1. Introduction

Criminal justice systems in democratic societies are built on a delicate balance. On the one hand, they are entrusted with the task of combating crime and maintaining public order; on the other, they are constitutionally and normatively bound to respect human dignity, fundamental rights, and the rule of law. This balance presupposes that criminal investigation is an exceptional form of state intervention, activated only where there is concrete, individualized, and legally sufficient suspicion.

In principle, the legitimacy of criminal justice does not derive from the quantity of investigations conducted, but from their quality: selectivity, proportionality, and alignment with human rights standards. Criminal law is traditionally conceived as ultima ratio – a last resort mechanism -intended to address serious violations of social norms rather than to regulate ordinary social life. Recent empirical developments in Türkiye, however, suggest a significant departure from this paradigm. Official data published by the Ministry of Justice indicate a sustained and substantial increase in the number of criminal investigations initiated by public prosecutors over the past decade. The scale of this expansion raises a fundamental question: has criminal investigation ceased to be an exception and become a routine mode of governance?

This question is not merely statistical. At the heart of the issue lies the transformation of suspect status. Being formally designated as a suspect is not a neutral procedural label; it carries legal, social, and psychological consequences. When this status is assigned to millions of individuals each year – many of whom will never be prosecuted or tried – it challenges core principles such as the presumption of innocence and what is increasingly recognized in human-rights doctrine as the right not to be stigmatized.

The problem is therefore not limited to isolated cases of overreach or procedural error. Rather, it concerns the structural operation of the criminal justice system. When a system systematically produces large volumes of suspects while filtering out most cases at a later stage through non-prosecution decisions, the burden of criminal suspicion is effectively shifted onto society at large. In such a framework, exposure to criminal investigation becomes a common social experience rather than an exceptional legal event.

This article argues that Türkiye’s criminal justice system is undergoing a crisis of proportionality and legitimacy. Drawing on official justice statistics, it demonstrates how the mass expansion of investigations has led to the normalization of suspicion, the erosion of the right not to be stigmatized, and a growing disconnection between criminal justice institutions and the society they are meant to serve. 

The analysis proceeds in a step-by-step manner. Following this introduction, the article examines the normative foundations of criminal justice in comparative and human-rights perspectives, before turning to empirical data on investigation volumes, suspect ratios, non-prosecution decisions, victims, and children. It then situates these findings within criminological theories of social deviation and labeling, and concludes by assessing the broader implications for legitimacy, trust, and the future of criminal justice. At its core, this study asks a simple but unsettling question:
Is the criminal justice system protecting society from crime, or is society increasingly being governed through criminal suspicion?

2. Normative Foundations of Criminal Justice: A Human Rights

Criminal justice systems do not operate in a normative vacuum. Their legitimacy, scope, and limits are shaped by constitutional principles, international human rights law, and long-standing doctrines of criminal law theory. Across democratic legal systems, a shared normative consensus has emerged: criminal justice is a bounded form of state power, justified only to the extent that it is necessary, proportionate, and respectful of individual rights.

2.1 Criminal Justice as a Limited State Power

In modern constitutional thought, criminal justice represents the most intrusive form of public authority. Investigation, prosecution, and punishment directly affect liberty, reputation, privacy, and personal autonomy. For this reason, criminal law has historically been conceived as ultima ratio – a last resort to be used only when other regulatory or social mechanisms prove insufficient. This principle is reflected in comparative legal systems in several ways:

• high thresholds for initiating criminal investigations,
• strict evidentiary standards for prosecutorial action,
• procedural safeguards designed to minimize unnecessary exposure to criminal suspicion.

The underlying assumption is clear: not every social conflict, regulatory breach, or interpersonal dispute warrants criminal intervention. Criminal justice is meant to target serious and socially harmful conduct, not to serve as a general mechanism of governance.

2.2 Proportionality as a Structural Requirement

Proportionality occupies a central place in contemporary criminal justice theory and human rights jurisprudence. It operates on three interconnected levels:

• Suitability – criminal investigation must be capable of achieving a legitimate aim.
• Necessity –  no less intrusive measure should be available to achieve the same aim.
• Balancing – the social benefit of intervention must outweigh the harm inflicted on individual rights.

Importantly, proportionality applies not only to punishment, but also to investigative practices themselves. The decision to initiate an investigation, to assign suspect status, or to subject an individual to procedural obligations is already a form of coercive state action. When such actions are applied at scale, proportionality becomes a systemic question, not merely a case-by-case assessment.

2.3 Presumption of Innocence Beyond the Trial Stage

The presumption of innocence is often discussed primarily in relation to adjudication and conviction. However, comparative human rights doctrine increasingly emphasizes that this principle must extend to pre-trial phases, including investigation. In practice, this means that individuals should not be treated – legally or socially – as criminals merely because they are under investigation. The formal designation of “suspect” is therefore not a neutral procedural step; it carries implicit judgments that can affect reputation, employment, social standing, and psychological well-being. For this reason, many legal systems seek to:

• limit public exposure during investigations,
• restrict unnecessary formalization of suspect status,
• ensure early filtering mechanisms that prevent unwarranted investigative escalation.

2.4 The Right Not to Be Stigmatized

Closely linked to the presumption of innocence is what has come to be described as the right not to be stigmatized. While not always codified as a standalone right, it emerges from the intersection of:

• human dignity,
• protection of reputation,
• private life guarantees,
• and fair trial principles.

