Law Enforcement and Public Administration

Abstract

In his introduction to perhaps the most significant recent scientific discussion of crime and society, a distinguished law professor says: "When any phase of crime control is talked about, the tendency has too often and too strongly been to emote instead of thinking." We all recognize the truth of this statement; and the broadly inclusive nature of my title may not seem too promising, though I shall try to limit it strictly. This paper was originally planned as part of a course of lectures on "The Scientific Study of Law and Its Administration"--a subject suggesting the long-range dispassionate investigation, not propaganda or preaching, of law administration,that is, the day-to-day operation of the social machinery devised to apply the moral and ethical assumptions which we call "law" to the complexities of modem life. My particular topic, "Law Enforcement and Public Administration," was designed to stress, as a part of this general subject, the public aspects of crime control. "Public" should be emphasized, since it makes clear that the problem of crime control is essentially one of administration in a public or governmental sense. Hence it is just as much a problem of public law as is the operation of the. governmental agencies, federal or state, now of immediate and popular interest, such as the law of administrative tribunals and commissions or that fascinating realm of juristic dogma known as constitutional law. I propose to discuss therefore what should now be the direction of scientific study of criminal law administration in its public aspects.