09 02 2012 Lecture Notes CHAPTER 1 The Criminal Justice System Goals Doing justice Controlling crime Preventing crime Doing justice Enforce the standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community Retributive justice offenders held accountable for actions o Are plea bargains justified Around 90 take plea bargains Procedural justice the rights of persons who have contact with the system will be protected o Innocent people often plead guilty to get the plea bargain Distributive justice like offenses will be treated alike and officials will take into account relevant differences among offenders offenses Restorative justice restores offender and person offended with mediator Controlling crime Models o Crime control vs due process o Crime control vs rehabilitation How o Arresting prosecuting convicting and punishing those who disobey the law o Rehabilitation Programs etc o Incapacitation Very high rates harsher punishment o Deterrence certainness severity swiftness of punishment Specific general Federalism o Central national system regional state system o Spread of the power o Example of coordination Department of Homeland Security After 9 11 o Example of usurpation US v Arizona 2012 States using illegal immigrant law Arizona was saying that if they suspected that someone was an illegal immigrant they made it a crime to be in the state solicit jobs racial profiling Supreme court won because of the 10th amendment state law cannot go above the law of the land Characteristics Discretion o Needed because system lacks resources to treat every case the same way o Permits to achieve greater justice o Lesser today to increase distributive justice o Psychological problems can judge determine Sentencing matrix takes into account the record severity of the crime used more today Resource dependence Sequential tasks o Politicians government depends on who is in power o Set order for everything can always be expected o Only 10 of cases get to sentencing and past Filtering o Charge bargain if someone pleads guilty they can be charged for only one crime when they committed more o Sentence bargain if someone pleads guilty they can get a Celebrated cases Casey Anthony serious felonies less serious lesser sentence of jail time Criminal justice wedding cake felonies misdemeanors Crime is at a low currently Racial disparities Explanations according to the textbook o People of color commit more crimes o The criminal justice system is racist o The criminal justice system expresses the racism found in 1 in 100 people in jail 1 in 15 are black 1 in 9 black males age 20 society as a whole 34 1 in 36 are Latino CHAPTER 2 Crime trends Uniform crime report Crime has been decreasing currently plateaued Clearance rate crime has been caught sentenced case closed o Highest is for murder but only 64 o Lowest is motor vehicle theft 11 Classical deterrence rational choice social process learning Positivist psychological sociological everything but free will Schools of thought rational decisions Theories Classical o Criminal behavior rational o Cost benefit analysis o Deterrence fear of punishment is only preventative o just deserts o Predictable system Neoclassical o Modern take on classical o Crime control vs rehabilitation pendulum o Move from strictly punishment to treatment Positivist o Human behavior is controlled by physical mental social factors not free will o Criminals different from non criminals o Science can be used to discover cause of crime treat deviants o Rehabilitation prevention programs Biological o Lombroso born criminal o Primitive physical traits canine teeth huge jaws high cheekbones o Cause heredity disease o Not accepted biased racist Psychological o Freud id ego superego o Mental illness o Steadman et Al study on mental illness 14 5 of males and 31 of females had serious mental illnesses Sociological o Opportunity theory lack of opportunity for social mobility cannot achieve what you want to achieve cannot achieve American dream more likely to commit crimes negative emotions o Strain theory More to do with aspirations disjunction between achievements aspirations leads to crime lead to negative emotion strain o Shaw McKay Social Disorganization theory Familial community Location of people more socially disorganized areas areas with less social control leads to higher risk of crime Social control is important people must care about the other people living there communal activities etc o Mentoring has a moderate effect on delinquency aggression having an example to follow o Scared straight failed to deter crime increase offending behavior o Cognitive therapy learn to recognize control reframe automatic distorted thought patterns 6 9 decrease in criminal behavior o Talks about the individual people make decisions weigh Social process costs and benefits o Learning theory Differential association theory if people are around criminals who think crime is okay those people are more likely to commit crimes Labeling theory learning from what society labels a person as if someone is labeled as a criminal they are more likely to commit crimes o System will disproportionately affect people to push them Critical towards crime o Neo marxism System is set up by the owners means of the system pushes lower classes to make them more easily exploitable negatively affects them o Critical Race theory System negatively affects minorities LatCrit theory Latino population particular position within culture immigrants etc cause another targeting of Latinos o Conflict theory Focuses on race and proportion of minorities in a given population As the number of minorities in a population grows the focus on them may grow to keep them from threatening the population Life course trajectory o Life course limited majority of people involved in justice system will age out of committing crime o Life course persistent committing crime at a high level throughout their whole life very small proportion o Wasting time money putting people in jail for life when they could have aged out and become better citizens in society o Earlier offenders are more likely to be life course persistent Integrated Routine activities theory o General theories that take elements from each other theory o Motivated offender victim lack of a capable guardian o These elements lead to a crime Deterrence o Emotional crimes o Differential deterrence people are deterred differently what crime person is committing whether they are able to weigh
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