justice system in Australia using qualitative and quantitative methods. The paper draws on the in-depth analysis of qualitative data from 11 case studies of investigations of serious crime to identify key risk factors in the use of forensic science from crime scene to court.

Six key risk factors in the forensic process from crime scene to court are identified: low level of forensic awareness among first responders; crime scene examiners (CSEs) as technicians rather than professionals; inefficient and/or ineffective laboratory processes; limited forensic literacy among key actors in the criminal justice system; poor communication between key actors in the criminal justice system; and, financial resources not directed at the front end of the forensic process. Overall the findings demonstrate that forensic science is not well embedded in the criminal justice system.

The paper suggests that the risks inherent in the current practice of forensic science in the criminal justice system can be reduced dramatically through: forensic awareness training among first responders; the professionalisation of CSEs; continued improvements in efficiency and effectiveness at the laboratory with a focus on timeliness and quality; greater forensic literacy among actors in the criminal justice system; appropriate avenues of communication between agencies, practitioners and policymakers in the criminal justice system; and increased allocation of resources to the front end of the forensic process.

By adopting a holistic, systemic approach to the analysis of forensic science in the criminal justice system, and identifying inherent risks in the system, this paper contributes to the emerging body of research on the social processes that impact on the effectiveness of forensic science.

The current criminal justice system is pledged to serve and protect society while preserving the rights of those who are accused. The purpose of this paper is to explore the premise of “innocent until proven guilty” and examine whether this assumption truly prevails under the current criminal justice system, or be modified to accommodate a sliding continuum of virtuosity.

This paper is a conceptual paper which relies heavily on the current literature about criminal justice and related ethical issues.

The paper argues that today’s criminal justice system fails to meet the standards of the virtuous continuum and that those who oversee that system need to rethink how the system operates and is perceived by the public if they wish the criminal justice system to be perceived as just, fair, and ethically responsible.

Because this paper is a conceptual paper it does not present research hypotheses.

This paper suggests that “virtue” and “ethics” must be the foundation upon which the criminal justice system is evaluated, and criminal justice must incorporate an ethical standard which is virtuous and fair to all parties and leaders who oversee that system must meet the standards suggested by the virtuous continuum.

This paper is among the first to identify the viewpoint of the virtuous perspective, moral perspective, amoral perspective, and immoral perspective in the criminal justice system.

The victim’s rights movement and restorative justice (RJ) have gained momentum around the world. More laws and policies have focused on crime victims and their families. Western literature suggests that the victim’s family suffers physical, emotional, and financial tolls and that the power of the victim’s family in pursuing justice for their loved ones remains limited. This is particularly concerning within the political and legal context of the abolitionist movement, innocence project, and human rights groups’ campaigns against police torture. Grounded in the perspectives of RJ and Chinese legal culture, this study examines the victim’s family, represented by Ding and senior Yu, of the Nian Bin capital murder case. Drawing on published reports and using the thematic content analysis method, this study examines the following aspects of victim’s family in a death penalty case: 1) victim family’s physical, emotional, and financial tolls; 2) victims’ family and the criminal justice system; 3) victims’ family and the media; and 4) the relationship between the victims’ and the accused’s families. This study concludes with discussions of the competing goals of families impacted by a crime and RJ practices that would help mitigate the loss of the victim’s family and enhance their confidence in the criminal justice system.

This chapter focuses on how people with a history of short-term incarceration engage with the criminal justice system. It is based on analysis of interview data with men and women who had been incarcerated in a county-level facility in Massachusetts; they were interviewed up to five times (once prerelease and four times postrelease). A primary goal of most was to be free of or minimize criminal justice system contact (not just incarceration), and this drove their approach to criminal justice system contact. In spite of this goal, they often remained ensnared for lengthy periods.

The purpose of this study is to examine public perceptions and attitudes toward using artificial intelligence (AI) in the US criminal justice system.

