Essentials of Criminal Justice: Chapter 1

excessive bail

8th amendment created to restrain the government from detaining individuals before they were found guilty.

Macro Level Policies

highest level are policies created by the federal government, which apply to the federal criminal justice system, but could also apply to state and local systems.

Recidivate

means to commit a new crime after being processed by the criminal justice system, such as by arrest, conviction, or incarceration.

Misdemeanor

(n.) a crime or offense that is less serious than a felony; any minor misbehavior or misconduct less serious crime usually carrying a sentence of less than one year in prison.

Homeland Security Act of 2002

, establishing the Department of Homeland Security as a cabinet post in the executive branch. The department's mission is to "prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism; and minimize the damage, and assist in the recovery, from terrorist attacks that do occur within the United States"

Operation Pipeline

- Drug Enforcement Agency launched a training program in 1984 that taught officers how to use traffic stops as pretext for drug searches. - By 2000, the DEA had trained 25,000 officers.

Public policy

A choice that government makes in response to a political issue. A policy is a course of action taken with regard to some problem. A relatively stable, purposive course of action followed by an actor or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern. if crime is a problem, the criminal justice system and its policies represent society's response to that problem. Historically, criminal justice policy, or lack thereof, first centered on revenge on the part of the victim.

Sixth Amendment

A constitutional amendment designed to protect individuals accused of crimes. It includes the right to counsel, the right to confront witnesses, and the right to a speedy and public trial. that an accused individual has the right to be prosecuted in the state and county where he or she allegedly committed the crime. In addition, accused individuals have the right to know what they are being charged with (in order to establish a defense against those charges), the right to know who their accusers are (to ensure that these witnesses are not fabricating the charges), and the right to call witnesses to testify on their behalf. E

Fourteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment giving full rights of citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, except for American Indians.

Actus Reus

A guilty (prohibited) act. The commission of a prohibited act is one of the two essential elements required for criminal liability, the other element being the intent to commit a crime. physical action involved in conduct. The act must be voluntary,

CRIME RATE

A measure of the incidence of crime expressed as the number of crimes per unit of population or some other base. Rates are usually expressed as the number of events per 1,000 or 100,000 people (or residents) per year.

Due Process Model

A model of the criminal justice system that assumes freedom is so important that every effort must be made to ensure that criminal justice decisions are based on reliable information; it emphasizes the adversarial process, the rights of defendants, and formal decision-making procedures. A criminal justice model that places primacy on the right of the individual to be protected from the power of the government. A criminal justice perspective that emphasizes individual rights at all stages of justice system processing. grants suspects many rights to protect them from overzealous investigation and prosecution. carefully ensure that individual rights are not violated. is concerned less with suppressing crime than with ensuring that individuals are not unfairly harmed by their government.

Crime Control Model

A model of the criminal justice system that assumes freedom is so important that every effort must be made to repress crime; it emphasizes efficiency, speed, finality, and the capacity to apprehend, try, convict, and dispose of a high proportion of offenders. A criminal justice perspective that emphasizes the efficient arrest and conviction of criminal offenders. crime-control model advocates the aggressive and quick apprehension, trial, and processing of criminals. crime-control orientation seeks to prevent crime via a number of processes, such as deterrence and incapacitation, and cares less about ensuring that suspects are given specific legal rights.

Rehabilitation

A program for reforming the offender to prevent later offenses. do not advocate punishing criminals, but rather seek to prevent crime by rectifying individual problems that are thought to be responsible for the criminal behavior. views criminals as "broken" and seeks to "repair" them by reformation and treatment. Once reformed, criminals will no longer engage in crime. drug treatment, mental health counseling, changing how offenders think cognitively, and job training. A system devoted to rehabilitation would try to maximize the reformation of offenders without focusing on punishment or deterrence. Rehabilitation would also entail the use of community supervision of offenders, where offenders are allowed to live in the community but must report to probation or parole officers. K

Second Amendment

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Mala in se

Acts that are crimes because they are inherently evil or harmful to society. A descriptive term for acts that are inherently wrong, regardless of whether they are prohibited by law. Offenses that are wrong by their very nature murder, robbery, and rape

Tenth Amendment

Amendment stating that the powers not delegated to the federal gov. are reserved to the states

Deviance

Behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society Deviance refers to human behaviors or actions that are considered by others to be wrong, bad, or inappropriate. Not all deviant acts are illegal. Deviance is location, time, person, and event specific, meaning that some behaviors could be considered normal or deviant depending on the circumstances.

double jeopardy

Being tried twice for the same crime

Judicial Branch

Branch of government that decides if laws are carried out fairly. embodied by the various state and federal courts, engages in law creation.

