<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The main aim of this article is to show one of the social trap of the Polish justice system. Using Mertonian category of 'unforeseen consequences' the authors show how the constellations of interests of the main social actors in Polish courts leads to far-from-optimal effects. Inside the system, judges, court staff, lawyers, defendants and others fall into the trap of unforeseen consequences. At the same time, from the macro-social perspective, the effects imply increasing fragmentation of society, instead of cohesion, for increasing which the whole judicial system is constructed.</p></abstract>

The main aim of this article is to show one of the social trap of the Polish justice system. Using Mertonian category of 'unforeseen consequences' the authors show how the constellations of interests of the main social actors in Polish courts leads to far-from-optimal effects. Inside the system, judges, court staff, lawyers, defendants and others fall into the trap of unforeseen consequences. At the same time, from the macro-social perspective, the effects imply increasing fragmentation of society, instead of cohesion, for increasing which the whole judicial system is constructed.

Incarceration as a result of the play of interests in the Polish judicial system

Research in Social Change

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Incarceration as a result of the play of interests in the Polish judicial system"}

The main aim of this article is to show one of the social trap of the Polish justice system. Using Mertonian category of 'unforeseen consequences' the authors...

Incarceration as a result of the play of interests in the Polish judicial system

Published Online: Jul 21, 2021

Page range: 19 - 41

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rsc-2019-0002

© 2019 Bartosz Mika, Arkadiusz Peisert published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.