Evaluating Justice Systems in Capitalist Societies This study casts a critical eye on criminal justice through a sociological lens. It focuses primarily on the United States but also on other capitalist countries. Two terminological problems arise. First, sociology should be understood in the broadest sense. It does not refer just to the academic discipline but to a viewpoint on humans and their works in collective action. The term criminal justice also has two usages. One points to the policies and practices of criminal justice institutions, the other to the study of those institutions by the academic discipline of criminal justice. Unfortunately, this second confusion of usage remains less easily clarified, so the reader will have to rely on context.