Courtroom Work Group Analysis

The courtroom workgroup is made up of people in the criminal justice system such as judges and prosecutors. They decide what happens in every case that is presented in the system and use their discretion on whether to deny or accept a case. The way that cases are identified as serious depends on the evidence that is available. Other factors such as witnesses, prior record, and criminal activity is all taken into account. If the courtroom workgroup decides that there isn’t enough information for the case to go on they drop it because they see no use in wasting their time with it. Walker mentions that most of the cases like rape are what get dropped because of insufficient evidence and people tend to see it as the offender getting off the hook (2015, p. 66). It may be seen as an injustice because those cases don’t go through to have a trial, but too much work is put into cases that the best option is to just put all the effort in the ones that will get a conviction. Those other cases that are seen as more serious because of prior record and the type of crime committed usually have a high going rate. Some crimes like murder are known to have higher going rate because of how
The selection the courtroom workgroup makes can also lead to longer sentences because they are the people that choose the going rate. The criminal justice system tries to speed up the process because of how many cases they have to deal with which leaves the workgroup to weight what cases are most important than others. This fast process can lead to the system having wrongful convictions because of so many cases they have. Walker talks about Huff’s study that estimated on wrongful convictions and concluded that about one percent were due to mistakes from the criminal justice system (2015, p. 76). One percent or not wrongful convictions is still a problem and the way the Courtroom workgroup decide that should be