Allen Steinberg brings to life the court-centered criminal justice
system of nineteenth-century Philadelphia, chronicles its eclipse,
and contrasts it to the system -- dominated by the police and
public prosecutor -- that replaced it. He offers a major
reinterpretation of criminal justice in nineteenth-century America
by examining this transformation from private to state prosecution
and analyzing the discontinuity between the two systems.
Steinberg first establishes why the courts were the sources of law
enforcement, authority, and criminal justice before the advent of
the police. He shows how the city's system of private prosecution
worked, adapted to massive social change, and came to dominate the
culture of criminal justice even during the first decades following
the introduction of the police. He then considers the dilemmas that
prompted reform, beginning with the establishment of a professional
police force and culminating in the restructuring of primary
justice.
Making extensive use of court dockets, state and municipal
government publications, public speeches, personal memoirs,
newspapers, and other contemporary records, Steinberg explains the
intimate connections between private prosecution, the everyday
lives of ordinary people, and the conduct of urban politics. He
ties the history of Philadelphia's criminal courts closely to
related developments in the city's social and political evolution,
making a contribution not only to the study of criminal justice but
also to the larger literature on urban, social, and legal
history.
Originally published in 1989.
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