CRIM 101 Ch 1
Define crime and criminal justice.
Crime is an action taken by a person or a group of people that violates the rules of society to the point that someone is harmed or society's interests are harmed. Criminal justice is a social institution that has the mission of controlling crime by detecting, detaining, adjudicating, and punishing and/or rehabilitating people who break the law.
Talk about the importance of discretion.
Discretion is the power to make decisions on issues within legal guidelines. Criminal justice practitioners exercise considerable discretion in deciding what happens to individual cases. This discretion is sometimes deemed problematic, and the influence of individual decision-makers is curbed. Some discretion is inherent in the criminal justice system, but its use is contested. each level of government and each agency has its own powers of discretion.
Understand society's two broad ways of controlling crime.
Formal crime control refers to the legal controls imposed by the law and carried out by official organizations. Informal crime control refers to the moral rules and norms prescribed by unofficial groups, such as the family, religions, and peer groups.
Explain why the criminal justice system is the institution of last resort.
Social control in a democratic society is complicated, and the criminal justice system is the institution of last resort. The family, religion, school, and the media exert a tremendous amount of influence over individual behavior. When these institutions fail to develop law abiding citizens, the criminal justice system must deal with the consequences.
Discuss social control and the importance of socialization.
Social control is the rules, habits, and customs a society uses to enforce conformity to its norms. Socialization is a process by which individuals acquire a personal identity and learn the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to their society. To live with other people, individuals curb their appetites, ambitions, and desires. People who are inadequately socialized not only fail to contribute to society, but also can become so problematic that society believes they must be confined, exiled, or, in extremely rare cases, eliminated. How these decisions are made is the purview of the criminal justice system.
Outline how the US criminal justice system protects individual rights.
The US criminal justice system protects individual rights as an integral part of the functioning of law enforcement. By protecting the rights of marginal individuals, the United States demonstrates respect for both people and laws. Keeping citizens safe does not require that they lose their constitutional rights. The government serves citizens' interests by finding methods to control crime without allowing law enforcement agencies to turn the nation into a police state.
List and briefly explain the five basic goals of the criminal justice system.
The five basic goals of the criminal justice system are deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, rehabilitation, and restoration. Two types of deterrence are important to the criminal justice system: specific and general. Incapacitation entails removing the offender's ability to break the law. Retribution, punishment that is considered to be deserved, is considered by many to be one of the most important goals of the criminal justice system. Rehabilitation involves correcting the offender's behavior and giving him or her the skills and ability to survive in society without violating the law. The goal of restorative justice is to repair the harm crime has done to the relationship between the offender and victim and between the offender and the community.
Explain the relationship between local, state, and federal levels of criminal justice.
The lines of authority and distinction between local, state, and federal agencies are not always clear and sometimes must be negotiated according to the politics of the case. Responsibilities are spread unevenly across different levels of government. Each state has a different configuration of political jurisdictions. State-level law enforcement functions are usually confined to specialized missions. Federal-level law enforcement functions include a wide range of agencies responsible for enforcing federal laws and assisting state and local governments.
Describe the role that social institutions other than the criminal justice system play in social control.
The primary institution of socialization in society is the family. Families must transmit the expectations of behavior in society and provide an emotionally secure and supportive environment. although many people do not attend religious services, most people in the United States have been exposed to some sort of religious instruction that has influenced the way they think about dealing with others. As institutions, schools are a powerful force in socializing children into the culturally approved ways of interacting with other people. The way the media treats crime influences how we think about it and react to it.
