The Penal Pyramid

In this chapter, Alexandra Natapoff conceptualizes the criminal system as a “pyramid” in order to capture how formal rules sometimes determine processes and outcomes while often social factors such as race and class are more influential. The top of the pyramid represents serious felonies, the federal system, wealthy defendants, and the relatively small class of cases governed by a reasonably functional rule of law. By contrast, further down the pyramid, cases get pettier, defendants poorer, and counsel more burdened. By the time we reach the massive bottom—the realm of petty offenses and assembly-line courts—race, class, police arrest policies, and prosecutorial plea-bargaining habits best explain criminal outcomes and procedures. The chapter traces this dynamic to concrete doctrinal and policy choices. As Natapoff writes, “the pyramid . . . illustrates a profound feature of the penal system: sometimes criminal convictions can fairly be justified as a product of law and evidence, while sometimes they are better understood as a product of institutional practices and inegalitarian social relations.”

Presumptive Arrest in Partner Assault: Use of Discretion and Problems of Compliance in the New Zealand Police

Since pro-arrest policies in domestic violence became popular in the United States in the 1980s, numerous western countries have followed suit. In most cases, research has shown that implementation of the policies has fallen short of expectations, with arrest rates that are surprisingly low. In New Zealand, pro–arrest strategies have been employed since 1987 and results have been similar. This article argues that one of the reasons for noncompliance in New Zealand (and probably elsewhere), is that the complexities of domestic violence situations make pro–arrest difficult to apply in practice. Moreover, in order to protect themselves from official criticism for deviating from policy, in this study frontline police sometimes filed incomplete or inaccurate incident reports. This made it hard to determine exactly how well the policy was being implemented and whether or not it was working.