...The Impact of Sentencing Guidelines on the Criminal Justice System Public Safety Capstone Project Our criminal justice system has an obligation to impose fair sentences. The United States Sentencing Commission is the result of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 that had laws created to ensure that sentencing was fair from state to state, and a judge provided proof of that sentencing was indeed black and white. To eliminate the possibility of being unjust, the government became involved in creating guidelines on the punishment that was rendered based on the type or types of crimes an individual committed. Sentencing guidelines were imposed to set the terms that would fit the crime some of the sentencing may be a payment of a fine, community service, incarceration, the death penalty, and or probation and parole. Throughout the years there has been a concentrated effort to standardize the sentencing especially in felony offenses, and to diminish judicial discretion in sentencing. Due to this there is a perception by lawmakers and the public that arbitrary or discriminatory practice with fair and just sentencing in certain cases and or crimes. “The Federal Government and 16 States have implemented presumptive or voluntary/advisory sentencing guidelines. Each of these states has established guidelines for different purposes and most of them were asked to meet multiple goals, including punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation...
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...Running head: IS JUSTICE TRULY BLIND? Is Justice Truly Blind The structure by which offenders are detained and reprimanded is one of the supports of any democratic system. However in order for that arrangement to remain feasible, the community must be convinced that individuals in resembling circumstances are treated the same and with consistency, from the original exploration of the offense, to the hearing and penalty of that crime, down to the prosecutors and the judges. This process is not optional, but rather guaranteed by the Constitution of law despite race, gender or ethnicity (Justice on Trial, 2012). As we know our criminal justice system today, it appears to be operating far from this principle. Somehow in the arena of criminal justice, racial discrimination is increasing instead of diminishing. Disparate treatment of minorities differentiates every point in the course of action. Black and Hispanic Americans, as well as other minority groups, are mistreated by inconsistent targeting and unreasonable treatment by the police and other law enforcement officials; by the racially distorted charging and plea bargaining resolutions offered by prosecutors, biased punishments, and by the letdown of judges, nominated officials and other criminal justice guidelines used to remedy the unfairness of justice that has become more obvious as time goes on (Justice on Trial, 2012). All of these issues add to the opinion that lawlessness is a colored and minority...
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...issues of mandatory sentencing have been affecting the prison forecasts, tax revenue, over-crowding in prisons, as well as flooding the court systems and backlogging cases. Mandatory prison sentences take the discretion away from prosecutors, as well as judges. An Inmate who is sentenced under a mandatory sentence does not qualify for early release, good time while in prison, and in most cases, the offender is not required to complete any supervision after release, due to the fact that he or she has fulfilled the obligations of his or her sentence. Several states, including the State of Oregon, have introduced legislation to reform their mandatory minimum sentences. With budgetary constraints in the volatile economy, the government cannot afford to continue to incarcerate individuals without the ability to modify sentences, supervision, etc. How courts are affected by mandatory minimum sentences Congress, as well as some of the state legislations introduced mandatory sentences in the 1970s and 1980s. These mandatory sentences forced the court system to hand down fixed prison sentences to those convicted of certain criminal acts. The lawmakers felt by enacting these sentences then it would help in the battle against the drug trade and hopefully prevent individuals from entering. However, while it did assist the courts in certain areas it has also been detrimental to the court system. According to "Prisonpolicy.org" (n.d.), the mandatory sentencing laws did six things they...
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...In the UK prisoners can get out of prison early without serving their full sentence in prison. According to the Sentencing Council, the judge in the hearing will decide the sentence and also how long the defendant will spend in prison. Although offenders usually spend only half their sentence inside prison and the other half of their sentence is spent on license. However if the offender breaks the conditions applied to their license they will be sent back to prison to carry out the remainder of their sentence. Judges and Magistrates have no control over the half in prison and half on license sentence this was implemented by the UK Parliament (Sentencing Council). Where is the justice to be seen, for the victims in these cases? Victims are often considered the forgotten party within the justice system. As statistics taken from Justice.Gov (2013) showed that between April 2010 and March 2011 it was estimated that “550’000 adult offenders were cautioned, convicted or released from custody”. Around 25 per cent of those were shown to have reoffended in this study. With these statistics it’s clearly not very reassuring for any victims in these cases that the punishment for the crime has (Justice.Gov, 2013). According to Open Justice (2012) when the offender has reached that half point in their sentence, an independent body such as the Parole Board has the decision to deem if it is safe to release the offender under license. If the Parole Board decides it is safe they will set...
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...In the United States, sentencing varies from place to place and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Each state has established their own set guidelines and even those can be different from the Federal sentencing guidelines. Sentencing Guidelines are rules that a judge is supposed to follow to determine sentences for individuals and organizations convicted of felonies and serious misdemeanors. These Guidelines do not apply to less serious misdemeanor crimes. The United States Sentencing Commission was created by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and created these guidelines. In the beginning they were mandatory and very strict. People kept calling for longer, harsher sentences (Marvell 1995 p. 696). Congress enacted the Sentence Reform Act to satisfy...
