Essays on Criminal Justice System

A Letter to my Uncle

Dear Uncle, It is long since I dedicated time to write a letter to you. Today, we live in a world where advances in technology and communication are transforming human interactions in many ways, and people are quick to abandon traditional forms of communication like letters. I may be one of them, but my intended message makes a letter just the perfect medium of communication I can employ. More so, I know you cherish reading, and going through this piece is likely to be a good pastime activity in the afternoon. I have known you and my father throughout ...

Court decisions pose significant impacts on other components or areas of the criminal justice system. It has been assessed that the bail policies of the judges directly influences what happens to an individual, arrested by the police. Moreover, judge’s bail policies also control the overall size and population of the local jail. Thereby, it can be affirmed that the operations of the corrections and law enforcement substantially impacts the judiciary. Massive arresting activities of the criminals often result in increasing the workload of the prosecutors and overcrowding the prisons. Moreover, it also makes more difficult for the juries ...

While it might be more common to think of the police, prison officer or prosecutor as the main actors in the criminal justice; community corrections personnel are as necessary as their colleagues in the effective administration of justice, especially since community corrections officers are the one that supervise offenders that are residing in the community outside of a jail or prison. As with any other party in the criminal justice system, community corrections personnel are as susceptible to misconduct as anyone else. To be sure, in recent years, misconduct in community corrections has become more widespread and a growing ...

Drug courts represent a relatively new phenomenon within the criminal justice system as both the federal and state governments intensify the fight against drug usage, trafficking and other drug-related offences in the US and effectively rehabilitate alcohol and drug offenders. This essay discussion paper looks at the history, role and philosophy behind drug courts creation in the context of the state of Texas. According to a report by Martinez and Eisenberg (2002), the history of drug courts in Texas may be traced from 2001 when the Texas Legislature through the House Bill 1287 sanctioned the creation of drug courts ...

Introduction

The criminal justice system in the United States offers various safeguards to defendants suspected of committing criminal acts in order to allow due process. These safeguards include the Miranda Rights. The following of these procedures will produce an appropriate defense for the accused and allow the prosecution to try cases without ambiguity. However, overzealous police personnel or district attorneys, in cases that attract widespread media attention often violate the safeguards. The means of procuring evidence is not always compliant with the statues of the law. The desired end for cases is achievable through questionable means. It compromises the due ...

Introduction

In the 1970s, there was a dramatic increase in violent crime rates across the nation. In response, policymakers and lawmakers began to crack down on crime. The “get tough on crime” paradigmatic shift of the criminal justice system has had far-reaching effects. Laws were passed that reflected a zero tolerance policy for certain offenses, carrying with it mandatory prison time. With more crimes eligible for imprisonment, more and more people are incarcerated in. The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world (Johnson and Johnson, 2012, p. 43). The numbers are staggering. From 1977-2010, the federal ...

The Issue

The Children and Young Persons Act of 1963 provides ten years as the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) for England and Wales (Goldson, 2013, p.113). This implies that for more than half a century, the exposure of children who reach ten to the law's full force has been much the same way as adults. Children as young as ten years are being convicted of crimes and subjected to a police investigation. In this regard, they may end up having a criminal record for life. England and Wales' MACR is the lowest in Europe. It also fails to consider developmental psychology ...

The provision of case management services is done within correctional and community environmental in aiding individuals improve their criminal behaviors and conditions. In the current world, criminal activities have become rampant with the increased cases of robbery, murder, and drug abuse. The community perceives violent crime as the most perilous crime as a result of its integral effect on the public. Therefore, the government has initiated measures and mechanisms through which violent crimes can be combated. For instance, community and correctional setting facilities have facilitated in improving the security situation within the country.

Correctional setting involves a coordinated approach of ...

In the most unlikely places are literary themes that are eerily similar. Such is the case for “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” In Cold Blood, and “The Crucible,” a poem by Oscar Wilde, a novel by Truman Capote, and a play by Arthur Miller, respectively. Although each of these pieces of literature deal with different time periods and different experiences, each discusses the darkness inside the human soul, the piercing reality of very banal, human evil that burns inside most people. While Capote’s characters chase the ghost of a murderer around a complex, interwoven plot, Miller’s characters fight against a corrupt, hysterical system ...