This right recognizes that legal processes themselves can cause harm, even in the absence of conviction. Stigmatization may occur through official records, institutional labeling, or repeated interactions with law enforcement and prosecutorial bodies. When such exposure becomes widespread, stigmatization is no longer accidental – it becomes structural.

2.5 Crime as Social Deviation and the Logic of Selectivity

Classical and modern criminology conceptualize crime as a form of social deviation, not as a statistically normal behavior. This conceptualization carries an important normative implication: criminal justice systems must be selective by design. Selectivity does not imply arbitrariness; rather, it reflects the idea that criminal law should focus on conduct that genuinely threatens core social interests. When investigative reach expands to encompass large segments of the population, the theoretical distinction between deviation and normality begins to collapse. At that point, criminal justice risks shifting from:

• responding to deviance to
• producing suspicion as a generalized social condition.

2.6 Normative Expectations and Analytical Benchmark

The principles outlined above – ultima ratio, proportionality, presumption of innocence, non-stigmatization, and selectivity – form the normative benchmark against which any criminal justice system must be assessed. They do not demand leniency, nor do they deny the reality of crime. Rather, they insist that the fight against crime must not come at the cost of transforming society itself into a suspect population.

The following sections move from this normative framework to empirical reality. By examining official justice statistics from Türkiye, the article assesses whether the current operation of criminal investigations remains compatible with these foundational principles – or whether a structural disconnect has emerged between normative ideals and institutional practice.

3. Quantitative Expansion of Criminal Investigations in Türkiye (2015–2024)

Normative principles such as proportionality, selectivity, and ultima ratio acquire real meaning only when measured against empirical practice. In the context of criminal justice, the most revealing indicator of systemic orientation is the volume of criminal investigations initiated by prosecutorial authorities. Investigation figures reflect how readily the state activates its most intrusive legal machinery and how broadly criminal suspicion is distributed across society. Official statistics published by the Turkish Ministry of Justice demonstrate a persistent and structural expansion of criminal investigations over the past decade. Between 2015 and 2024, the number of investigation files opened annually by public prosecutors increased from approximately 3.5 million to over 5.7 million, representing an increase of more than sixty percent within a ten-year period.

This growth cannot be plausibly attributed to demographic change. During the same period, Türkiye’s population grew at a far more modest rate. Nor can the expansion be explained solely by extraordinary or temporary conditions. Even accounting for short-term fluctuations – such as the slight decline observed during the pandemic year – the overall trajectory remains upward and uninterrupted. The data point to a systemic shift, not an episodic anomaly.

3.1 Investigation Volume as a Structural Indicator

Criminal investigation is not a neutral administrative act. Each investigation file represents the formal activation of coercive legal authority and necessarily involves at least one individual designated as a suspect. In many cases, multiple suspects are involved in a single file. Accordingly, investigation volume functions as a proxy for the scale of criminal suspicion imposed by the state.

When annual investigation figures reach several million, the implication is not merely bureaucratic congestion. It suggests that criminal justice has moved closer to becoming a routine regulatory instrument, rather than an exceptional response to serious wrongdoing. In such a context, investigation ceases to operate as a carefully calibrated gateway to criminal adjudication and begins to resemble a default mechanism for managing social conflict.

3.2 Investigation Growth and Population Ratios

When investigation data are assessed in relation to population size, the disproportion becomes even more apparent. Under the conservative assumption that each investigation file involves only one suspect, criminal investigations initiated in 2024 correspond to nearly seven percent of the total population. When limited to the adult population, this ratio increases further. This means that, in practical terms, millions of individuals each year are formally brought within the orbit of criminal suspicion, irrespective of whether prosecution ultimately follows. Over a ten-year period, the cumulative number of investigation-based suspect contacts approaches the size of the national population itself. Such figures fundamentally challenge the premise that criminal justice targets a small, exceptional segment of society. Instead, they indicate a model in which exposure to criminal investigation has become a statistically ordinary social experience.

3.3 Normalization of Investigation as Governance

The sustained expansion of investigation volume signals a transformation in how criminal justice is deployed. Rather than functioning primarily as a response to clearly defined criminal conduct, investigation increasingly operates as a generalized governance technique – a means of monitoring, categorizing, and managing behavior through the language and procedures of criminal law. This development carries important implications:

• investigative thresholds appear to have lowered,
• alternative regulatory or restorative mechanisms are sidelined,
• and criminal law is increasingly used to process conflicts that may not warrant penal intervention.

The result is a shift from a selective justice model to a high-throughput investigative system, in which filtering occurs late rather than early.

3.4 From Expansion to Structural Risk

At this stage, the issue is not whether criminal investigations are legally authorized, but whether their scale is normatively defensible. A system that initiates millions of investigations annually necessarily redistributes the burdens of criminal suspicion across society. These burdens include uncertainty, reputational harm, procedural obligations, and psychological stress – costs that persist even when cases are later dismissed. From a proportionality perspective, such a system raises a critical concern: when criminal investigation becomes ubiquitous, its exceptional character collapses. This collapse sets the stage for the next analytical step. The expansion of investigations is not merely a matter of volume; it reshapes the meaning of suspect status itself. The following section therefore turns to the massification of suspect designation and examines how criminal justice, in practice, produces suspicion on a societal scale.

