State Criminal Codes First criminal codes appeared in 1648 from the New England Puritans The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts Codified written definitions of crimes and punishment enacted by legislatures and published Edward Livingston s draft code for Louisiana completed in 1826 goal was to rationalize into one integrated system criminal law criminal procedure criminal evidence and punishment The draft never became law David Dudley Field s code New York Penal Code adopted in 1881 and remained in effect until 1967 designed to simplify legal practice by sparing attorneys the tedium of having to sift through common law The Model Penal Code MPC Proposed criminal code drafted by the American Law Institute and used to reform criminal codes No conduct constitutes an offense unless it is a crime or violation under this code or another statute of this state Adopted in 1962 more than 40 states changed their criminal codes MPC s Analysis of Criminal Liability Analysis of statutes and cases to determine what behavior deserves criminal punishment and its definition of criminal liability conduct that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests Municipal Ordinances Municipalities have a chorus of advocates among criminal law reformers who ve helped cities write a new generation of their old vagrancy and loitering ordinances that cleanse them of their poor objections that they re unconstitutional and discriminatory City town and village governments creating their own laws Ordinances often duplicate and overlap state criminal code provisions but when they conflict state codes take precedence Municipalities can determine the punishment also Limits of Municipals Constitutional Limits Power of states to preempt municipal criminal lawmaking and punishment Can t create felonies Can t prescribe punishments greater than one year in jail Administrative Agency Crimes Administrative Crimes violations of federal and state agency rules that make up a controversial but rapidly growing and source of criminal law Ex not filing your taxes vehicle safety inspections Criminal Law in the U S Federal System Federal system fifty two criminal codes one for each of the fifty states one for the District of Columbia and one for the U S Criminal Code U S Government s power is limited to crimes specifically related to national interests crimes on military bases national property against federal officers or crimes that are difficult for one state to prosecute drugs weapons organized crime terrorism Defenses and Punishments to crime vary across state lines Capital punishment electrocution lethal injection the gas chamber hanging or firing squad Rates of Imprisonment measured by the numbers of prisoners per 100 000 people in the general population Gender age race and ethnicity aren t equally represented in prisons Black men are imprisoned at the highest rate of 6 5 times higher than white men Many more on parole and corrections than those imprisoned Principle of Utility permits only the minimum amount of pain necessary to prevent the crime Punishment is personal and individual not general and societal Use individual punishment for the societal benefit The Definition of Criminal Punishment Punishment intentionally inflicting pain or other unpleasant consequences on another person Criminal Punishment penalties that meet four criteria Inflict pain or other unpleasant consequences Prescribe a punishment in the same law that defines the crime Administered intentionally Administered by the state The Purposes of Criminal Punishment Retribution Inflicting on offenders physical and psychological pain hard treatment so that they can pay for their crimes Retribution rests not simply on long use but also on two philosophical foundations Culpability only someone who intends to harm her victim deserves punishment accidents don t qualify Justice depends on culpability only those who deserve punishment can justly receive it Prevention Punishment is only a means to a greater good usually the prevention or at least the reduction of crime General deterrence aims by the threat of punishment to prevent the general population who haven t committed crimes from doing so Special deterrence aims by punishing already convicted offenders to prevent them from committing any more crimes in the future Incapacitation prevents convicted criminals from committing future crimes by locking them up or by altering them surgically or executing them Rehabilitation aims to prevent future crimes by changing individual offenders so they ll want to play by the rules and won t commit any more crimes in the future Hedonism The Natural law that human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain Rationalism the natural law that individuals can act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain permitting human beings to apply natural laws mechanistically according to rules instead of having to rely on the discretionary judgment of individual decision makers Deterrence theory rational human beings won t commit crimes if they know that the pain of punishment outweighs the pleasure gained from committing crimes Principle of Utility permits only the minimum amount of pain necessary to prevent the crime Restrains convicted offenders from committing further crimes Incapacitation Rehabilitation Medical Model of Criminal Law crime is a disease and criminals are sick in need of treatment and cure Length of imprisonment depends on how long it take to cure the patient Determinism forces beyond offenders control cause them to commit crimes Therapy by experts can change offenders not just their behavior so that they won t want to commit any more crimes Rehabilitationists adopt the idea of free will and its consequences criminals can choose their life habits so society can blame and punish them Critiques Rehabilitation is based on false unproven assumptions Makes no sense to brand everyone who violates the criminal law as Rehabilitation is inhumane because the cure justifies administering sick and needing treatment large doses of pain Trends in Punishment English commonly used retribution and rehabilitation Rehabilitation replaced deterrence as the aim of criminal sanctions and remained the dominant form of criminal punishment until the 1960s Fixed determinate sentences sentence depends on the criminal harm suffered by the victim not the rehabilitation of the offender Now Rehabilitation is the main form of punishment The Presumption of