Questions

Community Corrections have formed an integral part of the criminal justice system. Over the years, community corrections provide criminal offenders with numerous viable options to incarceration as a means to deter crime and promote community safety. Parole, bail supervision program, probation, intensive supervision probation and community service order are some of the alternatives accorded to offenders in different stages of a correctional process. Community corrections help to separate criminals from law abiding citizens, reduce government expenditure on deterring crime (cost-savings) and create a favorable environment to reintegrate the offenders to the society.

Probation means a period of supervision that is accorded to ...

Is Comp stat an Effective Accountability Tool for Police Agencies?

Comp stat is a system that reflects on the comparison of computer statistics, and was introduced to enable the police provide accurate and timely information. It displays information gathered during the normal operations in the form of computerized crime data, crime mapping, and crime analysis. Comp stat plays a critical role in controlling both the minor and major crimes in the United States. This technology was first introduced in New York as a tool to empower the police officers to investigate any criminal activities and contain it before economic damage. Through this technology, the security department in New York was able to ...

1) The idea of probation started when courts saw the need to suspend the execution of sentences to enable defendants appeal to the monarch for pardon. Courts further saw the need to allow defendants to reform by the time of sentencing. The advantages of probation include the provision of opportunities for reform by low-risk offenders in lieu of imprisonment. Probation also protects defendants’ employment and societal stability. Probation is also cheaper than incarceration, which costs taxpayers hundreds of dollars per day for each offender. Modern probation includes new forms such as diversion programs and electronic monitoring. Electronic ...

Question One

Private Prisons Private prisons were banned in the Mid-20th Century because they were views as the new form of slavery. During the progressive era, the last private prison was closed down. Commercialization of Prison system was demonized by religious groups and Human rights activists. The business revived again in the 20 the century. This was as a result of the increased incarceration efforts by the criminal justice system. In order to reduce the crime rate, the courts opted to adopt tough sentencing rules. Currently, the United States of America has incarcerated over two million inmates. The phenomenon creates a situation ...

Question Two

There exists a close relationship between the police and the prosecutor that is usually mandated by the law. The prosecutors and the police usually interact during the criminal investigations. Specifically, the prosecutors can request the police to carry out certain criminal investigations by pursuing a given approach of inquiry. Prosecutors and police officers can therefore consult each other in the ongoing cases. In most instances, the consultation arrangement is usually informal and in most jurisdictions consultations between the police and prosecutors do not exist. Generally, the police carry out investigations regarding various criminal incidences in almost total independence. Once the police ...

The prosecutors and police have the common interest cut down crime, arrest criminals and offer fast, sure and particular punishment. Therefore, prosecutors and police are expected to have open communication to facilitate their functions. The two organizations have different responsibilities, but exhibit conflicting views over certain case dispositions. However, their conflicts are considered as evidence for the effective functioning of checks and balances mechanism of the criminal justice system. Therefore, the police should accommodate such checks from prosecutors while prosecutors are expected to provide supervisory functions together with vivid and reasonable explanations. The police are held responsible for their ...

Politics is one of the factors that affect all aspects of life. It is worth noting that politics plays tremendous roles in correctional policy. There is a link between politics and correctional policy in the country. In relational to political activities, the correctional administration faces a lot of challenges. In most cases, politics is a crucial aspect in the entire criminal justice system. The correctional policy forms the basis of the entire correctional system, and the politics play a crucial role.

Politics plays a crucial role in correctional policy in the sense that the politicians make laws, annul laws and change laws. This ...

The prison system that currently exists today offers a retribution measure instead of corrective actions to assert and ensure that the convicted assailants, after serving their prison time, could go back to the community as responsible individuals. While this is the case, a documentary featured in 2005 and 2009 documents a different role of prisons. Aside from housing convicted individuals, it also serves as a modern day asylum for mentally-ill individuals convicted of committing a crime against society.

I am writing this memo as my personal take on the existing problem regarding the release of convicted mentally-ill individuals to the society after serving ...