4. From Exception to Normality: The Massification of Suspect Status

The most consequential effect of the quantitative expansion of criminal investigations is not institutional overload, but the transformation of suspect status itself. What was once conceived as a narrowly circumscribed procedural designation has, in practice, evolved into a mass social condition. This shift represents a profound change in the relationship between criminal justice and society.

3.1 The Legal Meaning of “Suspect”

In criminal procedure, the designation of an individual as a suspect is intended to be a precise and temporary legal status. It presupposes the existence of concrete indicators linking a specific person to a specific criminal act. Normatively, this status is justified only where individualized suspicion reaches a legally defined threshold.

Suspect status is therefore not meant to be routine. It is the legal expression of an exceptional inference, carrying significant procedural and symbolic weight. Even absent arrest or prosecution, being formally categorized as a suspect entails exposure to investigative powers, legal obligations, and institutional records.

3.2 Statistical Reality: Suspect Status at Scale

When investigation data are translated into suspect figures, the scale of exposure becomes unmistakable. Even under conservative assumptions—one suspect per investigation—millions of individuals are formally designated as suspects each year. In proportional terms, this translates into a substantial share of the adult population entering the criminal justice system annually as suspects.

Over a ten-year period, the cumulative number of suspect designations approaches the size of the entire population. While this does not imply that each individual is suspected only once, repetition itself reinforces the systemic nature of the phenomenon. Criminal suspicion, in this context, is no longer confined to marginal groups but is widely distributed across social strata.

3.3 The Collapse of Exceptionalism

This empirical reality undermines one of the core premises of criminal law: that suspect status is exceptional. When exposure to suspicion becomes statistically normal, the conceptual boundary between law-abiding citizen and criminal suspect is blurred.

The consequence is not merely semantic. Exceptional legal categories derive their legitimacy from rarity. Once normalized, they lose their justificatory foundation. A system in which being a suspect is a common life event cannot plausibly claim to reserve criminal intervention for genuinely extraordinary circumstances.

3.4 Social and Institutional Effects

The massification of suspect status produces several interrelated effects:

• Psychological normalization of suspicion: individuals internalize the idea that interaction with criminal justice is an ordinary risk of social life.
• Institutional desensitization: investigative authorities operate in high-volume environments where individualization becomes structurally difficult.
• Symbolic dilution of innocence: the presumption of innocence remains doctrinally intact but is socially weakened when suspicion is widespread.

In such an environment, criminal justice ceases to function as a targeted response mechanism and begins to operate as a pervasive classificatory system.

3.5 From Legal Status to Social Identity

Suspect status does not remain confined to procedural documents. It frequently spills over into social life through employment checks, administrative records, digital traces, and informal networks. Even where investigations are terminated without prosecution, the social memory of suspicion often persists.

At scale, this dynamic produces a society in which criminal suspicion functions as a latent identity marker—not always visible, but always potentially activated. This is precisely the condition that criminological labeling theory warns against: the transformation of legal categorization into enduring social identity.

3.6 Analytical Implications

The massification of suspect status is not an accidental by-product of efficiency or enforcement zeal. It is the predictable outcome of a system that prioritizes investigative volume over early selectivity. In such a model, filtering occurs late—through non-prosecution—rather than early, through restrained initiation.

This structural choice shifts the cost of uncertainty from the state to individuals and society. It also prepares the ground for the next empirical finding: a system that generates many suspects but relatively few prosecutions.

The following section therefore examines the high prevalence of non-prosecution decisions and explains why they signal not effective filtering, but a systemic filtering failure.

Section 4 – High Non-Prosecution Rates and the Failure of Early Filtering

In a well-functioning criminal justice system, the investigation phase serves as a protective filter. Its purpose is not merely to gather evidence, but to ensure that only cases meeting a legally meaningful threshold of suspicion proceed to prosecution. Non-prosecution decisions are therefore an essential part of prosecutorial discretion—but only when they operate as an early and selective safeguard, not as a late corrective mechanism.

The Turkish criminal justice data reveal a markedly different pattern. A striking proportion of criminal investigations—consistently exceeding half of all finalized cases in recent years—end with decisions not to prosecute. While this might superficially appear to reflect careful screening, closer examination suggests the opposite: screening is occurring too late, after individuals have already been subjected to the full weight of criminal suspicion.

4.1 The Scale of Non-Prosecution Decisions

Official statistics indicate that more than fifty percent of concluded investigation files result in non-prosecution decisions. In absolute terms, this translates into millions of cases annually in which individuals are formally investigated, designated as suspects, and later released from the process without indictment.

The scale of these figures is critical. Non-prosecution is not an exceptional outcome correcting rare investigative errors; it is the dominant mode of resolution. This inversion raises an unavoidable question:
if such a high proportion of cases are deemed unfit for prosecution, why are they initiated as criminal investigations in the first place?

4.2 Late Filtering and Its Human Cost

The central problem is not prosecutorial restraint, but timing. Filtering occurs after:

• suspect designation,
• investigative questioning,
• procedural obligations,
• and often prolonged uncertainty.

