| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Plea Bargaining's Triumph: A History of Plea Bargaining in America. By George Fisher. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. xiv, 397 pp. $65.00, ISBN 0-8047-4459-9.)

In the late nineteenth century, New York City police captain Alexander "Clubber" Williams observed that there was more justice at the end of his nightstick than in all the courts in the land. Williams meant that when it came to criminal law enforcement the more informal and summary the process of justice the better. Though it is debatable whether it has been for better or worse, Williams was right. Before the advent of the urban police in the mid-nineteenth century, the vast majority of American criminal cases were resolved in the highly informal, largely summary world of private prosecution in the lower courts. After the police arrived on the scene, as Williams pointed out, most encounters began and ended on the street. And since the turn of the century, as the police brought more and more cases into the courts, the overwhelming majority of them have been resolved by a plea bargain between the parties.

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