Question One: The Irony of State Intervention: Labelling Theory

Before the onset of the labelling theory, many a criminologists defined crime as the behaviour that was contrary to the criminal laws established by the government. Since it violated the state laws, the state’s intervention was necessary in prosecuting such criminals in order to ensure society remained a safe place to live. However, in the late 20th century, the labelling theorists came up and influenced the jurisprudence of the criminal justice systems. Therefore, in this discussion, the paper shall look at how and why state intervention, labelling persons as criminals and societal reactions actually lead to unintended consequences to the ...

Juvenile crime in the United States of America is as old as the nation itself. However, over the years there has been deliberate reform within the criminal justice system effectively affecting juveniles. Delinquency refers to the crimes committed by juveniles. A juvenile ideally refers to a person between the ages of twelve and seventeen. In that breadth, juveniles are just developing out of childhood and about to graduate into adulthood. At this stage, the law recognizes that the person may not appreciate the law as it is and may not necessarily be capable of harboring a mental intention to commit crime. ...

Introduction

Criminal justice is the system and practices that government institutions maintain social control, mitigate and deter crime, and sanction law violators (Stojkovich, Kalinich & Klofas, 2008). Decisions in any criminal justice organization follow certain models all of which must be educated and analyzed. Therefore, in this presentation the organization analyzed is the National Sheriffs Association.

Background

NSA was chartered in 1940 and headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia and provides law enforcers with programs to perform their tasks in the best way and to serve better cities, counties, or jurisdictions (NSA).

Models of Decision Making

There are 6 models that criminal justice organizations use in making decisions ( ...

It is crucial to note that collection of DNA without consent of an individual unreasonably intrudes on an arrestees’ expectation of privacy in a number of ways. Firstly, it leads to individual private information being accessed by law enforcement officers without authorization, which is against the constitutional principle of protection of individuals’ privacy. DNA information can be used to access other sensitive private information about a person that should remain private (Barbour, 2011). Therefore, taking DNA samples without personal consent is not right, as its result in those taking the samples intruding in personal life ...

Question One

Privatization of Prisons There is an emerging trend in the western countries of Privatization of prisons. Because of the huge costs that are incurred in the construction of a new correctional facility, countries such as the United States of America and Britain have opted to subcontract private prisons to cater for the rising need for space in the prison facilities. Mass incarceration has created an opportunity niche that is currently being exploited by American Business people. The privatization of prisons in the United States is caused by the punitive measures and the tough sentencing rules adopted by the criminal ...

Question 1

Anne Marie’s view of the situation changed the moment that she met the killer of her father. Initially, Anne had been harboring anger and resentment towards the killer of her father. She had made it her life mission to ensure that he was always in custody. It is only after she met her and knew of his situation that she decided to forgive him. It was only until Anne met the killer of her father that she realized that it was not only her who had been affected by the incident. The killer ...

Introduction

There is a growing contention among critics about the number of people of color that makes up the population in prison or parole. Pettit and Western (2004) have questioned the credibility of the justice system when it comes to incarcerating, policing, or sentencing of people of color. Current statistics reveal that blacks are handled disproportionally as opposed to the majority white community (Pettit & Western, 2004). Further, these theorists related the incarceration, policing, or sentencing pattern to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. United States has had a long history of racial disparity that led elicited activism by the blacks. Presently, ...

Mental Health and Incarceration

Among the industrialized nations, the United States ranks at the top for the highest number of adults that are in prison or in jails. In the work of Daniel (2007), the American correctional system held at one point more than 2.2 million individuals that are incarcerated. The numbers of inmates that have mental health concerns or issues are steadily rising in the last 30 years. This is purportedly due to the “deinstutionalization” of the local and state mental health establishment. Correctional and penal facilities have assumed the position of becoming the “default” state mental health facilities, and at an ...

- Broken Windows theory - The theory asserts that untended property becomes subject to destruction, and, therefore, unpatrolled communities become prone to criminal activities (Duffee, & Maguire, 2007). According to the theory, the public administrators should rebuild the society’s trusts by placing the people’s safety first, supervising probationers in the communities rather than in the office, allocating the public resources rationally, and providing enforcement and sequential quick response in case of violations.