From the individual’s perspective, the damage associated with criminal suspicion—reputational anxiety, psychological stress, professional risk—has already materialized by the time non-prosecution is decided. The eventual closure of the case does not undo these effects; it merely confirms that the intrusion was unnecessary in hindsight.

In this sense, non-prosecution decisions function less as safeguards and more as post hoc acknowledgments of overreach.

4.3 The Paradox of “Many Suspects, Few Trials”

The coexistence of mass suspect production and high non-prosecution rates reveals a structural paradox at the heart of the system. Criminal justice simultaneously:

• casts an extremely wide net at the investigative stage,
• yet advances only a limited fraction of cases to adjudication.

This paradox cannot be explained by legal complexity alone. Rather, it reflects a systemic preference for investigate first, evaluate later. Such an approach externalizes the costs of uncertainty onto society, transforming criminal investigation into a low-threshold, high-volume process.

4.4 Normative Assessment: Proportionality Revisited

From a proportionality standpoint, this model is difficult to justify. If more than half of all investigations predictably result in non-prosecution, then the necessity and suitability of initiating those investigations must be questioned.

A proportional system would:

• raise investigative thresholds,
• rely more heavily on alternative mechanisms,
• and preserve criminal suspicion for cases with a realistic prospect of prosecution.

Instead, the prevailing practice tolerates widespread intrusion on the assumption that non-prosecution will later restore balance. This assumption is normatively flawed: rights violations cannot be retroactively cured by procedural closure.

4.5 Systemic Consequences

The failure of early filtering produces cascading effects:

• investigative resources are diluted,
• prosecutorial focus is fragmented,
• and public confidence in the coherence of criminal justice declines.

Most importantly, individuals experience criminal justice not as a measured guardian of legality, but as a process of exposure without resolution. This experience erodes trust and reinforces perceptions of arbitrariness.

4.6 Transition to the Next Section

The failure of early filtering does not affect suspects alone. When combined with victim and complainant data, it becomes clear that criminal justice institutions are engaging with millions of people annually on both sides of the process. The next section therefore broadens the analytical lens to examine the overall social reach of criminal justice by assessing suspects and victims together.

Section 5 – Victims, Suspects, and the Expanding Social Reach of Criminal Justice

Assessing the impact of criminal justice solely through suspect figures captures only part of the picture. A more complete understanding emerges when victims and complainants are considered alongside suspects. Together, these categories reveal the true social reach of criminal justice—the extent to which the system permeates everyday life and structures social interaction.

5.1 Victims and Complainants as System Participants

Criminal justice institutions do not engage only with those accused of wrongdoing. Each investigation also involves individuals who appear as victims or complainants, often repeatedly. Official statistics indicate that millions of people each year interact with prosecutorial authorities in these capacities.

From a normative perspective, victim participation is essential. Criminal justice must offer protection, recognition, and access to remedies. However, when victim engagement reaches mass proportions year after year, it signals not only responsiveness, but also the frequency with which ordinary social conflicts are translated into criminal processes.

5.2 Aggregated Exposure: A High-Contact System

When suspects and victims are assessed together, the scale of contact becomes striking. In recent years, eight to nine million individuals annually have entered the criminal justice system either as suspects or as victims/complainants. Even allowing for overlap between these categories, the level of engagement remains extraordinarily high.

At this magnitude, criminal justice can no longer be described as a marginal or specialized institution. It becomes a high-contact system, one that touches a substantial portion of society on a regular basis. This degree of penetration reshapes how legality, conflict, and state authority are experienced in everyday life.

5.3 Criminal Justice as a Default Conflict-Processing Mechanism

The aggregation of suspect and victim data suggests a deeper structural shift: criminal justice is increasingly functioning as a default mechanism for processing social disputes. Issues that might previously have been addressed through civil law, administrative regulation, mediation, or social services are now routinely reframed as criminal matters.

This transformation carries significant implications:

• criminal law absorbs conflicts beyond its normative remit,
• investigative institutions are burdened with heterogeneous cases,
• and social problems are reinterpreted through a punitive lens.

In such a setting, the criminal process becomes a generalized forum for social grievances, rather than a targeted response to serious crime.

5.4 Social Saturation and Institutional Perception

High levels of system contact also influence how criminal justice is perceived. For both suspects and victims, interaction with prosecutors and law enforcement is often characterized by delay, uncertainty, and limited communication. When these experiences are widespread, they shape collective attitudes.

Instead of being perceived primarily as a source of protection and resolution, criminal justice risks being viewed as:

• slow and impersonal,
• intrusive rather than supportive,
• and disconnected from the lived realities of those it serves.

This perception feeds directly into concerns about legitimacy, which will be addressed more fully in later sections.

5.5 Beyond Numbers: Qualitative Implications

The expanding social reach of criminal justice is not merely a quantitative phenomenon. It has qualitative consequences for social trust, institutional credibility, and the meaning of legality. A system that routinely engages millions of individuals each year inevitably influences how society understands:

• responsibility and blame,
• conflict and resolution,
• authority and compliance.

When exposure becomes ubiquitous, the symbolic power of criminal justice shifts. What was once exceptional becomes expected; what was once serious becomes routine.

5.6 Preparing the Ground for the Next Inquiry

The saturation of criminal justice contact across society raises a critical question: how does this system operate when it encounters those who are normatively entitled to heightened protection? The answer is particularly important in the context of children.

