Includes bibliographical references and index.

Prosecutors and politics in comparative perspective / Michael Tonry -- Japan's prosecution system / David T. Johnson -- Prosecution and prosecutors in Poland: in quest of independence / Krzysztof Krajewski -- The Dutch prosecution service / Henk van de Bunt and Jean-Louis van Gelder -- The prosecutor in Swedish law / Petter Asp -- Prosecution in Washington state / David Boerner -- Persistent localism in the prosecutor services of North Carolina / Ronald Wright. -- Prosecution in Arizona: practical problems, prosecutorial accountability, and local solutions / Mark Miller and Samantha Caplinger.

Prosecutors are powerful figures in any criminal justice system. They decide what crimes to prosecute, whom to pursue, what charges to file, whether to plea bargain, how aggressively to seek a conviction, and what sentence to demand. In the United States, citizens can challenge decisions by police, judges, and corrections officials, but courts keep their hands off the prosecutor. In the United States and elsewhere, very little research is available that examines this powerful public role. And there is almost no work that critically compares how prosecutors function in different legal systems, from state to state or across countries. Police, courts, and prisons are much the same in all developed countries, but prosecutors differ radically. The consequences of these differences are enormous: the United States suffers from low levels of public confidence in the criminal justice system and high levels of incarceration; in much of Western Europe, people report high confidence and support moderate crime control policies; in much of Eastern Europe, people's perceptions of the law are marked by cynicism and despair. This volume unpacks these national differences and provides insight into this key area of social control.