- It is crucial to developing partners within the community to enhance the policing aspect. The public administrators should create performance-based initiatives and establish strong ...

- Introduction: Demographics, Politics, and Economics of China

The most important thing to consider when thinking about China is the sheer size of the country. There are billions of people in China; the country is extremely overpopulated and very crowded. Socially, it is a country in flux. Today, the Chinese are still reeling from the Cultural Revolution of the 1950s and the massive societal changes that took place at that time. Once China opened her doors to the west, however, she began to grow; today she is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and this fact seems ...

The principal role and function of the criminal justice system is to ensure that justice is served to every citizen of the nation. Unfortunately, recent evidence reveals that the criminal justice system is increasingly failing victims of sexual abuse. Being the primary institution responsible for responding to sexually related offenses, victims of sex crimes face a lot of challenges in seeking justice.

Nancy Thoennes and Patricia Tjaden analyzed results from a National Violence against Women Survey and established that only 19.1 % of women who have been sexually abused have reported the crime to the relevant authorities. The same study revealed ...

The United States of America has three cardinal branches of the criminal justice system. These include law enforcement agencies like the police, the courts system and the correctional system. Given that it is a democratic country, the United States’ criminal justice system is founded on the tenets of the rule of law. Therefore, all these three critical organs of the government must carry out their constitutional and statutory mandate within the confines of federal and state laws. Indeed, the criminal justice system is configured in a way that it enables both levels of government to function in an efficacious ...

The biological study of criminal behavior is known as bio criminology. The theories suggest that a person deviate from the social norms and moral values due to his/her biological makeup. The biological interpretation of crime originated from the Italian school of criminology. It was advanced in the nineteenth century. A medical criminologist called Cesare Lombroso did a research and proved that crime comes from biological traits that are in some human beings. The theories originated in the year 1810 (Ferrell & Hayward, 2011).The biological theories of crime include: Lombroso’s Theory-This was advanced by an Italian criminologist in 1880s. He ...

Policy and procedure directives are meant to ensure that all actions taken in every institution of the criminal justice system abides not only to the federal constitution, but also to ethics and human rights. Therefore, when policies and procedures are being drafted, their main foundation is the constitution. However, as history has shown, things are not always direct in the criminal justice system. An action taken in criminal justice system such a jail and that seemingly abides by the constitution may later be interpreted as an infringement on the constitutional right of the defendant. Such is the case of Carter ...

Abstract

This paper discusses one of the prevalent ethical issues in our present criminal justice system which is police planting evidence on the suspect. The planting of evidence on a suspect or profiling of innocent people is considered police misconduct. The driving force for the police to commit such crime is due to corruption. During police investigations, the police abuse their power by fabricating or planting of evidence to obtain false conviction by taking money in exchange for favors. Police resort to corruption, engage in other illegal means to earn income and break departmental policies due ...

“Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain” is a book on the topic of neuropsychology written by David Eagleman. He is working as an assistant professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston (Bilger, 2011).The book was published in 2011 by Vintage publishers.

This book is appealing and interesting in that it has presented the scientific concepts in an easy-to-understand manner and has successfully given surprising lessons in neuroscience. Eagleman has presented the tricks that are played by our brain and senses in this physical world. In the ...

The important concepts of law and justice are necessary foundations that lend legitimacy to a state, in particular and to a society and/or a civilization, in general. Owing to the intrinsic differences in social organizations the concepts of law and justice have varied definitions and approaches in the West and the East. A valid comparison of the Western and the Eastern approaches to these concepts make the comparisons and the contrasts extremely enlightening (Nov 17).

The Western legal culture primarily evolved from the Judeo-Christian sacred texts, the Greek philosophy and logic, and the Germanic-tribal or folk (law) traditions. After 380 AD ...

Criminal Law

Question No. 1 The philosophy of the Crime Control Model is that discovering, apprehending, and punishing offenders, preventing and deterring crime is considered a priority. The civil liberties are still protected, but shall be limited to the extent that they do not jeopardize social control. The repression, detection and efficient prosecution are central to this model. The failure to detect and successfully prosecute the offenders shall be considered as failure on the part of the government (Hall, 2011, p.316). When this happens, the public loses its confidence in the government, which will hinder its ability to detect and deter ...