The next section therefore turns to juvenile justice and examines how the mass expansion of criminal investigation affects minors—an area where proportionality, protection, and restraint are most urgently required.

Section 6 – Children Drawn into Criminal Justice: From Protection to Penal Exposure

The operation of a criminal justice system can be most critically assessed by examining how it treats those who are least capable of bearing its burdens. Children occupy a distinct normative position in criminal law: they are not merely younger defendants, but individuals entitled to heightened protection, reduced culpability, and a justice framework oriented toward welfare rather than punishment.

In principle, juvenile justice systems are designed to insulate children from the full force of penal intervention. Criminal proceedings involving minors are meant to be exceptional, minimal, and strictly necessary. Yet empirical data from Türkiye indicate that children are increasingly and routinely drawn into criminal investigation processes, calling into question whether the protective paradigm remains operational in practice.

6.1 The Conceptual Framework: Children and Criminal Responsibility

Turkish law, like many modern legal systems, avoids labeling minors as “criminals” and instead employs the term children pushed into crime. This linguistic choice reflects a substantive normative position: children’s involvement in unlawful behavior is understood as the product of social, economic, familial, and developmental factors rather than autonomous criminal intent.

Accordingly, juvenile justice is meant to prioritize:

• prevention and social support,
• educational and rehabilitative measures,
• diversion from formal criminal proceedings.

Criminal investigation, within this framework, is supposed to function as a last resort, activated only when no alternative mechanism can adequately protect the child or society.

6.2 Empirical Reality: Scale and Persistence

Official justice statistics reveal that each year hundreds of thousands of investigation files involve minors. While children constitute a smaller percentage of total suspects compared to adults, the absolute numbers remain striking. Over a ten-year period, the cumulative number of child-related investigations reaches well over one million instances.

This scale is incompatible with the notion of exceptionality. A system that repeatedly exposes large numbers of children to criminal investigation cannot plausibly claim that penal intervention is reserved for rare or unavoidable cases.

6.3 From Welfare Logic to Penal Routine

The routine involvement of children in criminal investigations suggests a gradual shift from a welfare-based juvenile justice model toward a proceduralized penal framework. Even when investigations do not lead to prosecution, children are subjected to:

• formal questioning,
• contact with law enforcement,
• institutional categorization as suspects,
• and the psychological weight of criminal accusation.

These experiences are not neutral. Developmental psychology and juvenile justice research consistently show that early exposure to criminal processes increases vulnerability, reinforces deviant self-perception, and weakens trust in institutions.

6.4 Stigmatization and Long-Term Consequences

For children, the consequences of stigmatization are particularly severe. Unlike adults, minors are still forming their social identity, educational trajectory, and sense of belonging. Being formally designated as a suspect—even temporarily—can have disproportionate effects on:

• school engagement,
• peer relationships,
• family dynamics,
• and future interactions with public authorities.

Importantly, the eventual termination of an investigation does not erase these effects. In many cases, the stigma associated with criminal suspicion persists long after legal closure, undermining the very goal of reintegration that juvenile justice purports to serve.

6.5 Normative Tension: Last Resort in Name Only

The routine criminal investigation of children exposes a fundamental normative tension. While legal doctrine affirms that penal intervention should be a last resort, empirical practice suggests that investigation has become a first-line response to a wide range of behaviors involving minors.

This discrepancy signals more than inconsistent application; it reflects a structural erosion of restraint. When the system normalizes penal exposure for children, it abandons its most basic commitment to proportionality and protection.

6.6 Analytical Implications

Children represent the clearest illustration of the broader problem addressed in this article. If a criminal justice system applies suspicion at scale even to those whom it formally recognizes as vulnerable and deserving of special care, then the issue cannot be reduced to enforcement zeal or procedural inefficiency.

Rather, it points to a deeper transformation: the replacement of protection with control as the governing logic of criminal justice.

The next section situates this transformation within criminological theory by examining how crime is understood as social deviation—and how mass suspicion gives rise to labeling and normalization of criminal identity.

Section 7 – Crime as Social Deviation and the Problem of Labeling

Criminal law and criminology have long operated on a shared foundational assumption: crime is a form of social deviation, not a statistically ordinary behavior. This assumption underpins the legitimacy of criminal justice itself. If crime were normal or ubiquitous, the justification for exceptional legal intervention would collapse. It is precisely because crime is understood as deviant that criminal law claims the authority to intervene forcefully, yet selectively.

The empirical patterns outlined in previous sections—mass investigations, widespread suspect designation, and routine non-prosecution—sit uneasily with this theoretical foundation. They suggest a system that no longer treats crime as deviation, but rather processes large segments of ordinary social life through criminal suspicion.

7.1 Crime, Normality, and the Limits of Penal Intervention

Classical criminological theory draws a clear boundary between normal social conduct and deviant behavior. Criminal law, in this view, is not a general regulatory framework but a last-resort response to conduct that seriously threatens core social values.

This boundary performs a critical normative function: it protects society from over-penalization. When criminal justice intervenes too broadly, it risks redefining normal social behavior as suspect, thereby undermining its own moral authority.

The scale of criminal investigation observed in Türkiye challenges this boundary. When millions of individuals are routinely designated as suspects, criminal suspicion ceases to mark deviation and begins to resemble a generalized condition of citizenship.

