I think it has good and bad elements, with the good outweighing the bad but requiring reform. I’m from the US but I’m not a lawyer/judge/social worker/academic/journalist/plaintiff/defendant/cop/criminal. Here are my random opinions supporting that. The good elements that I can think of are: 1. It sometimes reduces the expense of trials. 2. It formalizes a negotiation process that might otherwise happen “under the table.” 3. Because the choice of plea is given to the defendant, it sometimes tips the scales a little bit in favor of the defendant, which I think is good because our system is so punitive. The bad elements that i can think of are: 1. Because it reduces the expense of trials, it arguably leads to more prosecutions, which I think is bad because our system is so punitive and also because it costs more. 2. It encourages prosecutors to “overcharge” in order to push defendants into pleas which may be overly harsh or not reflect what the defendant actually did. 3. Because the prosecutor usually knows more than the defendant, it can tip the scales in favor of the prosecutor, which i think is bad because our system is so punitive. 4. Because the prosecutor usually has more resources than the defendant, innocent defendants often plead guilty because they can’t afford a trial. 5. Plea bargaining reduces the risk to prosecutors, since it reduces “extreme” outcomes. This encourages more prosecutions, which again I think is bad. 6. Plea bargaining deprives the public and researchers of the information that we would get from trials. 7. Kind of the same as #6: Plea bargaining kind of creates a “prisoner’s dilemma” among defendants. Without plea bargaining, the chance that a few defendants might get off can serve as a deterrent against overly aggressive prosecution. But with plea bargaining, no defendant wants to be the one who steps up to defend themselves, because they would rather take the “safe option” and plead guilty to a lower charge. So the defendants may all end up worse off because nobody wants to “take the hit” of pleading innocent. 8. As plea bargaining becomes normalized, the demand for public defenders goes down so that the option of going to trial may not be realistic, and that reduces the bargaining power of defendants in a plea deal.