The authors took a quantitative approach and administered an online survey using the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. The instrument was developed by integrating prior literature to create multiple scales for measuring public perceptions and attitudes.

The findings suggest that despite the various attempts, there are still significant perceptions of sociodemographic bias in the criminal justice system and technology alone cannot alleviate them. However, AI can assist judges in making fairer and more objective decisions by using triangulation – offering additional data points to offset individual biases.

Other scholars can build upon the findings and extend the work to shed more light on some problems of growing concern for society – bias and inequality in criminal sentencing. AI can be a valuable tool to assist judges in the decision-making process by offering diverse viewpoints. Furthermore, the authors bridge the gap between the fields of technology and criminal justice and demonstrate how the two can be successfully integrated for the benefit of society.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first studies to examine a complex societal problem like the introduction of technology in a high-stakes environment – the US criminal justice system. Understanding how AI is perceived by society is necessary to develop more transparent and unbiased algorithms for assisting judges in making fair and equitable sentencing decisions. In addition, the authors developed and validated a new scale that can be used to further examine this novel approach to criminal sentencing in the future.

In the last 10 years, India has amended its laws dealing with sexual offences against women with the changes ranging from increasing terms of imprisonment for the offence of rape to state-funded compensation schemes for women and child victims. In this regard, challenges persist for the agencies of the criminal justice system in India especially the courts to realise the vision of restorative justice as these forums have to navigate the relevant statutory provisions and binding precedents. This chapter seeks to analyse the challenges faced by courts in proper reintegration of victims and offenders of sexual offences, the institutional responses of the courts and suggests reforms to the criminal justice system in India in consonance with the principles of restorative justice acknowledged in the restorative justice movement in the international discourse.

The number of reported cases for Japanese Penal Code offenses amounted to 2.5 million in 1997 and increased every year, reaching 3.6 million in 2002 and 2003. However, the number decreased from 2004 to 2008 to 2.5 million. Almost throughout the same period, the number of cases and persons cleared remained comparatively steady between 1.3 and 1.5 million and 1 and 1.2 million respectively, but the latter finally fell below one million in 2011. In this chapter I describe such a rise and fall as a “Mt. Fuji-line” that appears as a mountain-shaped curve on a graph.

The Japanese government reacted to the increase of crimes, which was seen as a reflection of a weakened or broken security and safety. The most effective policy, it was thought therefore, was to increase the number of policemen. This policy followed the strategy of New York City, made famous by its then Mayor Giuliani, who declared “A War on Crimes” and increased the number of police officers by ten thousand to revive New York from “A Crime City.” As criminologists have experienced so-called “labeling shocks” and learned from the approach of symbolic interactionism, criminologists can no longer simply accept that statistical data reflect weakened or broken security issues. Agencies of criminal justice, especially police officers, use such data as statistical evidence to show that the crime situation got worse.

I argue that the rise and fall of crimes, especially the increasing and decreasing number of reported cases, reflects changes of crime control policies. I analyze the Mt. Fuji-line from 1998 to 2011. The increase of crimes as well as the weakened or broken security and safety functioned as evidence that justified the reinforcement of police power and a new criminal justice shift for a lay judge system in the rising phase (1998–2003). Since the concept of a bigger justice system needs, however, lots of personnel and material sources, the Japanese government eventually gave up sustaining it. Agencies used their discretion to skip petty crimes and divert suspects because of a reduction of excessive burdens and inappropriate prison population, but they stepped into a new stage to adjust their burdens, keeping their own empowered framework of criminal justice system. These changing policies resulted in the reduction of crime in a falling phase (2004–2011).

These phenomena are explained from the viewpoint of Jürgen Habermas’ crisis theory. I conclude that the framework and capacity of the Japanese criminal justice system grew far bigger and that original functions of crime control through criminal procedure became weaker by being outsourced to other peripheral social systems and agencies. Thus the crime control system has been successful in bringing about a net-widening effect.