This paper will be focusing on the courts as the specific sub-system in the criminal justice system. As said in the book the court system is responsible for charging criminal suspects, carrying out trials, and sentencing a person convicted of a crime. The fear of crime influences criminal justice policies in the court system. One way it does this is with the courts sentencing. Courts are able to give out severe punishments as a method of deterrence. This specific type of deterrence would be general deterrence. The book says that general deterrence theory should work if the punishment is clear, severe, and done swiftly. According to this theory, crime rate should drop because people will fear the punishment. The other way fear of crime influences …show more content…
This would again tie into general deterrence because as we talked about in class, a severe punishment would make an example out of the criminal and make other people hesitant to do the same in the future. The idea would be to incapacitate the criminal and make everyone feel safe. However, the problem with incapacitation is that someone will take the place of the criminal. Another way court’s policy decisions are influenced is through their jurisdiction. As we talked about in class a court’s jurisdiction is the physical location it is responsible for, it’s duty and responsibility. There are five levels of courts that each have their own jurisdiction they are responsible for. The five courts from the lowest level to highest level are the following; magistrate, state, district, circuit, and the Supreme Court. As we talked about in class, state court’s jurisdiction would be the state it is located in. While courts like Circuit court’s jurisdiction cover a much larger geographical area. Finally, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction would cover the entire country and could take cases from any state. As stated in class, an example of jurisdiction would be New Hampshire’s single death row
Houser, K. (2014). Nature of Crime, Deterrence Theory. Lecture conducted from Temple University, Ambler, Pa.
Reiman and Leighton continue to expand on the Pyrrhic Defeat Theory and ways how the criminal justice system continues to succeed by failing to reduce crime. They speak of some reasons why the policies enforced by the criminal justice system, maintain crime rather than reduce it. The system makes use of excuses as to why it fails at the reduction of crimes. While continuing to serve the interests of the powerful and maintaining the view of the poor being the most dangerous to society.
In Western cultures imprisonment is the universal method of punishing criminals (Chapman 571). According to criminologists locking up criminals may not even be an effective form of punishment. First, the prison sentences do not serve as an example to deter future criminals, which is indicated, in the increased rates of criminal behavior over the years. Secondly, prisons may protect the average citizen from crimes but the violence is then diverted to prison workers and other inmates. Finally, inmates are locked together which impedes their rehabilitation and exposes them too more criminal
All the laws, which concern with the administration of justice in cases where an individual has been accused of a crime, always begin with the initial investigation of the crime and end either with imposition of punishment or with the unconditional release of the person. Most of the time it is the duty of the members of constituted authorities to inflict the punishment. Thus it can be said that almost all of the punishments are an act of self-defense and an act of defending the community against different types of offences. According to Professor Hart “the ultimate justification of any punishment is not that it is deterrent but that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime” (Hart P.65). Whenever the punishments are inflicted having rationale and humane factor in mind and not motivated by our punitive passions and pleasures then it can be justified otherwise it is nothing but a brutal act of terrorism. Prison System: It has often been argued that the criminals and convicted prisoners are being set free while the law-abiding citizens are starving. Some people are strongly opposed the present prison and parole system and said that prisoners are not given any chance for parole. Prisons must provide the following results: Keep dangerous criminals off the street Create a deterrent for creating a crime The deterrent for creating a crime can be justified in the following four types Retribution: according to this type, the goal of prison is to give people, who commit a crime, what they deserved Deterrence: in this type of justification, the goal of punishment is to prevent certain type of conduct Reform: reform type describes that crime is a disease and so the goal of punishment is to heal people Incapacitation: the...
The judicial system is based off the norms and values that individuals are held to within society. When a person is found guilty of committing a criminal act, there must be a model that serves as the basis of what appropriate punishment should be applied. These models of punishment are often based off of ethical theories and include retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. The retribution model of punishment views the offender as responsible for their actions and as such, the punishment should fit the crime (Mackie, 1982). Incapacitation is a form of punishment that removes an offender from society. This model protects
There is a common knowledge that capital punishment would prevent people from committing crime. But until now, there has not been any actual statistics or scientific researches that prove the relationship between the capital punishment and the rate of crimes. According to Jack Weil, “criminals, who believe that their chances of going to jail are slight, will in all probability also assume that their chances of being executed are equally slight. Their attitude that crime pays will in no way be altered” (3). Most people commit a crime when they are affected by the influence of drugs, alcohol or even overwhelmed emotions, so they cannot think logically about they would pay back by their lives. Also, when criminal plan to do their crime, they prepare and expect to escape instead of being caught. Some people believe that the threat of severe punishment could bring the crime rates down and that capital punishment is the ultimate crime deterrent. However, in fact, the rate of ...
