Friends, Liberty has certainly been placed on the back burner this election cycle. From the 3 debates between Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to the Vice-presidential debates between Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Kaine, there was no substantive discussion of liberty-minded issues. Meanwhile, Congress is away campaigning for their November elections. The status quo of Washington will continue on as always. What does this mean for Liberty? • Any hopeful attempts at a bipartisan passage of a criminal justice reform bill is delayed until after this year • The ever-growing national debt will be ignored -- steadily approaching $20 trillion dollars. Congress haphazardly passed a short-term budget bill to avoid a shutdown
The American Flag is perhaps the most symbolic piece of art representing the United States; the 50 stars represent the 50 states; the colors symbolize valor, purity and justice; and the 13 stripes represent the 13 original colonies. But for some, these stripes also represent the 2.2 million people held in the American criminal justice system, moreover they represent the disproportionate rate that minorities in the U.S. are incarcerated. What some consider the greatest democracy in the world, is really a camera-obsucra, inverting the reality of what freedom and justice mean in the United States. Nixon’s war on drugs during the 1970’s, that declared drugs as the most important public enemy, leading to the spike in racial and ethnic
Facts: Defendants were arrested after being charged. They were charged in a 29 count indictment alleging various RICO violations. These included mail and wire fraud offenses, extortion, and criminal gambling violations. At Ds arraignment, government moved to have them detained based on the Bail Reform Act of 1984. The government moved on the grounds that no condition of release would keep the safety of the public.Government made a detailed progger of evidence. This was based mostly on conversations intercepted by court ordered wiretap that found the two Ds had been part of wide-ranging conspiracies. Salerno opposed the motion and challenged the credibility of it and the government’s witness. D offered testimonies of many witnesses and a letter
Our facility offers one-on-one counseling. This counseling will take place between a prisoner and a criminal social service counselor in a guarded room. The counselor will be able to have multiple sessions with prisoners to find the root of their problem and hopefully be able to work on ways to resolve some of their underline issues. They will be able to
The family has been determined indigent for services. Samkisha has received public defender services for her criminal matters and Mrs. Beale has received Medicaid since she was 16 years of age. Mrs. Beale disclosed she is court ordered to receive child support in the amount of $202 per month from Mr. Robinson for Samkisha, but stated he seldom make payments of such. She also reported she receives unemployment in the amount of $204 per week and Social Security Income (SSI) for Samkisha in the amount of $670 per month.
After reading the transcript of the speech, “The Spirit of Liberty”, given by federal judge for more than 50 years, Learned Hand, who served most of the time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, my idea of what it means to be an American was slightly shifted. The statement made by Hand which really caught my attention was, “What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes.” I agree with Hand in the sense that the constitution can only serve purpose to our country if we, as Americans, learn to be truly accepting.
It has been two hundred and twenty years since the Constitution was written. In that short amount of time, we have fought several wars and made new discoveries that brought us one step closer to the future. During all of this, society’s political views have slowly shifted over the past two hundred years. From women’s suffrage to civil rights, to same gender marriage, we have adopted beliefs that would have been considered unthinkable during the era that the Founding Fathers lived in. Each of these political accomplishments would not have been possible without the process of Amendments that was put in place by the Founding Fathers. However, each of these accomplishments took several years, and even decades, to accomplish because we continue
The Criminal Justice System has undergone numerous, yet significant, changes within the last century. In fact, current research reflects the progressive movement from one of rehabilitation to that of punishment and retribution. Such transition reflects issues pertaining to the management and supervision and treatment of offenders. This study will, therefore, consider and evaluate dilemmas within the Criminal Justice System, as well as, issues that have transpired while trying to reduce crime through punishment. Furthermore, the Criminal Justice System will be discussed through a law perspective regarding supervision and management in order to understand the current challenges and issues involving crime.
Hillary Clinton spoke at Columbia University in reference to the mass incarceration and criminal justice reform. She talked about the riot that happened two days before the speech. She wants to end the" era of mass incarceration". She also connected the prison population to broader patterns of inequality. She believes with out the mass incarceration fewer people would be living in poverty. Not only does she wants to reintroduce the former inmates into mainstream society to give them a better chance to succeed. She goes on to talk about what she would do to restructure policing. She wants to put body camera on all police officers. She made a promise to make sure federal funds for state and local law enforcement are used for bettering the practice,
Getting anything passed in the U.S. Congress these days can seem like an impossible task. When you add an election year to the mix, it further muddles the road between talk about criminal justice reform and actual legislation.
