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Justice Department (justice + department)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Law and Criminology	33%

Selected Abstracts

Justice Excused: The Deployment of Law in Everyday Political Encounters

LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 2 2006
George I. Lovell
This paper examines the use of legal claims by government officials and citizens in everyday political encounters involving civil rights. Data come from 580 letters sent to the federal government between 1939 and 1941, and from the replies sent by the newly formed Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department. In almost every case, the department refused to intervene and explained its refusal by making legal claims about federal jurisdiction. These legal claims masked the department's discretionary choices and thus helped depoliticize the encounters. Surprisingly, however, a substantial number of letter writers challenged the government's legal claims by deploying their own legal and moral arguments. The willingness of these citizens to challenge official legal pronouncements cautions against making broad generalizations about the capacity of ordinary people to respond effectively when government officials deploy legal rhetoric. [source]

Partnering to move students into college and community-oriented careers: The administration of justice department at East Los Angeles College

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, Issue 139 2007
Carrie B. Kisker
This chapter describes how the Administration of Justice Department at East Los Angeles College has partnered with community and educational organizations to move students into college and careers in law enforcement, criminal justice, and the fire service. [source]

Executive Clemency or Bureaucratic Discretion?

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2007
Two Models of the Pardons Process
This article examines the use of the president's pardon power from 1953 to 2000. Two different models are used to describe the pardons process: a presidential model and an agency model. The presidential model takes a top-down approach to the pardons process by viewing the pardon power as a resource that the president can use to advance specific policy goals. In contrast, the agency model views the pardons process as a bottom-up process, with the preferences of officials within the Department of Justice as the key determinant of the number of pardons issued. This article empirically tests both of these models and finds that the president's control over the pardons process is limited by officials within the Justice Department and the actions of past presidents. This is illustrated by an in-depth case study of President Bill Clinton's controversial use of the pardon power. [source]

Merit, Management, and Neutral Competence: Lessons from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, FY 1988,FY 1997

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2 2000
William F. West
Despite the centrality of merit principles to governance in the United States over the past century, scant empirical research examines linkages between institutions, and outcomes in the implementation of merit system protections. We argue that the fate of merit principles depends, at a minimum, on two influences that may compete with neutral competence. The first is partisan responsiveness by counter bureaucracies charged with holding agencies accountable to merit principles. The second influence is the sacrifice of merit in the interest of managerial rerogatives at the agency level. This exploratory study assesses both of these influences within the federal government. Our data consist of personal interviews, analyses of U.S. Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) processes, case loads, and decisions between fiscal years 1988 and 1997, and a brief case study of the Justice Department. We find that the MSPB is largely the neutral and competent agency that Congress intended to create when it enacted the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Less positively, our analysis also reveals that federal agencies vary in how well their personnel actions fare with the MSPB. This finding is especially germane to reinventing-government reforms that decentralize personnel management to agencies or to line operators within agencies. [source]

With mediation leading the way, justice department readies progress report Touting big adr savings

ALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 5 2007
Russ Bleemer
The U.S. Justice Department's Office of Dispute Resolution has been compiling data from throughout the executive branch on how conflict resolution processes are used, and what they provide. The result is a lengthy report with a treasure trove of ADR statistics focusing on savings of both dollars and time. The Justice staffers involved provide a preview of the report [source]