The United States Constitution is one of the most progressive and the oldest written constitution in the world. It gives the government its legitimate authority and outlines the responsibilities of the people to the Nation. The constitution also protects human rights and fundamental freedoms of the citizens in the Bill of Rights. It provides the citizens with an avenue to enforce their alienable human rights by recourse to the judiciary.

Popular sovereignty is one outstanding characteristics of the US Constitution. Political power rests with the people, consequently, people have the power to elect into office and recall their representatives. ...

Statistics from the American department of justice reveal massive disparities in the numbers of incarcerated people among the Hispanic, African Americans and the whites (Caucasians). Going by statistics, a considerably large number of African Americans (10%) were behind the bars as opposed to only 2.4% and 1.2% of Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic whites respectively (Travis, Western, Redburn & National Research Council U.S, 2014). The aforementioned figures give a big picture of the incarceration disparities as of the year 2003.In addition, these statistics attest to the fact that at the age of between 25 to 29years, African American males are more likely ...

Drug courts play a vital role in the criminal justice system. The war against drug, which had started some decades back, is one of the causes of the ballooning of prison population in the US. Today, the US has the most populated prison system in the world (Hale et al 2013, p. 517). Drug courts can whittle down prison population and cut down recidivism rates. They add a facet to the criminal justice system – one that does not only judge and incarcerate, but help in restoring a person as a good member of society. The help that drug courts offer, thus, includes ...

Introduction

It is easier to confirm that a crime has been committed than to identify and prove the culprits or the suspects who have committed the crime. The American criminal justice system finds it hard to identify and convict the suspects who have committed serious felonies when the victims and members of the public fail to identify the suspects and testify in court. In such situations, the American criminal justice system has been compelled to depend on the DNA profiling and testimonies provided by the eyewitnesses to identify, prosecute and convict the suspects. Although the criminal justice system depend on the ...

The United States of America criminal justice system remains in state of continual change. Often, the system is ready to adopt reforms aimed at addressing pertinent issues. The overall objective, however, remains that of delivery of justice. It is on that context that this paper shall discuss the place of victimology in the American criminal justice system. It must not be lost of us that the resolution of crime entails three cardinal players. These are the victim, the state and the criminal. While the law has over the past concentrated on the latter two, it has had little time ...

The Criminal Justice System

Learning about the criminal justice system has been quite an experience. Not only does the course allow me to take a peep at the system that has been spotlighted and dramatized in many movies and television series, but it has set right many of my misconceptions about the system. The association of corruption to law enforcement is not new, or the sad state of our prison system a novelty, but I did not know that the prosecution plays a very powerful role in the system.

Whenever the subject of criminal justice crops up, my first instinct is to associate it with the ...

The criminal justice system have sought to instill peace and order to society. A careful evaluation of methods to deter crime, seek retribution, and impose punishment is through the imposition of the death penalty. Statistics from Amnesty International revealed that some countries still actively implement capital punishment. The countries that continue to execute inmates, in descending order, were disclosed as follows: “China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, USA and Somalia” (Haddou, 2014, par. 2). There are people, groups, or nations that support capital punishment; while others contest the death penalty for specifically identified reasons. The current discourse ...

Rehabilitation Issues within the Criminal Justice System

This research investigates the importance of rehabiliation as a central theme in criminal justice systems. Specifically, the research adrresses the question about whether rehabiliation is important in the first place, and the issues that prevent delivery of timely rehabiliation services to offenders. The research notes that while it is important to keep the public safe from offenders, it is also of critical importance to ensure that the offenders get a fair treatment within the confines of prison and come out of prison with the right mindset without slipping back to doing the crimes they used to commit. This research opinines that ...

