"Traffic and the Courts: Social Change and Organizational Response," in Herbert
Jacob (ed.) The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications, 1975, 131-172.
This essay examines the problems of caseload, volume stress, and organizational response in a particular
legal arena.
One of the major challenges to the ability of urban courts to effectively carry out their task has been the
automobile. A most immediate social cost of the automobile, and one which produces legal problems which
threaten to overwhelm local civil courts, is the personal and property carnage its use creates. Casualties on
American highways outnumber those of all our wars. During both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts highway
deaths on the domestic front outran those on the battlefield. By 1970, even minor automobile damage and
the cost in entailed led to a political dispute of considerable magnitude over the cost and operation of
automobile insurance schemes. At the same time, personal injury cases accumulating in the courts had
created a serious backlog problem. In Chicago, delay averages three to five years, and no decrease is in
sight.
I then examine the regulatory response of the legal system. Regulation of the ownership and use of the
automobile challenges the ability of the city to keep order. Controlling the flow of motor vehicles through the
city demands the attention of numerous police officers and an armada of vehicles and specialized
equipment. They enforce a host of formal rules governing the use of automobiles, rules which were created
to facilitate the use of the automobile in the city and control its more undesirable consequences.
Finally, I examine the organizational response of the courts to the volume stress this enforcement effort
created. At one point, traffic offenses made up 75 percent of the business of the municipal court of Chicago.
“Crimes” such as double-parking and speeding, serious social problems in the city, jammed already
overloaded dockets, and the court was hard-pressed to dispose of its business. The eventual response was
the creation of specialized, autonomous branch courts which could process traffic cases with assembly-line
efficiency. The compromises with traditional procedure which this organizational transformation demanded
highlight the difficulty that the legal system has encountered in adjusting to the realities of urban life. Traffic,
like many emerging urban problems, seriously challenges traditional conceptions of criminality, guilt, the
personal responsibility of individuals for their behavior, and the deterrent impact of punishment upon
unlawful behavior. In civil and criminal traffic cases we witness most clearly the clash between often
inappropriate legal models for the settlement of disputes or the “treatment” of offenders and demands for
organizational efficiency. Reflecting this, future reforms will probably focus not upon further increases in
efficiency, but upon the removal of traffic problems from the courts entirely.
Jacob (ed.) The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications, 1975, 131-172.
This essay examines the problems of caseload, volume stress, and organizational response in a particular
legal arena.
One of the major challenges to the ability of urban courts to effectively carry out their task has been the
automobile. A most immediate social cost of the automobile, and one which produces legal problems which
threaten to overwhelm local civil courts, is the personal and property carnage its use creates. Casualties on
American highways outnumber those of all our wars. During both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts highway
deaths on the domestic front outran those on the battlefield. By 1970, even minor automobile damage and
the cost in entailed led to a political dispute of considerable magnitude over the cost and operation of
automobile insurance schemes. At the same time, personal injury cases accumulating in the courts had
created a serious backlog problem. In Chicago, delay averages three to five years, and no decrease is in
sight.
I then examine the regulatory response of the legal system. Regulation of the ownership and use of the
automobile challenges the ability of the city to keep order. Controlling the flow of motor vehicles through the
city demands the attention of numerous police officers and an armada of vehicles and specialized
equipment. They enforce a host of formal rules governing the use of automobiles, rules which were created
to facilitate the use of the automobile in the city and control its more undesirable consequences.
Finally, I examine the organizational response of the courts to the volume stress this enforcement effort
created. At one point, traffic offenses made up 75 percent of the business of the municipal court of Chicago.
“Crimes” such as double-parking and speeding, serious social problems in the city, jammed already
overloaded dockets, and the court was hard-pressed to dispose of its business. The eventual response was
the creation of specialized, autonomous branch courts which could process traffic cases with assembly-line
efficiency. The compromises with traditional procedure which this organizational transformation demanded
highlight the difficulty that the legal system has encountered in adjusting to the realities of urban life. Traffic,
like many emerging urban problems, seriously challenges traditional conceptions of criminality, guilt, the
personal responsibility of individuals for their behavior, and the deterrent impact of punishment upon
unlawful behavior. In civil and criminal traffic cases we witness most clearly the clash between often
inappropriate legal models for the settlement of disputes or the “treatment” of offenders and demands for
organizational efficiency. Reflecting this, future reforms will probably focus not upon further increases in
efficiency, but upon the removal of traffic problems from the courts entirely.
Crime Trends
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