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...PRINCIPLES OF SENTENCING: TOWARDS A EUROPEAN CONVERSATION Paper delivered at Conference on “The Limits of the Criminal Law” at Leiden University, January 23, 2008 and subsequently published in Cupido (ed), Limits of Criminal Law (Nijmegen, 2008).[1] Tom O’Malley Senior Lecturer in Law National University of Ireland Galway First, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the students of Leiden Law School for having organised this conference. Thanks to their vision and energy, representatives from several European countries have gathered in this historic venue to discuss some key aspects of criminal law and criminal procedure. More often than not, we think of European law solely in terms of European Union law, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights or both. Needless to say, the study of European law even in this limited sense is of the highest importance given its impact on our national legal systems and our daily lives. However, growing levels of legal and political integration now demand that we broaden our vision of European law to encompass the domestic legal systems of individual European states. Some work has already begun in this regard,[2] but it is only on rare occasions such as this that we can engage in a meaningful exchange of ideas and information on areas of common concern. Criminal justice is a most appropriate and worthy topic with which to begin. In times past, sentencing would not have featured very prominently...
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...Year 12 Legal Studies Notes Focus Study: Crime Key Legal Concepts and Features of the Legal System Crime - a violation of a law in which there is injury to the public or a member of the public and a term in jail or prison, and/or a fine as possible penalties Types of Crimes Offences against the person Offences against the person are defined as acts that intend to cause harm or injury to the victim Homicide Definition: is the unlawful killing of one person by another * Murder is the killing of one person by another “with malice aforethought”(mental component) * Manslaughter is the killing of someone in circumstances less culpable than murder. (generally given a lighter sentence than for murder) Degrees of awareness | Murder | Voluntary Manslaughter | Involuntary manslaughter | Non-criminal Killing | Intention to killReckless indifference of life Constructive murderDeath during intention to commit grievous bodily harm | Where the intention to kill or cause the act is mitigated by other factors, such as provocation or diminished responsibility | Non-reckless indifference to life or manslaughter by criminal negligenceReckless indifference to grievous bodily harmManslaughter by an unlawful and dangerous act | Death by non-criminal negligenceDeath by an unlawful act that is not dangerousAccidental deathSelf-defence | Stats: Murder: * In 2001 of the 340 homicides in Australia, 306 were murder * Maximum penalty is life imprisonment ...
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...Changes in the Aboriginal Justice System through Colonialism Austin Jamieson 11153678 Native Studies 107 Ron Laliberte November 20, 2013 Aboriginal justice system has gone through many changes throughout history. This has mostly been because of Colonialism. Its presence is highly noticed in the formation of cultures and their ways, as well as in the elimination of others cultures and their ways. Colonialism has affected Aboriginal culture in several ways; however, a significant area that has been affected is the traditional Aboriginal justice system. Aboriginal communities had their own sense of justice and punishment prior to the arrival of the Europeans in Canada, Aboriginal communities lost their traditional means of sentences to the implementation of European corporal punishment. In the Western concept of justice, the system punishes the offender through a process of trying to make the offender conform, often locking them away to protect society from the dangers that offender brings to those around them. Aboriginal systems (which varying) try to focus on restoring the peace and harmony of the community. The concept is meant to use the justice system to bring equilibrium into the offender and community, as balance is necessary for kinship and relationships to flourish. Elders within Aboriginal communities began to bring many of these traditional correction techniques back into society to fix the growing numbers of criminal offenders throughout the country nearing...
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...Restorative Justice Paper Luis Sanchez Life is about making wrong and bad choices, there is not a single individual on earth that was born with the appropriated knowledge of what is right and was wrong. No individual is perfect they are all equal and all go through struggle, and by struggling choices are being made whether are choices with appropriate behavior or inappropriate behavior. Some individuals know how to control themselves before a tragedy occurs, but most fail to control their temper and they violate the law, and by violating the law consequences are implement because justice must be obtain. Once an offender commits crime then it is more likely for the case to go to trial. The criminal justice system is the practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control. So when crime occurs the defendant will receive either a punishment or sentence. The criminal justice system and other systems that are against crime and inappropriate behavior are always on the side of the victim, because their goal is to obtain justice. The restorative justice is an approach to justice that focus on the needs of the victims and offenders, as well as the involved community instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender. Restorative justices involve both victim and offender and focuses on the personal needs. It is based on a theory of justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual...
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...Crime victims rights Advocates for victims' rights have long complained that they have been sidelined by a criminal justice system that is focused on the interplay between the state and the defendant. With the enactment of the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, that is changing. The authors examine the current state of victims' rights, the evolution of the enforcement mechanisms, and the emerging role of the criminal practitioner in regards to these rights. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] Advocates for victims' rights have long complained that they have been sidelined by a criminal justice system that is focused on the interplay between the state and the defendant. With the enactment of the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, that is changing. The authors examine the current state of victims' rights, the evolution of the enforcement mechanisms, and the emerging role of the criminal practitioner in regards to these rights. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] You have requested "on-the-fly" machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Show full disclaimer Neither ProQuest nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the translations. The translations are automatically generated "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and are not retained in our systems. PROQUEST AND ITS LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING...
