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Problems within the criminal justice system
Problems within the criminal justice system
Problems within the criminal justice system
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A little about myself, I am currently majoring in Criminology with a legal studies option with the hopes of gaining more insight on the criminal justice system as well as criminal behavior and crime in society as a whole. When I am not attending to my studies, I work part time with The Penn State Auxiliary Police on campus. I essentially spend my time assisting police officers in maintaining order and protecting the safety of our campus community. Likewise, I am a member of The Justice Association Group on campus dedicated to educating students about the American Justice System as far as programs, jobs and internship opportunities. In the future, I hope to get an advanced degree in Forensic Psychology. I want to help create a better and safer
society, while encouraging troubled youth, especially racial minorities to follow their dreams in productive ways. One of my main goals is to work with others to gain different perspective on issues regarding crime as well as promote equality in the criminal justice system both domestically and internationally. There have been two experiences in my life that sparked my desired to gain insight on the criminological and social problems abroad. First In 2009 I traveled to the Dominican Republic through a work and witness program with the Sarasota First Church of the Nazarene for two weeks. There I visited the cities of La Romana and Santo Domingo. Members of my church and I helped build and organize classrooms for under privileged children. Second, I decided to study abroad Amsterdam, Netherlands last summer. This program provided me with an opportunity to partake in effective hands-on experience, conduct research, and evaluate the behaviors of criminals. Spending several weeks in these two countries reminded me of my passion to serve my community and fully immerse myself into different cultures by expanding my abroad experiences even further. In addition, my eagerness to work with people from different cultures and strong communication skills as well as adaptability to new situations has made me confident that I will able to endure the physical, emotional and intellectual challenges associated with being a Peace Corps Volunteer. Therefore, it would be an absolute honor to be a part of a well-respected organization helping others.
Achieving academic excellence while obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice is the first step towards becoming financially able to support my son by working as a law enforcement analyst. While working on my degree, I am determined to maintain my 4.0 GPA, a challenge that demonstrates my ability to learn and overcome obstacles, as well as. This commitment to maintaining my GPA requires me to work on having a positive attitude, as well as learn about discipline, self-management, and hard work, all which are beneficial to me in my field of work. I chose criminal justice because it requires thinking about and analyzing facts to solve crimes while helping and protecting people, something I have always felt strongly about. Since I was
For decades researchers have speculated about the relationship between levels of violence, and societal conditions such as poverty, urbanism, population composition, and family disruption. National and international level research has concluded that each of these factors are related to crime rates and their trends overtime (Avison & Loring, 1986; Lafree, 1999, Lauristen & Carbone-Lopez, 2011). To examine these factors more closely we should recognize that they are the foundation of many criminological theories, both motivational and control, applied to the macro and individual level. Specifically, these include social disorganization theory (Shaw & MCkay, 1942), anomie-strain theory (Merton, 1968), violent subcultural theories (Anderson, 1999), social bond theory (Hirschi, 1969), self-control theory (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), and biosocial perspectives (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1983).
I am a thirty two year old single mother, who is a returning student to Empire State College after a three year break. I began at Empire State College in 2011 with hopes of graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice. Prior to that, I graduated from SUNY Genesee Community College with my associates in Criminal Justice in 2004 and I thought my college days were done that there was no further need to advance my education to just be a police officer. However, getting into a full-time police position was much more difficult than I ever imagined. At the time in 2011, I was working full time dispatching for the NYS Park Police, and working for two other part time police agencies working a variety and multitude of shifts.
Public criminology takes information, research and education to the next level, as discovered through this essay. It doesn’t just include lab work, research and discoveries, it involves community based teaching in a way that the public can be informed and educated through upfront communication. Throughout this essay, the broad definition of public criminology will be discussed as well as its relevance to society. As with anything, there are challenges and promises that accompany public criminology and those will be stated in this essay. Examples will be given to help you learn the different concepts of public criminology and how it relates to our modern society. Given as a starting point, according to Larson (2012), public criminology involves:
Criminal profiling, first undertaken within the nineteen-seventies, has been used throughout thousands of police investigations from bureaus all over the globe, currently some question their practicality in police investigations. This essay argues the utility of offender profiling in police investigations. Police Investigations utilize Offender and Criminal Profiling methods because it narrows the field of investigation, needs diminutive physical evidence to begin investigations and uses victimology to predict future actions of the offender.
I have always taken an interest in Criminal Justice and crime prevention ever since middle school and I set out to make my career goal to become a Criminal Justice professional. Thus, pursuing a Criminal Justice master’s degree has been a part of my plans for the future and will become one of my core focuses that I will set up in my graduate studies. It will also enable me to become a more competent working professional and encourage me to advance towards the doctoral program.
Criminology as a genre is defined as the scientific study of crime, as well as its causes, law enforcement interaction, criminal behavior, and means of prevention. In its own way criminology is the history of humanity. As long as people have been on earth there has been criminal activity. Much like most other work atmospheres, it was a male dominated field. A woman seeking to work in criminology was unheard of. Men filled the jobs as police officers, lawyers, judges, and politicians. However, in the 1860s Belva Lockwood became determined to pave the way for women in criminology. As a women’s rights activist, she became one of the most influential women in criminology.
