Growth Complex Orientation Analysis

Growth Complex Orientation
According to the growth complex orientation, the purpose of the criminal justice system is to build an ever growing bureaucracy; administering justice and controlling crime are tools that are used to increase the agency’s size and power (Kraska, 2004). In an effort to meet the organizational ends in the most efficient way, scientific methods are established in order to create rules and regulations, which will get everyone to perform their duties in the same technically efficient and predictable manner. Instead of focusing on the outcome (doing the right thing), the rules and regulations become the standard for performance. Using statistics allows police departments to defend their enforcement practices. When someone
Part of the criminal justice system has become privatized and many investors hope to profit (Kraska, 2004). On the one hand, the investors create many jobs. For example, workers are needed to build prisons, supply prison food, supply prison clothes, and provide medical care. On the other hand, the investors need customers (i.e., inmates); hence, there is an incentive to confine people in prison. By locking people up in prison, the state effectively manages the surplus labor force, which is naturally generated in a capitalistic society (Kraska, 2004). Thus, politicians appear to be effectively serving the public. After all, jobs are created and there are fewer unemployed people in the
Using the media to manage the appearance of the system’s legitimacy, the public is continually bombarded with myths until the myths become accepted as facts. The criminal justice system can provide the public with select information, which creates the perception that the status quo must be maintained. Police can effectively create their own jobs by persuading the public to support their current