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

COUNT

Counts simply report the total number of crimes reported over a given time span. Raw counts do not facilitate comparisons of different places, like cities, with different populations.

dark figure of crime

Crime that is not reported to the police and that remains unknown to officials.

service

Directions, assistance to disabled motorists, funeral escorts, administration of various kinds of permits, emergency relays of blood, checking vacant residences or looking in on vulnerable adults, aiding with traffic control at road construction and emergency scenes,

Mapp v. Ohio

Established the exclusionary rule was applicable to the states (evidence seized illegally cannot be used in court) violate Fourth Amendment

Eighth Amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

FBI has also collected crime data from police agencies called the NIBRS still collects data on crimes reported to the police, but the NIBRS data better capture incidents where multiple crimes are committed designed to replace the FBI's UCR system. NIBRS also collects more information about the circumstances of a crime, such as the victim, suspects, their relationships, and weapons involved

Political Era of Policing

From the 1840s to the 1930s, the period of time when police were tied closely to politics and politicians, dependent on them for being hired, promoted, and assignments—all of which raised the potential for corruption.

right to counsel

Individual right found in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution that requires criminal defendants to have access to legal representation.

Brinegar v. United States

Information must warrant a reasonable man to believe that an offense has been or is being committed by the person to be arrested

Statutory Law

Law passed by the U.S. Congress or state legislatures The body of law enacted by legislative bodies (as opposed to constitutional law, administrative law, or case law). legislative acts declaring, commanding, or prohibiting something

Substantive Law

Law that defines, describes, regulates, and creates legal rights and obligations. Substantive law is often called the "what" of the law, in effect, the law that defines rights and duties. law that defines first-degree murder as the deliberate, premeditated killing of another. civil law and criminal law. Civil law deals with issues pertaining to private matters between two individuals. Civil law encompasses torts (e.g., wrongful injury), contracts and property issues, and domestic relations. Civil law allows individuals who feel wronged by another to take their cases to court for a remedy. Criminal law is another primary example of substantive law. Criminal law concerns issues between the government and individuals who are accused of violating government-created laws. Unlike civil law, in which an individual is responsible for finding a remedy to his or her problem, criminal law involves the government prosecuting an individual if that individual has committed a crime.

Procedural Law

Law that establishes the methods of enforcing the rights established by substantive law. which describes the procedures that must be followed when carry- ing out the law. poor defendants must be given an attorney if charged with certain crimes.

Bills of Attainder Laws

Laws that dictated prison sentences for accused who were NOT given a trial. These laws cannot be made! to prohibit the imposition of punishment without trial.

Third Amendment

NO CITIZEN SHOULD BE FORCED TO QUARTER SOLDIERS IN THEIR HOMES The government may not house soldiers in private homes without consent of the owner

self-report statistics

One of three types of data collected on crime. Gathered by asking people to report the number of times they have committed a crime during a set period of time. Often better at discovering unreported crimes, victimless crimes, less serious crimes, and crimes where arrest is unlikely. overcome some of the limitations of official statistics. , they are often better at discovering crimes that the victim did not bother reporting to authorities. Further, self-report statistics are good for exploring crimes where there is no victim, called victimless crimes, such as illegal drug use or underage drinking. Self-reports are also good for uncovering less serious offenses such as drug use or shoplifting and for learning about crimes where an arrest is unlikely respondents may exaggerate or underreport their criminal behavior.

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

Ordered states to provide lawyers for those unable to afford them in criminal proceedings. Warren Court's judicial activism in criminal rights.

Palko v. Connecticut

Provided test for determining which parts of Bill of Rights should be federalized - those which are implicitly or explicitly necessary for liberty to exist.