Mass incarceration has caused the prison’s populations to increase dramatically. The reason for this increase in population is because of the sentencing policies that put a lot of men and women in prison for an unjust amount of time. The prison population has be caused by periods of high crime rates, by the medias assembly line approach to the production of news stories that bend the truth of the crimes, and by political figures preying on citizens fear. For example, this fear can be seen in “Richard Nixon’s famous campaign call for “law and order” spoke to those fears, hostilities, and racist underpinnings” (Mauer pg. 52). This causes law enforcement to focus on crimes that involve violent crimes/offenders. Such as, gang members, drive by shootings, drug dealers, and serial killers. Instead of our law agencies focusing their attention on the fundamental causes of crime. Such as, why these crimes are committed, the family, and preventive services. These agencies choose to fight crime by establishing a “War On Drugs” and with “Get Tough” sentencing policies. These policies include “three strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and juvenile waives laws which allows kids to be trialed as adults.
6. “The death penalty deters crime.” At Issue: Does Capital Punishment Deter Crime?.Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Opposing Viewpoint Resource Center. Web. 18 Nov, 2009.
3) Though the claim that death penalty serves as a deterrent is valid, it is controversial in its soundness. It is sound that criminals fear the death penalty. Indeed, death penalty is fearful, as it is irrevocable and takes away the life and future of the criminal sentenced to it. However, the evidences supporting the second premise that is the core function of the claim for the deterrence argument is too excessive. In the letter, the author first presents his own experience to prove that the fear of death penalty deters offenders from carrying a gun. However, using an experience as a proof for deterrence for such a complex and serious punishment as the death penalty is extreme. While supporters of the author may respond with the author’s credibility as a police officer for thirty years, personal experience and insight can’t be extrapolated with possibilities of bias...
During the 1970s, the top argument in favor of the death penalty was general deterrence. This argument suggests that we must punish offenders to discourage others from committing similar offenses; we punish past offenders to send a message to potential offenders. In a broad sense, the deterrent effect of punishment is thought to b...
The study of crime and fear of crime in the countryside has much to offer rural as well as criminological studies. For one thing, greater attention on these issues will complement an otherwise urban geography of crime and will fill important gaps in existing knowledge. In light of recent ‘moral panics’ over increases in rural crime, such work would be timely and could provide important information on the nature and extent of rural crime. Further, such knowledge could have an applied benefit and assist in the development of policing strategies in rural places. However, it is essential that rural crime be studied from a rural perspective. There is a danger otherwise that comparisons with urban areas will lead to a philosophy of ‘less of a problem means that there is no problem.’
Crime remains the most pressing problems of all times presenting the biggest challenge to the development of any nation. Apart from the effect of fear of crime and violence of victims, it also has a devastating impact on the society. It is extremely important that all efforts should be made to reduce the level of crime in a society. But the question of concern is what measures can be taken to reduce the level of crime? What types of controls should be used so that the crime rate reduces to an optimal level? This paper will analyze the importance of punitivity in social welfare and as crime control policy. It is essential to understand the concept of punitivty as it is the attitude towards punishment. For example people in U.K. and U.S have a high punitive attitude towards young criminals. A survey was conducted to find out the punitive attitude of people and 51% of those who were surveyed said that a second time burglar should be punished. Now the question is whether punitive attitude a good method of controlling crime? The idea is to highlight the attitude towards punishment and find out ways which can help in reducing the levels of crime.
This research seeks to establish whether making the penalty stiff will work in repeating repeat and future offenders. This research is tied to a larger theory that harsh punishments act as a deterrent to crime. They work by making people not commit a crime for fear of the punishment that is going to follow. This research is applicable across many facets of crimes that are rampant. It is going to help identify whether enacting stricter laws and enforcing them helps in reducing the relate...
Punishing the unlawful, undesirable and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has experienced a variety of transformations throughout history. Although the concept of retribution has remained a constant (the idea that the law breaker must somehow pay his/her debt to society), the methods used to enforce and achieve that retribution has changed a great deal. The growth and development of society, along with an underlying, perpetual fear of crime, are heavily linked to the use of vastly different forms of punishment that have ranged from public executions, forced labor, penal welfare and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years. Crime constructs us as a society whilst society, simultaneously determines what is criminal. Since society is always changing, how we see crime and criminal behavior is changing, thus the way in which we punish those criminal behaviors changes.
Laws serve several purposes in the criminal justice system. The main purpose of criminal law is to protect, serve, and limit human actions and to help guide human conduct. Also, laws provide penalties and punishment against those who are guilty of committing crimes against property or persons. In the modern world, there are three choices in dealing with criminals’ namely criminal punishment, private action and executive control. Although both private action and executive control are advantageous in terms of costs and speed, they present big dangers that discourage their use unless in exceptional situations. The second purpose of criminal law is to punish the offender. Punishing the offender is the most important purpose of criminal law since by doing so; it discourages him from committing crime again while making him or her pay for their crimes. Retribution does not mean inflicting physical punishment by incarceration only, but it also may include things like rehabilitation and financial retribution among other things. The last purpose of criminal law is to protect the community from criminals. Criminal law acts as the means through which the society protects itself from those who are harmful or dangerous to it. This is achieved through sentences meant to act as a way of deterring the offender from repeating the same crime in the future.