Career Criminal Prosecution: Potential Objectives

The concept of career criminal programs, which involves concentrating prosecutors' resources on repeat offenders with serious criminal records, is more than five years old. Federal, state, and local officials have instituted more than fifty projects utilizing federal or state Law Enforcement Assistance Administration grants. These programs have been immensely popular among practitioners and the press. They are routinely praised as being one of the most significant innovations that the LEAA has produced to date. Nevertheless, when practitioners take a hardheaded look at what these programs accomplish, they are uncertain about the ultimate impact of the programs. There is no confusion about career criminal