How Does the Criminal Justice System Operate from an Empirical Point of View? An Analysis of the Netherlands Case Ludmila Mendonça Lopes Ribeiro Abstract This study analyzes how the Dutch criminal justice system works from an abstract and a practical perspective. Using data collected through quantitative (police and prosecution databases) and qualitative (interviewing of key participants familiar with the databases and observation of some ongoing trials) procedures, it identifies the main features of this system as well as the main problems that researchers might have when working with data recorded by the police and the prosecution service. This is a methodological paper that intends to contribute with the data analysis research in this field. Keywords Crime measures . Dutch criminal justice system . Judiciary . Police . Prosecution service Introduction Despite the scholarly and popular interest in the administration of criminal justice, there are few methodological discussions about the data produced by them and how the information would be used to analyze the performance of the system. Consequently, this paper is an attempt to develop an explicit methodological framework by which the practices in the administration can be depicted and explained. Herein, I characterize the criminal justice system in terms of a large-scale organization, and then examine some of the administration tasks in terms of established attribution and data generated by them to supply public policies that attempt to improve the their performance. Following Feeley (1973), I assume that the formal task of the criminal justice system is to process arrests, determine guilt or innocence, and, in case of guilt, to specify an appropriate sanction. The major actors in the organization include the defendant, prosecutor, defense counsel, judge, court clerk, and to varying degrees, other persons such as witnesses, additional policemen and researchers. A system of the administration of L. M. L. Ribeiro (*) Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rua Tupis, 346 apt 902, Centro, Belo Horizonte, MG 22010-050, Brazil e-mail: ludmila.ribeiro@gmail.com Eur J Crim Policy Res (2011) 17:267–284 DOI 10.1007/s10610-010-9131-x Published online: 15 December 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010