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The Significance of Empirical Researgh into the State Prosecutor's Office for Criminology and for Legal Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Gunther Kaiser
Gunther Kaiser*
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-lnstitute for Foreign and International Penal Law Freiburg in Breisgau
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Extract

Barely seventy years ago a Berlin Chief State Prosecutor said in the course of a political trial what has become a household word: the State Prosecutor's Office is the most objective authority in the world (1). Within this self-concept of the German State Prosecutor's Office, which is typical and has lasted up to our own day, we can find the whole problem-area covered by this paper. But the gap that can yawn between idea and reality is clearly recognized in the critical view-point adopted by modern criminology. According to this, questions of power and judgment, of social class and equality, and of the use of the law and criminalization come into view. However, much these matters may appear to many people to be provocatively chosen, and formed according to counter-ideological ideas; nevertheless they are important and no longer to be thought out of existence in modern discussion. In traditional, positivist criminology the system of penal control and those who carried it out were not a topic of discussion. As is well known, the area considered was exclusively that of the investigation of crime and the criminal. But since the state has “lost its innocence”, and since we have realized that the idea and the practice of law can differ very greatly, criminology has also addressed itself to the agents and activities of crime control.

Information

Type
II. - Articles
Information
International Annals of Criminology , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , 1976 , pp. 45 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 International Society for Criminology

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References

Notes and References

Compare the essay of DOHRING, (E.), «Die deutsche Staatsanwaltschaft in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung», Deutsche Richterzeitung 1958, 36, 282–287; WAGNER (W.), «Der objektive Staatsanwalt—Idee und Wirklichkeit», Juristenzeitung 1974, 212.Google Scholar
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Compare v. BERGEIJK, (G.A.), «Prosecution Policy.» European Council for Crime Problems, International Exchange of Information (Strasbourg) 1972, 12. 47; TAK (P.J.P.), «Einige Aspekte des Opportunitatsprinzips bei der Strafverfolgung nach niederlandischem Strafprozessrecht,» Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 1972, 84, 220-253; VERA CRUZ (B.G.). «The Public Prosecutor: His Power. His Problems, and His Role,» Unafei-Report for 1972 and Resource Material Series No. 5, Tokyo 1973, 147-151; CARTER (L.H.), The Limits of Order, Lexington/Mass., Lexington Books, 1975; FORST (Br.E.), BROSI (K.), «A Theorical and Empirical Analysis of the Prosecutor,» Journal of Legal Studies 1977, 6.Google Scholar
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To this subject already MANNHEIM, (H.), Criminal Justice and Social reconstruction, London, Kegan Paul. Trench. Trubner, 1946; more recently PETERS (K.), Die strafrechtsgestaltende Kraft des Strafprozesses, Tübingen, Mohr, 1963; compare also ROXIN (C.), «Recht und soziale Wirklichkeit im Strafverfahren,» Kriminologische Gegenwartsfragen 1976, 12. 9-27; and SCHREIBER (H.-L.). «Verfahren und Verfahrenswirklichkeit.» Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 1976, 88, 117–161.Google Scholar
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