Micro Level Policies

Public policies at the local level, used to enact or change criminal justice.

self-defense

Reasonable means that an ordinary person would believe that force is to be used. Necessary indicates that force is needed to defend oneself. Protection suggests that the only reason that force is to be used is to protect one- self from harm, not to inflict harm needlessly on another person. Impending implies that an attack must be imminent and immediate, that there is no time to escape.

Seventh Amendment

Right to trial by jury

Procedural Law

Rules that define the manner in which the rights and duties of individuals may be enforced. group of laws that define the methods for enforcing legal rights and duties Law that establishes the methods of enforcing the rights established by substantive law. describes the procedures that government bodies must follow when carrying out the law.

Fletcher v. Peck

Supreme Court case which protected property rights and asserted the right to invalidate state laws in conflict with the Constitution

Gregg v. Georgia

The 1976 Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty, stating, "It is an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme of crimes." The court did not, therefore, believe that the death sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

The UCR report the numbers of crimes reported to the police and the number of arrests for many of the police agencies in the United States UCR's hierarchical reporting system, where only the most serious criminal offense is reported.

Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution

Strict Liability

The legal responsibility for damage or injury even if you are not negligent liability is imposed without intent. Strict liability applies to behaviors that are typically considered mala prohibita (not inherently bad), such as serving alcohol to minors and committing traffic offenses. In these instances, it makes no difference whether an individual intended to engage in the act or not; he or she can still be held liable.

Reentry

The managed return to the community of an individual released from prison. Also, the successful transitioning of a released inmate back into the community. refers to the process of reintegrating into society ex-offenders who have been processed by the criminal justice system. The term usually refers to the steps involved in the successful reintegration of an ex-offender as a productive member of society, and not merely to the act of releasing him or her from prison. R

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Marbury v. Madison

This case establishes the Supreme Court's power of Judicial Review

Deterrence

Visible patrol—on foot, in motor vehicles, on bicycles, or on horseback—is seen as a means of preventing crime by deterrence.he impression that the police are always around and ever vigilant discourages criminals from commit- ting crime: that is the essence of police deterrence. Often, the presence of author- ity, backed up by powers of arrest, will scatter potential troublemakers or quiet boisterous behavior.

Felony

a crime, typically one involving violence, regarded as more serious than a misdemeanor, and usually punishable by imprisonment for more than one year or by death. A serious crime. serious breach of law usually carrying a penalty of more than one year in prison

Classical School of Criminology

a perspective indicating that people have free will to choose between criminal and lawful behavior, and that crime can be controlled by sanctions and should be proportionate to the offense A theory of crime causation that views criminal behavior as the product of the offender's free will. The criminal is choosing to break the law. A set of criminological theories that uses the idea of free will to explain criminal behavior. Approach to understanding crime and social policy for offenders. the school of thought that individuals have free will to choose whether to commit crimes. the theory linking crime causation to punishment, based on offenders' free will and hedonism ***humans possess free will, are rational, and make choices about how to behave. Human behavior is influenced by each person's weighing of the costs of an action and the benefits he or she expects to receive. criminals choose to commit crime by a process of rational thought.

positivist school of criminology

a point of view that emphasized that criminal behavior by a person was determined, rather than a product of free will. A set of criminological theories that uses scientific techniques to study crime and criminal offenders. the view that criminal behavior is a product of biological, psychological, and social forces beyond a person's control ***Positivists claim that human behavior is influenced by conditions and situations external to individuals that are beyond the control of individuals. some theorists claim that blocked economic opportunities lead some people to commit crime, so in- creasing the chances for economic advancement will decrease crime. In contrast, other theorists believe that crime is learned by watching and mimicking other delinquent people, so crime could be lessened by reducing exposure to delinquent peers.

mala prohibita

acts that are prohibited because they are defined as crimes by law. A descriptive term for acts that are made illegal by criminal statute and are not necessarily wrong in and of themselves. offenses prohibited by law but not wrong in themselves underage drinking, speeding, and loitering. behaviors that should be prohibited by law. prohibited but not necessarily bad.

Habeas Corpus

allows an individual to challenge illegal confinement by the government. Constitutional protection against unlawful imprisonment

good faith exception

an error in gathering evidence sufficiently minor that it may be used in a trial

Deterrence

belief that offenders should be punished; how- ever, punishment should have some other goal besides just deserts. punishments should prevent crime by making potential offenders aware of the costs of crime. Deterrence advocates argue that the costs of crime outweigh its benefits. This belief is also drawn from the Classical school. Deterrence appears to work best when the punishment is certain, severe, and quickly applied.