Question No. 1

The Crime control model poses the presumption that the criminal law is able to control crime without accounting for the fact (Roach, 1999). Under this model, the best way to control crime is by giving a fair treatment through adversarial criminal proceedings where the accused shall be represented by a defense attorney. Defense lawyers are not expected to invoke due process rights. In the crime control model, there are assumptions that fair treatment may be necessary for effective crime control and punishment may not be necessary to control crime. This model is attained by allowing the police and prosecutors as the ...

Question one

The Crime Control Model is a justice system that focuses on keeping criminals away from the society so that the innocent feel safe. This model proposes that a criminal conduct should be put under tight control and laws be enforced to the later. According to Cole and Gertz (2003), if laws are not enforced, the innocent will fall prey to invasions as criminals breach the laws, the Crime Control model lays emphasis on the ability of investigators and prosecutors, based on their distinctive skills; to press charges against a suspect.

According to Cole and Gertz (2003) Crime Control Model is conservative in ...

Drug courts are courts that oversee the reformation and rehabilitation of non-violent drug offenders (Cole & Gertz, 2012). Under these courts all stakeholders of the criminal justice system work in tandem to ensure that those going through the program are reformed and rehabilitated. The drug courts supervise the treatment program especially through regular review of the offender to ascertain the progress made. The court normally rewards the offender where there is positive progress, and imposes sanctions where the offender has regressed or violated any of the conditions that had been imposed. There are drug courts for adults, juveniles, and ...

The article talks about the failure of the criminal justice system of the United States.It emphasizes on the need of increasing rehabilitation centers for the drugs victims instead of increasing or building additional prisons for the young people in the United States. The article also shows how the United State government has spent more money in reforming prisons yet the offenders graduate to a more hard core criminal than before taken to prison. So lastly, it views jail and prison sentence as the last option.

In the first section of this article, Lorenzo Jones the director of the Connecticut-based A ...

W, W. Plush and unusual punishment. 28 07 2011. 08 12 2013 <http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/07/norwegian-v-american-justice>.

The article talks about the relative comforts of Norway’s Halden prion, which is considered to be the “world’s most human prison”. It states that Americans in general are appalled at the thought of Anders Brevik, a serial killer, spending time in its comforts. Even the American media is bogged down that a prison can be anything but an overcrowded place like theirs’. The article raises an ethical question about Norwegian justice system, which offers a maximum life sentence if 21ys for criminal like Mr. Breivik. And on top of that that such a criminal spends time in comforts typically not ...

History of Women Working in the Criminal Justice System

The history of women in criminal justice system has started centuries ago. It depicts the perfect example of having an equal situation between men and women in an apparently fair system of the organization. If we are going to look at the history of women in the criminal justice system, it shows that women who were working in the justice system have been oppressed (Beery, 2004). That is because our criminal justice system was and still designed based on the system that is being controlled by men. Thus, its design is to control wayward men, which started hundreds ...

Question One: Four Modern Sentencing Options

Sentences are punishments for convicted defendants. The prescription of punishments for crimes is found in both federal and state statutes. There are four traditional sanctions that can be imposed in the modern criminal justice system are; the death penalty, imprisonment, probation, and fines. They are discussed in the ensuing sections.

Death Penalty, this is the most extreme sentence option. In the United States, 38 states have laws that can impose capital punishment. Majority of these states use lethal injection while some use electrocution to end the life of the accused. The death penalty is usually reserved for very serious ...

Role played by race/ethnicity in the criminal justice system

Historically, race played a big role in the criminal justice system, especially in relation to punishment for perceived or actual criminal conduct. In the early twentieth century, the extent of punishment meted out depended on one’s race. Virtually all cases that involved minorities resulted to strict and harsh sanctions, especially cases involving African – Americans (Rosich, 2007). These sanctions served two purposes: to deter criminal conduct among the minorities, and to suppress any uprisings.

This was compounded by the fact that those in charge of the criminal justice were from the majority. All juries, judges, legislators, and law enforcement ...

Abstract

This paper will reflect over the case of Dillon vs. Legg from 1968. It will reflect on how this case changed the zone of danger. It will also reflect on how this case relates to the mental health issue. It will reflect over some rudimentary critical thinking questions to help understand the importance of mental health during this time. Last, it will show why this is important throughout the paper.