7.2 Labeling Theory: Crime as a Product of Institutional Response

Labeling theory provides a particularly powerful lens through which to understand this transformation. Rather than treating crime as an inherent quality of certain acts or individuals, labeling theorists argue that criminality is produced through social and institutional reactions.

From this perspective, the designation of “suspect” is not a neutral procedural step. It is a symbolic act that assigns meaning, status, and expectation. Even in the absence of conviction, individuals who are formally processed by criminal justice institutions may internalize or be socially assigned a criminal identity.

When applied selectively, this process may be unavoidable. When applied at scale, it becomes structurally harmful.

7.3 Mass Labeling and the Normalization of Suspicion

The Turkish data illustrate a phenomenon that labeling theory explicitly warns against: mass labeling. In such a system, the problem is no longer that some individuals are unfairly stigmatized, but that stigmatization itself becomes normalized.

This normalization produces several distortions:

• criminal suspicion loses its signaling function,
• institutional actors become desensitized to its consequences,
• and individuals come to expect exposure to criminal processes as part of ordinary life.

At this point, labeling ceases to identify deviance and instead redefines normality through suspicion.

7.4 Social Consequences of Widespread Labeling

The societal effects of mass labeling extend beyond individual harm. When suspicion becomes widespread, it reshapes collective expectations and social relations. Trust between citizens and institutions erodes, as criminal justice is perceived less as a protector and more as a pervasive monitoring presence.

Moreover, widespread labeling can become self-reinforcing. Individuals who experience criminal suspicion—even without prosecution—may:

• disengage from institutions,
• develop adversarial attitudes toward authority,
• or encounter repeated scrutiny due to prior exposure.

In this way, mass labeling does not merely reflect crime patterns; it actively contributes to social fragmentation.

7.5 From Deviance Control to Social Control

The shift described above marks a transition from deviance control to general social control. Criminal justice no longer targets specific harmful behaviors but increasingly manages populations through categorization, monitoring, and procedural exposure.

This transformation is not accidental. It follows logically from a system that privileges investigative volume over early restraint and accepts widespread suspicion as an acceptable cost of governance.

However, such a model is fundamentally at odds with the normative foundations of criminal law. When suspicion becomes a governing principle, criminal justice risks losing its identity as a rights-based institution.

7.6 Setting the Stage for Rights-Based Analysis

The criminological implications of mass labeling lead directly to a rights-based question: what happens to fundamental protections when suspicion becomes ordinary? Chief among these protections is the right not to be stigmatized, which is inseparable from human dignity and the presumption of innocence.

The following section therefore turns to the legal dimension of this problem, examining how mass suspicion produces a structural violation of the right not to be stigmatized, rather than isolated or incidental harm.

Section 8 – The Structural Violation of the Right Not to Be Stigmatized

The expansion of criminal investigations and the mass designation of suspects do not merely raise concerns of efficiency or policy preference. They implicate a core human rights issue: the right not to be stigmatized. This right, while not always articulated as a standalone guarantee, is firmly embedded in the principles of human dignity, the presumption of innocence, and the protection of private life. When criminal justice operates at scale in a manner that routinely exposes individuals to suspicion without adjudication, stigmatization ceases to be accidental and becomes structural.

8.1 The Legal Foundations of the Right Not to Be Stigmatized

The right not to be stigmatized derives from several interlocking legal norms. The presumption of innocence prohibits treating individuals as guilty before a final judicial determination. The protection of reputation and private life safeguards individuals against unjustified harm to their social standing. Human dignity requires that state power be exercised in a manner that respects the intrinsic worth of the individual.

Together, these principles establish a clear boundary: criminal justice procedures must not impose social punishment in the absence of legal guilt. The mere fact of being investigated should not translate into lasting reputational damage or social exclusion.

8.2 From Individual Harm to Systemic Exposure

In conventional legal analysis, stigmatization is often addressed through isolated incidents—public disclosures, media statements, or excessive procedural publicity. Such cases are treated as deviations from otherwise lawful practice. The situation examined in this study is fundamentally different.

When millions of individuals are formally designated as suspects each year, and when a majority of those cases end without prosecution, stigmatization is no longer the product of error or misconduct. It is the predictable outcome of routine institutional behavior. The system itself generates exposure to suspicion on a mass scale.

At this point, the relevant question shifts from whether stigmatization occurs to how it is embedded in the structure of criminal justice.

8.3 The Ineffectiveness of Ex Post Remedies

One might argue that non-prosecution decisions, acquittals, or procedural dismissals restore the balance disrupted by investigation. However, such remedies are inherently limited. They operate after the harm has already occurred.

Reputational damage, psychological stress, professional uncertainty, and social labeling are not undone by the formal closure of a case. In practice, individuals often carry the imprint of suspicion long after legal proceedings have ended. From a human rights perspective, this means that ex post correction cannot justify ex ante overreach.

8.4 Structural Disproportionality and Rights Erosion

The scale of criminal investigation in Türkiye reveals a form of disproportionality that goes beyond individual cases. When exposure to criminal suspicion becomes statistically normal, the right not to be stigmatized loses its practical effectiveness. It remains recognized in principle but eroded in operation.