During the year of 1965, President Johnson passed the Law Enforcement Assistance Act, which stood for “The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) was a U.S. federal agency within the U.S. Dept. of Justice. It administered federal funding to state and local law enforcement agencies and funded educational programs, research, state planning agencies, and local crime initiatives that increased incarceration enabling corporations to re-introduce prison labor.” (https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/423.html). During the 1960’s there was also the civil rights movement going on, so many have believed that this act was passed “in order to assuage “white fears of black agitation”(FILIMON, Luiza Maria. 2015. "POLICE PRACTICES IN NEW YORK: BETWEEN RACIAL PROFILING, DISCRIMINATION AND UNCONSTITUTIONALITY." Bulletin Of The Transilvania University Of Brasov. Series VII: Social Sciences. Law 8, no. 2: 189-200.) The passing of this law had a explicit effect on America’s Criminal Justice system. This also put an effect on the country's criminal law also at its state and for the federal policies.
There have been a number of changes within the legal and criminal justice system in the last 3-4 decades. History remembers, for example, the Kent State and Chicago Democratic Convention riots in 1968, and since then, a number of criminologists and political scientists have been asked about the use of force, rights-based policing, community involvement, and crime prevention (Russell 2005). The Red Cross and Amnesty International, for instance, have endorsed a rights-based policing model. This idea tempers all police activity with the basic tenet of human rights and rights under the Constitution. Central to this argument is the nature of the relationship between the community and the Criminal Justice System. Local law enforcement bond with community members to implement the day-to-day needs of that community. The idea centers around a basic philosophical tenet: use less force, communicate more, pay attention to human rights, and work to dialog and prevent, not to punish and incarcerate (Williamson 2008).
Bryce Covert’s op-ed, “Paul Ryan’s Misguided Sense of Freedom” presents two differing understandings of American freedom. The first perception of freedom illustrated is a liberalist left-wing approach; a product of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. The second being a conservative right-wing ideology of American freedom. In this essay, I will discuss both opposing views on liberty and its relationship to the debate over American healthcare.
This week’s article focuses on the urgent need for juvenile justice reforms. Maryland lawmakers are questioning whether they should withhold $1 million from the juvenile justice system. These inquisitions over budget allocation resulted from the harsh treatments towards juvenile offenders. For instance, some Juveniles are subjected to strip searches and shackles. The new legislation would rid the Department of Juvenile Services from physically restraining young offenders. Furthermore, the uses of physical restraints on juveniles have been proven to be counterintuitive. Cruel punishments such as shackles counter the notion of rehabilitation. Research suggest that Juveniles that undergo harsh treatment tend to develop ruthless behaviors. In Baltimore,
With consequential reprehensible policies, mass incarceration became a significant political issue prompting the need for federal prison reforms and solutions to an ongoing crisis. California voters initially passed the three-strike law in 1994, but the consequences of the massive increase in inmate population, degradation of state prisons, a federal order to reduce the prison population, and fiscal budget cuts to government programs led to the shift in the political consciousness of the public. Likewise, since 2009, thirteen civic engagement programs were initiated to represent and mobilize communities most impacted by implemented policies (Smith 2014). In 2012, voters approved Proposition 36 that aimed to modify some of the aspects of the
The United States has an incarceration problem that personifies issues throughout the entire criminal justice system. "The United States, with just 5 percent of the world 's population, currently holds 25 percent of the world 's prisoners" (Khalek). This issue runs deeper than just incarceration; it permeates every level of the criminal justice system, from incarceration to probation. Many states have turned to private institutions in an attempt shed operating costs, while also increasing effectiveness throughout the criminal justice system. These acts can include anything from providing treatment programs to full blown management of the entire prison system. Overcrowding at prisons and the rising costs associated with them has led many states to turn to some form of privatization within the criminal justice system. However, privatizing the entire correction system would not be beneficial for the state, from both an ethical and a public policy standpoint.