Chapter 1

Define bench trial, summary trial, bail, grand jury, arraignment, plea bargaining, and parole.

A bench trial is a trial before a judge without a jury. A summary trial is an immediate trial without a jury. Bail is usually a monetary guarantee deposited with the court to ensure that suspects or defendants will appear at a later stage in the criminal justice process. A grand jury is a group of citizens who meet to investigate charges coming from preliminary hearings. An arraignment is A pretrial stage to hear the information or indictment and to allow a plea. Plea bargaining is the practice whereby a specific sentence is imposed if the accused pleads guilty to an agreed-on charge(s) instead of going to trial. Parole is the conditional release of prisoners before they have served their full sentences.

What is a bench trial?

A case decided by a judge instead of a jury.

What is a defendant, and when does a suspect become a defendant?

A defendant is a person against whom a legal action is brought, a warrant is issued, or an indictment is found. A suspect becomes a defendant after the charge(s) have been filed.

Information

A document that outlines the formal charge(s) against a suspect, the law(s) that have been violated, and the evidence to support the charge(s).

Grand jury

A group of citizens who meet to investigate charges coming from preliminary hearings.

What is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?

A misdemeanor is a less serious crime generally punishable by a fine or by incarceration in jail for no more than 1 year, while a felony is a serious offense punishable by confinement in prison for more than 1 year or by death.

Defendant

A person against whom a legal action is brought, a warrant is issued, or an indictment is found.

Jurisdiction

A politically defined geographical area.

What is a jurisdiction?

A politically defined geographical area.

Initial appearance

A pretrial stage in which a defendant is brought before a lower court to be given notice of the charge(s) and advised of her or his constitutional rights.

Arraignment

A pretrial stage to hear the information or indictment and to allow a plea.

Define probation.

A process by which the offender is retained in the community under the supervision of a probation agency rather than being incarcerated.

Probation

A sentence in which the offender, rather than being incarcerated, is retained in the community under the supervision of a probation agency.

System

A smoothly operating set of arrangements and institutions directed toward the achievement of common goals.

Probable cause

A standard of proof that requires evidence sufficient to make a reasonable person believe that, more likely than not, the proposed action is justified.

What is meant is meant by probable cause?

A standard of proof that requires evidence sufficient to make a reasonable person believe that, more likely than not, the proposed action is justified.

Bench trial

A trial before a judge without a jury.

What is an information?

A) a charging document

Of what is the belief that guilt or innocence could be determined through trial by ordeal an example?

A) a myth

Which of the following is characteristic of Packer's crime control model?

A) assembly-line justice

Which of the following is NOT true about judicial sentencing?

A) judges can impose any sentence

Who is responsible for dealing with rude noncriminal behavior?

A) the family

What is the purpose of an initial appearance?

A) to give the defendant notice of the charge(s) and to advise him or her of his or her constitutional rights

What is the difference between and arrest and a booking?

An arrest is the seizing and detaining of a person by lawful authority, while booking is the administrative recording of an arrest.

Describe the costs of criminal justice in the United States, and compare those costs among federal, state, and local governments.

An enormous amount of money is spent each year on criminal justice in the United States. In 2009, federal, state, and local governments spent a total of $258 billion on police protection ($120 billion), judicial/legal services ($55 billion), and corrections ($83 billion). The bulk of government spending on criminal justice is at the state and local levels, but the federal government spends money strategically to influence criminal justice policy at the other levels of government.

Summary trial

An immediate trial without a jury.

What is the difference between and initial appearance and a preliminary hearing?

An initial appearance is a pretrial stage in which a defendant is brought before a lower court to be given notice of the charge(s) and advised of her or his constitutional rights. A preliminary hearing is in a felony case, a pretrial stage at which a judge determines whether there is probable cause.

Institution of social control

An organization that persuades people, through subtle and not-so-subtle means, to abide by the dominant values of society.

What is an institution of social control?

An organization that persuades people, through subtle and not-so-subtle means, to abide by the dominant values of society. Examples include family, schools, organized religion, the media, and the law.

What is a misdemeanor?