This erosion is particularly acute because it affects individuals who are ultimately found not to warrant prosecution. In such cases, the system imposes the burdens of suspicion without delivering the justificatory outcome—judicial accountability—that could potentially legitimize those burdens.

8.5 Vulnerable Groups and Intensified Harm

The structural nature of stigmatization is especially evident in its impact on vulnerable groups, including children. As shown earlier, minors are routinely drawn into criminal investigations despite the formal commitment to protection and diversion. For them, stigmatization carries heightened risks, affecting education, identity formation, and long-term social integration.

When the system exposes even its most protected subjects to routine suspicion, the claim that stigmatization is incidental becomes untenable.

8.6 Rights Without Reality

The analysis thus reveals a troubling disjunction between rights as articulated and rights as experienced. The right not to be stigmatized continues to exist doctrinally, but its protective force is hollowed out by institutional practice. This gap between norm and reality signals a structural rights violation, one that cannot be remedied through case-by-case litigation alone.

Addressing such a violation requires rethinking how and when criminal suspicion is activated—not merely how it is concluded.

8.7 Transition to the Final Inquiry

The structural violation of the right not to be stigmatized has consequences beyond individual harm. It reshapes the relationship between criminal justice institutions and society as a whole. When suspicion becomes ordinary and rights protections lose practical force, the legitimacy of the system itself is placed at risk.

The final section therefore turns to the broader societal implications of these findings, examining how mass suspicion transforms criminal justice from a source of legitimacy into a source of alienation and distrust.

Section 9 – From Legitimacy to Alienation: Criminal Justice and Society

The ultimate test of any criminal justice system lies not only in its formal legality, but in the relationship it establishes with society. In democratic systems governed by the rule of law, criminal justice derives its authority from public trust—trust that the system intervenes when necessary, withdraws when inappropriate, and respects the dignity of those subject to its power. When this trust erodes, legality alone is insufficient to sustain legitimacy.

The findings of this study suggest that Türkiye’s criminal justice system is undergoing a transition from legitimacy toward alienation, driven by the mass expansion of investigation and the normalization of criminal suspicion.

9.1 Legitimacy as a Function of Restraint

Legitimacy in criminal justice is not produced through omnipresence. On the contrary, it depends on restraint. Systems that intervene selectively and transparently are more likely to be perceived as fair, predictable, and protective.

By contrast, a system that routinely engages millions of individuals—often without prosecutorial follow-through—risks conveying the impression that criminal justice is less a guardian of legality than a pervasive instrument of control. In such conditions, citizens do not encounter criminal justice as a protective institution, but as an ever-present possibility of intrusion.

9.2 The Experience of Permanent Exposure

Mass investigation reshapes how individuals experience state authority. When exposure to criminal suspicion becomes common, individuals begin to internalize uncertainty as a normal feature of civic life. This produces what might be described as a climate of permanent exposure, in which citizens perceive themselves as continuously vulnerable to criminal process.

Such a climate undermines voluntary compliance with the law. Compliance rooted in fear or resignation lacks the normative strength of compliance grounded in legitimacy. Over time, this weakens the moral authority of legal institutions.

9.3 Trust Deficit and Institutional Distance

The cumulative effect of widespread suspicion, delayed filtering, and routine non-prosecution is a growing trust deficit. Individuals who experience criminal investigation without resolution are unlikely to perceive the system as responsive or coherent. Instead, they encounter it as fragmented, opaque, and indifferent to individual harm.

This experience fosters institutional distance. Citizens disengage, avoid contact with authorities, and seek informal or extralegal means of resolving disputes. Ironically, these reactions undermine the very goals of criminal justice by reducing cooperation and eroding informational legitimacy.

9.4 Criminal Justice as a Symbolic Power

Criminal justice is not only a legal system; it is a symbolic institution. Its practices communicate messages about social order, responsibility, and belonging. When suspicion is applied indiscriminately, the symbolic message shifts from protection to surveillance.

In this symbolic context, criminal justice begins to resemble an external force imposed upon society, rather than an institution emerging from it. The system is no longer perceived as “ours,” but as something “done to us.”

9.5 Alienation as a Structural Outcome

Alienation in this context is not a matter of perception alone. It is a structural outcome of institutional design. A system that prioritizes investigative volume over early restraint necessarily produces widespread exposure, delayed correction, and residual harm. Alienation follows logically from this design.

Importantly, alienation is self-reinforcing. As legitimacy declines, institutions may respond by intensifying control, further expanding investigation, and deepening the cycle of distrust. This dynamic transforms criminal justice from a stabilizing force into a source of systemic tension.

9.6 The Final Question

The analysis leads to a critical question that transcends technical reform debates. It is not simply whether criminal justice is efficient, but what kind of relationship it seeks to establish with society.

Is criminal justice a carefully calibrated mechanism for addressing serious wrongdoing, or has it become a generalized mode of governance through suspicion?

The answer to this question will determine whether criminal justice continues to function as a pillar of the rule of law—or drifts further toward alienation from the society it is meant to serve.

 

10.4. The Relationship Between Criminal Justice and Society: From a Community-Supported Model to an “Occupation-Force” Model

The legitimacy of a criminal justice system is shaped not only by its legal foundations, but by the nature of the relationship it establishes with society. This relationship is determined by how frequently, how intensively, and on the basis of which assumptions criminal justice intervenes in social life. From this perspective, the operation of criminal justice may be conceptualized through two ideal-typical models: the community-supported criminal justice system and the “occupation-force” model of criminal justice.

