Malcolm M. Feeley

One of the three leading scholars from political science to make major contributions on the study of courts in the legal process with major books on the reality of lower courts (The Process is the Punishment, 1979), federal assistance to state criminal justice systems (The Policy Dilemma, 1980), the political problematics of reform of criminal courts (Court Reform on Trial, 2013) and the contradictions and tensions of federalism in (Federalism: Political Identity and Tragic Compromise,2011). Feeley is as well an expert on criminal law and crime policy. He has also conducted historical studies of women and crime, the origins of plea bargaining, and the importance of private contractors in contributing innovations in the Anglo-American criminal justice system, even as they have expanded the scope of social control.