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...Criminal Justice Trends Paper Dwight Blackshire September 9, 2013 CJA/484 Mr. James Herring Criminal Justice Trends Paper New philosophies to aid in the future progress of corrections are being developed as a result of past and current trends. The issues and concerns surrounding the corrections component of the criminal justice system are overcrowded prisons and their decreasing budget. If these issues and concerns are not address, they will continue to affect the effectiveness and future operations of corrections. Restorative and community justice programs are options being considered for the future of corrections as administrators, legislators, and activists debate philosophies to address these issues and concerns resulting from past and current trends. In the past, the national political climate favored the “get tough” approach against crime. It was believed that treatment programs could not reduce recidivism. Furthermore, it was also believed to keep the national crime rate low and protect the public, offenders of crime must be punished to deter crime. As a result, reforms such as truth-in-sentencing and three-strike legislation were implemented into the law. These...
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...Minorities in the Criminal Justice System Wendell Wrice English 122 English Composition II Prof. Deborah Zeringue October 7, 2013 For many Americans the scales of justice is blind. It stands as a symbol that everyone is treated fairly in the eyes of the law. Many Americans, especially minorities this is simply not the case. In fact the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world-five times the world’s average. A total of 2,380,000 are now in prison. The US has five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population (Fisher, 2010).In fact minorities make up a large share of the prison population in the U.S. African Americans have a 32 percent chance of serving time in prison at some point of time in their lives, Hispanic males have a 17 percent chance, while white males a 6 percent chance (Fisher, 2010) . Such disproportions of incarceration rates gives reason to believe that minorities, especially African Americans commit the majority of crimes requiring incarceration or the fact that our justice system is flawed to the point where it singles out a specific racial or ethnic group. The question of why there are so many minorities especially African Americans being held in our criminal justice system leads...
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...argued that the Constitution protects all citizens, and race has no weight in the American criminal justice system.[2] While the United States Constitution guarantees equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of race, racism still exists in the American law enforcement and criminal justice systems. In this era with the end of official institutional racism, there has been a corresponding shift from de jure racism to a de facto racism where members of minority groups, especially African Americans, are subject to unequal protection of the laws and excessive in the American criminal justice system, particularly in drug law enforcement.[3] Drug law enforcement is far more discretionary than for other offenses. It is for the police to decide when and where they will seek to make drug arrests, and what priority they will place on enforcing drug laws.[4] Since the war on drugs began in the 1980s, two general trends have been identified. First, there has been a substantial increasing in the number of drug arrests overall; and second, black males have constituted an increasing proportion of these arrests.[5] Based on this evidence, it would be natural to assume that the number of arrests is proportional to the crime rate – that blacks began using drugs in greater numbers since the 1980s and continue to up to the present day. In reality however, it appears that this is simply not the case. In 2000, a black male had the same likelihood of being a monthly drug user as did a white...
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...The Court’s Administration: An Analysis of the Roles in the Process of Criminal Trial The Court’s Administration: An Analysis of the Roles in the Process of Criminal Trial Criminal procedure is the process of investigating, prosecuting, and punishing crimes (Scheb & Sharma, 2013). Criminal procedure includes law enforcement activities, including the arrest, interrogation, and identification of suspects. Criminal procedure also involves a process of criminal trial, in which a person is tried for their crime. The trial process can be extensive, but criminal charges can also be settled in the pretrial process. The pretrial process largely determines the outcome of a criminal case; most criminal cases never make it to trial. Charges against the defendant may be dropped or dismissed due to a lack of evidence. The defendant may also plead guilty without trial. Many guilty pleas result from plea negotiations between the prosecutors and defendant or defense attorneys. This pretrial process makes a formal criminal trial unnecessary (Scheb & Sharma, 2013). There are various roles in the criminal trial process, including the judge, the prosecuting attorneys, the jury, and the expert witnesses such as forensic psychologists. The assortment of roles has a high effect on the outcome for the defendant. A prosecutor is responsible for determining what charges to pursue and whether to plea bargain with the defendant. A jury decides a verdict. A judge decides a sentence. A forensic...
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...100896803 2015 2015 There are many issues surrounding the content of Bill C-10. This essay will examine issues that affect the criminal code and provide evidence that the Bill is not progressive for Canada to deal with crime and the judicial process. By looking at the issues such as mandatory minimum sentences and the proposition of the bill we will look at the challenges that will be faced and met. The bill also introduces eliminating conditional sentences and eliminates double credit for time already served as well as introduces changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act to impose harsher sentences for young offenders. This essay will delve into information that will bring the various issues to light. Firstly an explanation of Bill C-10 will be provided to understand what changes will be made to the Criminal code and who it affects. The dissection of the Bill will open the dialogue for this essay for appropriating topical issues with the concept of progress in a manner that reflects the trouble that this Bill brings to Canadian society. Bill C-10 was introduced by the Minister of Justice on the 20th of September 2011. The Act includes the enactment of the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and amendments to the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other relevant legal documents (parl.gc.ca). Bill C-10 is also titled...
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