Main Body

Dillon vs. Legg case serves as a reminder of the horror that emotional damage from trauma can cause. This case was about a defendant who hit a child as she legally walked ...

Introduction to Criminal Justice

Question one: Explain why individual rights and public order perspectives are such contentious issues in contemporary American Society

Individual rights refer to personal or individual freedoms that are accorded to human beings and are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Some of the individual rights enshrined in the law include the right to petition, right to bear arms, right to vote, among others. An individual rights perspective calls for the protection of personal freedoms without any abridgement in the criminal justice system. On the other hand, when viewed from a public order perspective, it is suggested that individual rights or personal freedoms can be overridden when public safety is at stake. Indeed, public order advocates believe that under ...

What do you make of a system that locks people up for profit?

Incarceration is a sensitive issue in the criminal justice system of all states, especially in this era when the criminologists are championing for rehabilitation. Still, Louisiana is recognized as the prison capital of the world. The motivation behind this fact is quite obvious – profit. In the year 1990 a federal court ordered Louisiana to do something about the rising prison population – either to employ policies that would ensure decongestion or to build more prisons (Chang, 2012). The latter option appeared more appealing to the unscrupulous leaders that subordinated wider interest to personal gains. In my opinion, it is against ...

Corrections officers play a huge role in the criminal justice system of a country. They maintain order in prisons or rehabilitative institutions in order to keep the general public safe from dangerous criminals. Their main responsibility is to maintain peace and order in prison cells while ensuring everyone observes and follows established regulations and procedures. In other parts of the world, they are also called detention officers and prison officers. Correction officers take full control and responsibility of inmates' security and well-being while doing jail time apart from performing administrative tasks in the institution.

A correctional officer's function is important ...

Theories of Criminology and Deviance

Kraska, P. (2006). Criminal justice theory: Toward legitimacy and an infrastructure. Justice Quarterly, 23 (2), 168-185.

The article offers great and valuable information regarding the criminal justice theories that play a leading role in promoting justice in several criminal systems around the world. The source deals with the criminal justice theory, which deals with crime rates and crime. The article points out the fact that pursuing criminal justice is in some cases implicitly, and tacitly, referred to the narrow responsibility of descriptive and evaluative scholarship.

Thus, this article explores the details for the field’s failure to identify the prominence ...

The rational choice and deterrence theories of crime attempt to explain the causes of crime and the spirit in sentencing. For that reason, the theories enable an understanding of the relationship between criminals, law enforcement, courts, corrections and society.

According to the rational choice theory, individuals commit crime on reasonable grounds. In many cases criminals would opt to commit crime so as to earn a living. This shows the relationship between society and crime. It suggests that crime would be prevalent in societies without decent opportunities for the people to earn some form of living. It is, therefore, essential for ...

Miranda v. Arizona

Introduction In this case pitting Miranda and Arizona in 1966, the US Supreme Court had ruled that a criminal suspect who was under detainment had the right to be informed of the available Constitutional rights (Inbau, and Fred 1450. This was to be carried out preceding any form of questioning and the defendant was to be informed of the right to engage an attorney and against any form of self-accusation. This legal redress commenced in the early 1963 when Ernesto Miranda, a US Citizen from Phoenix was arrested and charged with several counts of offences ranging from cases of rape ...

Racism and racial inequalities have been in existence and can be dated as far back as the American colonization by the Great Britain. This was the time when slavery was at its peak and the rich people bought slaves of African origin and owned them as their property. The mistreatment and inequality was rampant as the masters regarded the black slaves as inferior and had no right to own anything since they were considered as property. The existence of inequalities based on race had brought a series of events including the civil war as well as the fight for civil ...

Criminal Law

1.) a.) Observation and psychological testing in the assessment, selection and treatment of mentally ill offenders is important in order to creating a successful treatment program these offenders and to promote the public safety and security. It is difficult task on the part of the criminal justice system to pool together professionals who have the knowledge to understand the consequences imposed by both the criminal justice system and mental health treatment. At the same time, it is recommended that mental health professionals should be able to take into consideration the issues surrounding forensic patients, with the help of forensic clinicians ...