Criminology is the scientific study of crime and criminals. It is also a study that is constantly changing due to the people in our society, which political, economic and spiritual views of individuals come into consideration. Robert Agnew, an important man to the world of criminology, he was born on December first, in 1953, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Agnew fortunately is still living, and ages sixty years of age. He Attended Rutgers College, a school in New Jersey, where he received his Bachelors of Arts in sociology, although both his Masters and PhD in sociology he obtained in University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Sociology being the study of the functioning of human society. Agnew discovered his passion for teaching after her worked as a teacher’s assistant and served as Associate Editor to Social Forces Journal for a couple years. Agnew started teaching at Emory University, the courses he taught varied from criminology to the introduction of sociology. In addition to teaching, Robert Agnew wrote many books and articles about either criminology or sociology. He was also involved in both field’s sociology and criminology through academics, and contributed to them greatly. Although his best contribution was his development of the general strain theory. A theory in which Agnew elaborated on and decided to adjust his perspective. Having gone through bad experiences in one’s life, can influence in the way that a certain individual thinks, and can lead them towards a life involving crime in their everyday lives.
Critical criminology, also known as radical criminology dates back to the concepts of Marxism. Despite the fact that Fredric Engels and Karl Marx were the founders of contemporary radical criminology, none of them gave explicit focus to crime. William Bonger (1876-1940), a Dutch criminologist was a more direct founder of this concept. It gained popularity during the early 1970s when it tried to explain the causes of contemporary social mayhem. He used economic explanations were used by critical criminology to analyze social behavior by arguing that social and economic inequalities were the main reason behind criminal behavior (Henry & Lainer, 1998). This view reduces the focus on individual criminals and elaborates that the existing crime is as a result of the capitalist system. Just like the conflict school of thought, it asserts that law is biased since it favors the ruling or the upper class and that the legal system that governs the state is meant to maintain the status quo of the ruling class. Critical criminologist are of the view that political, corporate and environmental crime are not only underreported but also inadequately punished by the existing criminal legal system.
Classical Criminology is credited with initiating the shift away from rather barbaric forms of torture. In classical criminology, the naturalistic approach of social thinkers had challenged the way of the spiritualistic approach. During this time, the spiritualistic approach was the base for all policies in Europe. This means that every crime had as spiritual meaning for which it was committed. St. Thomas Aquinas, a contributor to the topic, argued that people had a natural tendency to be good rather than evil. He also argued that because they committed a crime it did not just hurt other, it would hurt them.
A wellness activity I got involved in was a fitness and health group for young ladies called Girls on the Run. Girls on the Run is a fitness program that motivates you mentally and physically. My experience with Girls on the Run was phenomenal. I learned how to proportion my meals for my own likings and health. I prepared three times a week for a 5k run.
The Law today is a summary of various principles from around the world from the past and the present. Early practises of law were the foundation of the law that we know and abide by today. These practises were referred to as the Classical school. Over time however, different criminologist have altered and greatly improved the early, incomplete ideas and made them more complete and practical to more modern times. This newer version is referred to as the Positivist school. This rapid change from the classical to the positivist perspective was due to the change and growth of civilization. Even though one perspective came from another, they are still different in many ways and it is evident when relating them to section 462.37, Forfeiture of Proceeds of Crime, and section 810, Sureties to keep the Peace. The Classical School of criminology’s time of dominance was between 1700 and 1800. Its conception of deviance was that deviance was a violation of the social contract. Classical theorists believed that all individuals were rational actors and they were able to act upon their own free will. A person chose to commit crimes because of greed and because they were evil. The primary instrument that could be used in regards to the classical school to control crime was to create “criminal sanctions that instil fear of punishment in those contemplating criminal acts” (Gabor 154). Classical school theorists believed the best defence was a good offence and therefore they wanted to instil so much fear into people about what would happen to them if they were to commit a crime that even those who were only thinking of committing a crime were impacted greatly. The classical school individuals operated entirely on free will and it was their ...
While growing up I always had a an interest in understanding people and their actions, some people call it nosey, but I just call it observant. This interest extended to criminal behavior and what drove them to this type of lifestyle. In order to better understand criminal behavior and psychology I chose to study Criminology and Psychology. The Criminology, Law and Society program drove me to UC Irvine my senior year of high school, but do to family responsibilities I was unable to start there as an incoming freshman. Throughout middle school and part of my high school years my mom was undergoing treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, which caused her to be hospitalized for long periods of time and left me in charge the family responsibilities in her absence.
Social harmony has become a powerful and popular indicator to asset a population’s quality of life. So much so, people’s attitude toward crime rates has shifted from a lukewarm state to a profoundly sensitive level. Accordingly, the public’s increasing fears have translated into more and more restrictive policies to punish crimes. Therefore, crime prevention is considered as a strategic approach to lessen the probability of criminal behaviors in a political community, and to maintain social-control following the heated debates on civilians’ safety.
This essay will examine the early approaches of criminology which aided in its development using the theories of Beccaria (theory of freewill) and Lombroso (biological theory), and will compare the arguments for rehabilitation and for treatment. An answer to what Criminology could be is that it is the scientific/theoretical study of crime and criminals which incorporates into its study both individuals, society and organisations. Criminology came about at the end of the 1700s from society’s need to understand crime in the social world. The purpose of Criminology is to give us an insight into the criminal mind/world. Criminology incorporates other social sciences such as psychology, history