B) a less serious crime generally punishable by a fine or by incarceration in jail for not more than 1 year

For nearly the past 3 decades, what have public opinion polls shown about the amount of money spent on crime control?

B) a majority of the American public believes that too little is being spent on crime control

Which of the following is true about crime presented on television?

B) crimes reported by the media generally are more sensational than crimes that are routinely committed

Which of the following is characteristic of Packer's due process model?

B) obstacle-course justice

Statements, such as prosecutors don't work with the police in bringing criminals to justice or prosecutors make police work more difficult or the police make prosecutors' jobs more difficult because of shoddy investigations or procedural errors, are examples of which of the following concepts?

B) the criminal justice nonsystem

What is the purpose of an arraignment?

B) to hear the information or indictment and to allow a plea

Why are the conflicts between the different agencies of criminal justice not entirely undesirable?

Because they occur in a context of checks and balances by which the courts ensure that the law is enforced according to constitutional principles.

Myths

Beliefs based on emotion rather than analysis.

Approximately how much money was spent on criminal and civil justice in the United States in 2009?

C) $258 billion

What is a felony?

C) a serious offense punishable by confinement in prison for more than 1 year or by death

For which of the following offenses is a summary trial likely to be held?

C) an ordinance violation and a misdemeanor

What is probation?

C) it is a sentence in which the offender, rather than being incarcerated, is retained in the community under the supervision of an agency.

Which of the following accounted for the largest percentage of calls for police service in Long Beach, California for April 2012?

C) parking violation

Which of the following statements about state and local criminal justice is NOT true?

C) state and local governments used 68% of the total spent on criminal justice for 2009

Which of the following is NOT an institution of social control?

C) the criminal justice system

Which of the following is characteristic of Packer's due process model?

C) the doctrine of legal guilt

What is the purpose of booking?

C) to allow the suspect's name, the charge, and perhaps the suspect's fingerprints or photograph to be entered in the police blotter

During the middle ages in Europe, people commonly believed that guilt or innocence could be determined through which of the following?

C) trial by ordeal

Describe how the type of crime routinely presented by the media compares with crime routinely committed.

Crime presented by the media is usually more sensational than crime routinely committed.

Explain why criminal justice in the United States is sometimes considered a non-system.

Criminal justice in the United States is sometimes considered a non-system for two major reasons. First, there is no single system but, instead, a loose confederation of more than 50,000 agencies on federal, state, and local levels. Second, rather than being a smoothly operating set of arrangements and institutions, the agencies of the criminal justice system interact with one another but generally operate independently, often causing problems for one another.

Approximately what percent of criminal cases are plea bargained?

D) 95

Which of the following is characteristic of Packer's crime control model of criminal justice?

D) a presumption of guilt

What is the difference between a suspect and a defendant?

D) a suspect is a person who is believed to have committed a crime and a defendant is a person against whom a legal action is brought

What cost every resident of the United States approximately $841 in 2009?

D) civil and criminal justice

What is the purpose of a preliminary hearing?

D) to allow a judge to determine whether there is probable cause

For which of the following purposes did the federal government spend more than $100 million in 2001?

D) to execute Timothy McVeigh

T/F Media publicity of crime gives a fair representation of the kinds of crimes police deal with on a daily basis.

False

T/F Most criminal cases are resolved by jury trial.

False

T/F The federal government spends far more on criminal justice than do state and local governments.

False

Which is more serious, a felony or a misdemeanor?

Felony

Point out major differences between Packer's crime control and due process models.

From a political standpoint, the crime control model of criminal justice reflects traditional conservative values, while the due process model embodies traditional liberal values. In the crime control model, the control of criminal behavior is by far the most important function of criminal justice. Consequently, the primary focus of this model is on efficiency in the operation of the criminal justice process. The goal of the due process model, in contrast, is at least as much to protect the innocent as it is to convict the guilty. Fundamentally, the due process model defends the ideal of personal freedom and its protection and rests on the assumption that the prevention of tyranny on the part of government and its agents is the most important function of the criminal justice process.

