Criminal Justice

Criminal justice as a socially constructed theoretical perspective by Kraska (2004) emphasizes the idea of emotions influencing criminal justice. In order to understand law-breaking we have to look at the process of how we defined behaviors as illegal as well as looking at the reactions of the criminal justice system. “It is not the quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender” (Kraska, 2004) There are criminal justice actors that influence the definitions of criminal behavior which are police portraying the idea of the impossible mandate of curing crime, criminal statistics, and organizations working to maintain justice.

Criminal justice through “moral panic” is “a condition, episode, person or groups of person emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are managed by editors, bishops, politicians, and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and become more visible.” (Kraska, 2004) Thus by creating this moral panic, which is an emotion, by involves media, government officials, public, politicians and interested parties that exaggerate the problem from how big the problem really is. “The idea of emotion as a kind of cognitive shortcut explains why jurors, like children are more likely to make emotional judgments than judges.” (Bandes, 311, 1999) Society alone has many emotions towards criminals and victims ranging from hate, anger, fear towards ...

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...the dominant class. The radical conflict theory believes that conflict comes from economies of class divided societies, which can be capitalism that creates a privileged class or socialism that’s an alternative to forming elites. Feminist theory suggests that patriarchy and gender shape everything, including the criminal justice system (Kraska, 2004). Like Black, this type of criminal justice is to control certain people in society; it is through the three strikes law that oppresses criminals. Who commits crimes? From the war on drugs, criminals predominately come from lower class and minorities. Having the three strikes law dictates who we’ll continue to incarcerate, which are individuals with low socioeconomic status and minorities. Oppression is an unfortunate but inevitable result of law because with power comes corruption and with corruption comes oppression.