Comparative System vs. International Criminal Justice
The analysis emphasizes similarities and differences in matters related to government, police, the judiciary, law, correctional institutions and various other critical areas.
Comparative Criminal Justice, as a field, can therefore be best understood as the use of comparative analyses brought to bear in order to understand the historical, political, economic, social and cultural influences that give rise to various countries' systems of justice. The purpose of these analyses is to provide an in-depth understanding of the similarities and differences of each system. Such an understanding broadens the minds of readers and those involved in various countries' criminal justice system by making them aware of the cultural contributions and connections that serve as foundational to their systems of justice; this, in turn, provides them with a more relativistic perspective on various pertinent critical issues related to crime and justice (see: Dammer, 2000).
However, the field of comparative criminal justice is not independent of the field of international criminal justice, although there are some differences. Regarding the differences, Rounds (1999) has noted that the two approaches to crime and justice have somewhat different purposes. Specifically, it is reported that comparative criminal justice, as a field, seeks to describe and compare systems for the purpose of eliminating an ethnocentric attitude. International criminal justice, on the other hand, places a strong emphasis on improving criminal justice systems and examining issues that cross international boundaries.
As a field, Rounds (1999) states, the international approach examines criminal issues common to most countries (e.g., drug trafficking, political corruption, domestic violence, money laundering, juvenile delinquency), attempts to look at the various ways each country h