10.4.1. Community-Supported Criminal Justice System

A community-supported criminal justice system is one in which criminal justice functions as a public service rooted in society’s shared need for security and operates through a relationship of trust with the community. In this model, criminal intervention is conceived as exceptional rather than ordinary. Suspect status is the exception, not the rule, and criminal investigation is activated only where concrete and sufficient suspicion exists, consistent with the principle of ultima ratio.

Within this framework, individuals are treated primarily as rights-bearing citizens. Criminal investigation is act-focused rather than person-focused; it is the concrete conduct, not the presumed risk associated with the individual, that triggers state intervention. Early filtering mechanisms are strong, preventing investigations that lack a realistic prospect of prosecution from being initiated in the first place. As a result, society perceives criminal justice as a protective, predictable, and restrained institution. In such a system, the presumption of innocence and the right not to be stigmatized are not merely formal principles, but rights that are effectively safeguarded in practice.

10.4.2. The “Occupation-Force” Model of Criminal Justice

By contrast, the “occupation-force” model of criminal justice describes a system that has become alienated from society, maintaining constant contact with the population while structuring that contact through surveillance, control, and pressure rather than trust. This concept is not a rhetorical exaggeration, but a sociological ideal type that captures a specific mode of institutional operation.

In this model, criminal investigation becomes routine. Suspect status is no longer exceptional, but mass and ordinary. Individuals are no longer primarily perceived as citizens entitled to protection, but as potential sources of risk. Criminal investigation shifts from an act-centered logic to a person-centered security reflex. Filtering occurs late rather than early: investigations are initiated first and later terminated through non-prosecution decisions.

Under these conditions, society ceases to experience criminal justice as a collective institution that belongs to it. Instead, criminal justice is perceived as an external force, continuously present in daily life and oriented toward monitoring rather than protection. Individuals come to see themselves not as protected subjects of law, but as objects of constant scrutiny and potential suspicion.

10.4.3. The Sociological Meaning of the “Occupation-Force” Perception

The perception of criminal justice as resembling an “occupation force” is neither emotional nor polemical. Sociologically, it reflects a relational transformation in which the system operates at a distance from society, normalizes extraordinary intervention, and positions individuals as subjects of routine control. In this context, criminal justice no longer appears as an institution that intervenes exceptionally to restore social order, but as one that continuously asserts its presence over society.

The consolidation of this perception constitutes a powerful indicator of a legitimacy crisis. As trust-based legitimacy erodes, criminal justice increasingly relies on fear, uncertainty, and institutional distance. At this point, it ceases to function as a protective legal order and is instead experienced as a persistent external power.

10.4.4. Quantitative Expansion and Structural Model Shift in Türkiye

The statistical findings presented in this study—mass investigations, widespread suspect designation, and high rates of non-prosecution—demonstrate a structural departure from the community-supported model and a gradual shift toward the “occupation-force” model of criminal justice. This shift reflects not merely a legal malfunction, but a broader sociological transformation in the way criminal justice relates to society.

XI. Conclusion and Evaluation: From Community-Supported Criminal Justice to an “Occupation-Force” Model

The empirical data and conceptual analysis developed in this study point to a fundamental transformation in the operation of Türkiye’s criminal justice system. The normalization of criminal investigation, the mass expansion of suspect status, and the routine termination of cases without prosecution have collectively altered the system’s relationship with society.

This transformation signals a departure from a community-supported criminal justice system toward a model that increasingly resembles an “occupation-force” form of criminal justice. In the former, criminal law operates as an exceptional, trust-based mechanism designed to protect society. In the latter, criminal justice functions as a permanent presence that structures its relationship with society through surveillance and control.

The core problem revealed by this study is not merely the volume of investigations or institutional workload, but the logic governing criminal intervention. The normalization of suspicion causes individuals to perceive themselves not as rights-bearing citizens, but as continuously monitored subjects. As a result, foundational principles such as the presumption of innocence and the right not to be stigmatized remain formally intact while being substantively eroded.

The data further demonstrate the erosion of early filtering mechanisms. The practice of initiating investigations first and filtering them later through non-prosecution decisions transfers the burden of criminal uncertainty onto individuals and society. This produces legal insecurity, psychological pressure, and social alienation—outcomes fundamentally incompatible with a community-supported criminal justice model.

The routine inclusion of children and other vulnerable groups within this investigative framework underscores the extent to which protective and rehabilitative functions have been displaced by a logic of control. At this point, criminal justice risks transforming from a system of protection into a generalized apparatus of governance.

In conclusion, Türkiye’s criminal justice system currently stands at a sociological and legitimacy-based crossroads. As trust-based legitimacy weakens, the perception of criminal justice as an “occupation-force” becomes increasingly entrenched. Sustainable reform cannot be achieved solely through procedural acceleration or institutional expansion. What is required is a fundamental reorientation toward a community-supported criminal justice system—one that restores the exceptional character of criminal intervention, strengthens early filtering, and re-centers the individual as a rights-bearing citizen. Without such a reorientation, criminal justice risks drifting further away from its protective purpose and deeper into societal alienation.