“McJustice”: On the McDonaldization of Criminal Justice

Abstract

This essay examines the “McDonaldization” of criminal justice or “McJustice.” In doing so, it provides another useful way of understanding the development and operation of criminal justice in the United States. The McDonaldization of various social institutions has succeeded because it provides advantages over other, usually older, methods of doing business. It has made McDonaldized social institutions bureaucratic and rational in a Weberian sense and, thus, more efficient, calculable, predictable, and controlling over people (often by nonhuman technologies). The principal problem with McDonaldized institutions, and another characteristic of the process, is irrationality or, as Ritzer calls it, the “irrationality of rationality.” A primary purpose of this essay is to expose some of the irrationalities of “McJustice” and to suggest some possible responses to them.