A study conducted by Hung-En Sung “Democracy and Criminal Justice in Cross-National Perspective: From Crime Control to Due Process” (2006) examines justice system and its administration under different regimes: liberal democracy and disjunctive democracy. The author argues that “[h]ow governments react to crime and administer justice reflects the nature of the political regime” (312). The hypothesis Hung-En Sung proves in the paper supports the idea that criminal justice administration vary depending on the obtained level of democracy in the country. The researcher develops the set of criminal justice practices typical for authoritarian regime and for liberalism. This theoretical toolbox is then traced in the data offered by UNS crime statistics.
Having analyzed the empirical data that included such variables as police / prosecutorial / judicial / prison personnel and prosecution / conviction/ incarceration rates, as well as guaranties of democratic liberties, total population, GDP per capita, total crime rate, Hung-En Sung came to the conclusion that authoritarian systems are inclined to recruit lower manpower to run penitentiaries whereas democratic states involve qualified personnel and human resources to manage their correctional institutions and police. The author reveals an evident relation between level of democracy and size of correctional staff and judicial sector. If under authoritarian regime criminal justice is more targeted over incrimination and HYPERLINK "file:///C:\\Users\\nadiia\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\Word_0" incarceration , then liberal democracy is more inclined to be efficient in screening out innocent suspects. Democratic states are assumed to offer a greater benefit for criminal justice management with its higher rate of investment. At the same time, though, human rights and liberties granted by democracy tend to distract from crime per se and due punishment.
The research conducted by Hung-En Sung proves to be a quantitative experimental design since it follows a standard format for this type of study. There is hypothesis argued by the researcher at the core of the experiment that concerns differences of democratic and authoritarian criminal justice and its management. The hypothesis is supported by statistical and mathematical means. This reveals the main advantage of the quantitative studies – being unbiased and having a good testing method on their side. There is, however, an ethical issue involved into conducting quantitative experiments: they are to be transparent and easy to be repeated by others, thus, the chance of manipulation and juggling with empirical data results and statistics should be excluded.
In brief, researcher’s integrity overweighs the drive to prove a hypothesis when it comes to quantitative experiments.
References
Sung, H.-E. (2006). “Democracy and Criminal Justice in Cross-National Perspective: From
Crime Control to Due Process.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 605, 311-333. Retrieved from: HYPERLINK "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25097810" http://www.jstor.org/stable/25097810 . Accessed: Aug. 27, 2012.
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