THE FOUR C'S OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

citizens, cops, courts, corrections

COURTS

composed of court workers, such as pretrial intake workers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. This third decision point is unique, for not all of the people who work in this area are employed by a particular court, nor are they necessarily employed by the criminal justice system.

A Loosely Coupled System

composed of many loosely coupled, semiautonomous organizations. instead of one national police force, there are over 20,000 separate police agencies, each acting as a separate, independent agency. Likewise, instead of one court system, there are county, state, and federal courts, and cities and towns have municipal courts. There are thousands of local jails and hundreds of prisons (both state and federal). Likewise, there are thousands of probation and parole agencies, as well as thousands of juvenile courts. United States embodies a system of loosely coupled agencies that check the decisions made by other agencies. system protects citizens from a single, all-powerful state. It allows local areas to tailor their criminal justice systems to their own local needs and permits the creation of particular balances of competing forces, such as crime control and due process and rehabilitation and retribution, for example.

COPS

consists of the police and other law-enforcement agents. Police officers do not patrol the streets arresting every- one suspected of committing a crime; rather, officers selectively enforce the law. an officer chooses not to arrest, even when there is probable cause. Not fully enforcing all the laws all the time is a good thing; the full enforcement of every law is not possible, and society would probably not tolerate it

The courtroom workgroup

courtroom decisions are not made by members of the same organization, but rather by a range of actors who meet in a court "arena." members exercise considerable discretion about a range of decisions, such as whether cases should be plea bargained, sent to trial, or dismissed. The work- group often negotiates the charges to be brought and the possible sentences. F

Legislative

creates government bodies that carry out some lawmaking responsibilities. These bodies are typically referred to as agencies, bureaus, and so forth. These administrative agencies include federal bodies such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as state bodies such as the Ohio Public Defender Commission. Administrative agencies have the responsibility of enforcing administrative law.

crimes against the person

crimes that direct violence or the threat of violence against others; also known as violent crimes

Mens Rea

criminal intent the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused.must intend to commit the act in question; that is, the individual must have a blameworthy state of mind. Establishing intent is rather difficult; in fact, intent is usually inferred from the act.

retribution

criminals should be punished because they have violated the law. Retribution, however, does not punish in order to prevent potential criminals from committing crime. Rather, advocates of retribution argue that punishment is the proper and just thing for a society to do, regardless of its effectiveness in preventing crime. This is some- times called deserts, or just deserts.

RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization)

deal with organized crime, to computer-related crime used for over forty years to prosecute organized criminals ranging from mob bosses to Hells Angels to insider traders, and its legality has been consistently upheld by the courts.

specific deterrence

deterring a particular offender

order maintenance

do not necessarily expect the officers to make arrests, as long as they restore order.The police function of preventing behavior that disturbs or threatens to disturb the public peace or that involves face-to-face conflict between two or more people. In such situations, the police exercise discretion in deciding whether a law has been broken.

Official statistics

gathered from criminal justice agencies, such as the police, and represent the total number of crimes reported to the police or the number of arrests made by that agency. Recall that only about 40 percent of crime victims report their victimization to the police. Likewise, research indicates that police officers do not arrest all persons they encounter who are suspected of committing a crime

trial by jury

guarantees that individuals are judged by a jury of their peers instead of one or two individuals who may not be neutral. The right of a person to be tried by a jury, or a group of citizens, to decide if the person is guilty or innocent of committing a crime.

Crimes Against Public Order

harming society as a whole, and the criminalization of such conduct aims to maintain social order. public order crimes are committed by far more people, although they are not punished as severely.driving under the influence of alcohol, disorderly con- duct, vagrancy, and loitering.

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

is a nationally representative survey of U.S. households designed to measure criminal victimization. respondents may forget victimizations, lie, or fail to tell the interviewers about their victimizations. Sometimes victims will "telescope" a victimization from outside the survey time span.

