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Courthouse Size and Its Impact on Judicial Performance

Insights from Weber’s Theory of Rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Sven Smith ,
Robert Askew ,
Emily Lang  and
Justin Smith
Sven Smith*
Affiliation:
Stetson University
Robert Askew
Affiliation:
Stetson University
Emily Lang
Affiliation:
Harvard Law School
Justin Smith
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina–Wilmington
*
Contact the corresponding author, Sven Smith, at slsmith@stetson.edu.
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Abstract

Sectors of the criminal justice system have bureaucratized to such an extent that their management has supplanted the values for which they were created. Weber predicted this phenomenon, arguing that substantive rationality would be replaced by formal rationality as organizations grew. We test the relationship between size and these two types of rationality with the use of judicial performance checks in arraignments created from conversations with administrative courthouse staff and pilot observations at courthouses. We measure judicial performance through arraignment checklists (n = 481). Findings from multilevel models suggest that there is a positive relationship between size and formal rationality and a negative relationship between size and substantive rationality, even when controlling for workload by research design. Results suggest that abundance of formal rationality or substantive rationality facilitates injustice. These results begin a discourse encouraging quantitatively measuring formal and substantive rationality and that size be considered regarding judicial administrative policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Fall 2019 , pp. 215 - 240
Copyright
© 2019 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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