Preliminary hearing

In a felony case, a pretrial stage at which a judge determines whether there is probable cause.

Identify institutions of social control, and explain what makes criminal justice an institution of social control.

Institutions of social control include the family, schools, organized religion, the media, the law, and criminal justice. Such institutions attempt to persuade people to abide by the dominant values of society. Criminal justice is restricted to persuading people to abide by a limited range of social values, the violation of which constitutes crime.

Misdemeanors

Less serious crimes generally punishable by a fine or by incarceration in jail for no more than 1 year.

Which levels of government - federal, state, local - bear most of the costs of criminal justice in the United States?

Local

Due process model

One of Packer's two models of the criminal justice process. Politically, it embodies traditional liberal values. In this model, the principal goal of criminal justice is at least as much to protect the innocent as it is to convict the guilty.

Crime control model

One of Packer's two models of the criminal justice process. Politically, it reflects traditional conservative values. In this model, the control of criminal behavior is the most important function of criminal justice.

What was the most frequent type of call for police service in Long Beach, California, during the period examined in the text (see table 1.2)

Parking Violation

Felonies

Serious offenses punishable by confinement in prison for more than 1 year or by death.

Why is criminal justice sometimes considered society's "last line of defense?"

Society turns to criminal justice only after other institutions of social control have failed.

Explain how myths about crime and criminal justice affect the criminal justice system.

The acceptance and perpetuation of myths, or simplistic beliefs based on emotion rather than rigorous analysis, can harm the criminal justice system by contributing to the failure to reduce crime and to the waste of money in the battle against crime.

Booking

The administrative recording of an arrest. Typically, the suspect's name, the charge, and perhaps the suspect's fingerprints or photograph are entered into the police blotter.

Parole

The conditional release of prisoners before they have served their full sentences.

What is the fundamental problem with the types of crime routinely presented by the media?

The crimes presented by the media are usually more sensational than the crimes routinely committed. They do not provide a very accurate image of the types of crime by which the average citizen victimized. Nor do such stories accurately depict the kinds of crime the police respond to on a daily basis.

Why does Packer use the metaphors of assembly-line justice and obstacle-course justice to characterize his crime control and due process models of criminal justice?

The goal of the crime control model is to make the process more efficient and to move cases through the process as quickly as possible hence assembly line justice. In the due process ,the formal fact finding process being definitive of factual guilt is rejected and they insist on formal adjudicative fact finding process in which cases against suspects are heard publicly by impartial trial courts. The factual guilt of suspects in this process is not determined until the suspects have had a full opportunity to discredit the charges against them.

Plea bargaining

The practice whereby a specific sentence is imposed if the accused pleads guilty to an agreed-on charge(s) instead of going to trial.

Doctrine of legal guilt

The principle that people are not to be held guilty of crimes merely on a showing, based on reliable evidence, that in all probability they did in fact do what they are accused of doing. Legal guilt results only when factual guilt is determined in a procedurally regular fashion, as in a criminal trial, and when the procedural rules designed to protect suspects and defendants and to safeguard the integrity of the process are employed.

Who decides whether to charge a suspect with a crime?

The prosecutor

Arrest

The seizing and detaining of a person by lawful authority.

Summarize how the criminal justice system responds to crime.

The typical criminal justice response to the commission of a crime involves the following: investigation, arrest (if the investigation is successful), booking, the formal charging of the suspect, an initial appearance, a preliminary hearing (for a felony), either indictment by a grand jury followed by arraignment or arraignment on an information, either a plea bargain or a trial, sentencing, possible appeal, and punishment (if the defendant is found guilty).

T/F The due process model emphasizes protecting the innocent as much as convicting the guilty.

True

T/F The primary objective of crime control is efficiency.

True

Bail

Usually a monetary guarantee deposited with the court to ensure that suspects or defendants will appear at a later stage in the criminal justice process.

Presumption of guilt is a key feature of which of the two models of criminal justice?

crime control model

The three components of the criminal justice system are_______, ________, and _________.

police, courts, corrections

What three agencies make up the criminal justice system?

police, courts, corrections