Criminal justice as a production line: ASAP and the managerialization of criminal justice in the Netherlands

Abstract

Since the 1990s criminal justice systems in West European countries have increasingly been affected by the process of managerialization. The managerialization of criminal justice may result in fundamental tensions between different sets of values: efficiency and cost-effectiveness against values such as the rule of law or careful decision-making. This article concentrates on one example of the managerialization of criminal justice: the policy programme ASAP (As Soon As Possible) in the Netherlands, aimed at making the settlement of cases of high-volume petty crime both faster and more efficient. The introduction of ASAP has resulted in a strong standardization of work processes and strict time limits, for both the police and the public prosecution service. In this article we analyse how ASAP operates in practice and to what degree the policy goals of ASAP are realized. This analysis shows that the introduction of ASAP has transformed an important part of the Dutch criminal justice system into an assembly or production line. This example of the managerialization of criminal justice has resulted in important tensions between, on the one hand, managerial values and, on the other, the values of occupational (legal) professionalism.

The Abstract Police: A conceptual exploration of unintended changes of police organisations

“…An example of this development is ASAP (As Soon As Possible). In the Netherlands in 2011 this programme was introduced to make the processing of cases of high-volume crime much faster and more efficient (Salet and Terpstra, 2018). It resulted in a restructuring and far-reaching standardisation of the work processes of the police and some other agencies, including the public prosecution agency and the probation service.…”

“…An empirical study of ASAP (Salet and Terpstra, 2017, 2018) found that from the perspective of the local police, the partner agencies are now remote, both physically and symbolically. Before the introduction of ASAP, problems of petty offenders were discussed in local security networks, with local police officers as participants and in close and personal cooperation with local partners.…”

“…Some local police officers try to compensate for the resulting rigidity of the ASAP procedure, for instance by trying to avoid the IT communication and computer systems. For instance, they try to provide relevant information about the suspect to the ASAP unit directly by phone or even informally try to convince the ASAP unit of their own view, even if this is not considered to be their task (Salet and Terpstra, 2017, 2018).…”

“…In the past, local security networks were often dependent on informal relations and trust between the representatives of the partner agencies. As the study of ASAP showed (Salet and Terpstra, 2017, 2018), now the communication between agencies has become more dependent on computer systems, resulting in strong formalisation, depersonalisation and de-localisation of partner networks.…”

“…We developed this concept in several of our empirical studies on diverging aspects of police reforms in Scotland and the Netherlands. Several findings of empirical studies in both Scotland and the Netherlands (such as Axiom, 2015; Fyfe, 2018; Hail, 2016; Salet and Terpstra, 2017, 2018; SIPR, WWS and ScotCen 2017a, 2017b; Terpstra, 2017, 2018; Terpstra et al ., 2015, 2016) are used here to illustrate the increasingly abstract character of the police services.…”