CORRECTIONS

is composed of criminal justice system employees who work in corrections and includes probation and parole officers, correctional officers, and workers who provide services to offenders, such as social workers. . Probation and parole officers are responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and correctional officers are responsible for maintaining security in a correctional institution, whether it is jail or prison.

principle of legality

no one can be convicted of, or punished for, a crime unless the law defined the crime and prescribed the punishment before the person engaged in the behavior that was defined as a crime the principle that citizens cannot be punished for conduct for which no law against it exists

general sources of crime statistics

official (reported) statistics, self-report statistics, and victimization statistics.

CITIZENS

people not employed by the system, called citizens. The decisions made by crime victims, complainants, and offenders are crucial for understanding how the system works, for citizens provide the vast majority of inputs for the rest of the system. The decisions made by crime victims, complainants, and offenders are crucial for understanding how the system works, for citizens provide the vast majority of inputs for the rest of the system.

Self-Incrimination Clause

prevents defendants from being forced to testify against themselves

General deterrence

prevents people from committing crime by showing them, through the experiences of other punished criminals, that crime does not pay.

victimization studies

produce statistics based on victims self reports and not the reports of police. reports by alleged victims of crimes compiled by U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Fifth Amendment

prohibits government from forcing individuals to testify against themselves. nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation due-process clause, which forces government officials to abide by fair procedures when an individual is subject to the criminal justice process. prohibit government officials from compelling individuals to confess to something they did or did not do.

ex post facto law

prohibits retroactive laws; in effect, a law that is passed tomorrow cannot be applied to behavior that one engages in today. law that makes an act punishable as a crime even if the action was legal at the time it was committed a law that would allow a person to be punished for an action that was not against the law when it was committed a law that makes an act criminal although the act was legal when it was committed

informal social control

social control that is carried out casually by ordinary people through such means as laughter, smiles, and ridicule staring, scorn, the cold shoulder, shunning, and telling people that they are doing something wrong. Some deviant acts are too serious to be managed via informal social control.

Ninth Amendment

states that people's rights are not limited to just those listed in the Constitution.

Harmelin v. Michigan

summary: Following his conviction under Michigan law for possession of over 650 grams of cocaine, Ronald Harmelin was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Harmelin challenged his sentence as cruel and unusual, claiming it was disproportionate to the crime he committed and was statutorily mandated without consideration for the fact that he had no prior felony convictions. On appeal from an affirmance by the Michigan Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court granted certiorari. constitutional question:Is a statutorily mandated sentence that does not allow for consideration of mitigating factors a violation of the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishments? conclusion: no, since the eighth amendment does not contain a proportionality guarantee, the determination of whether a punishment is cruel and unusual is not made with reference to the particular offense. while his sentence may have been cruel, it was not constitutionally unusual

exclusionary rule

that is, illegally seized evidence is excluded from a prosecution. The exclusionary rule helps to ensure that government officials conduct their procedures in a legal manner and provides a penalty when they do not.

Executive Branch

the branch of government that carries out laws mayors, governors, and the president.

Grand Jury Proceedings

the grand jury hears only what the prosecutor chooses to let it hear.

law enforcement

the police function of controlling crime by intervening in situations in which the law has clearly been violated and the police need to identify and apprehend the guilty person deal with crimes committed by people who are drunk, depressed, mentally ill, or simply over- whelmed by life stresses than they are with so-called master criminals.

Professional Era of Policing

the policing idea that the police should be close to the public, that poor quality of policing contributed to social disorder, and that the police should focus on community relations

Incapacitation

the role of the criminal justice system is to separate or segregate criminals from the rest of society in order to protect society.incapacitation does not see segregation as a form of punishmenT designed to keep offenders away from society. using secure facilities, such as prisons and jails, This segregation restrains offenders from engaging in fur- ther criminal activity.

Discretion

the system could not function without it. Discretion involves decision making by people involved in criminal justice— most often but not always employees of criminal justice agencies. These people are usually referred to as criminal justice actors. Discretion involves legal and permissible decisions by criminal justice actors, including acting and choosing to not act Controlling discretion is an important goal for the system, as it hopes to ensure fair and uniform processes. These attempts at controlling discretion often take the form of policies that are found throughout the system

Impartial Trial

trial proceeding heard by an unbiased and neutral jury

victimless crime

violations of law in which there are no obvious victims. activities against the law, but that do not result in injury to any individual other than the person who engages in them. A term used by sociologists to describe the willing exchange among adults of widely desired, but illegal, goods and services.