Criminal Justice Theory Summary

In the beginning of chapter one, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Florida v. J.L, a police officer may not search individuals based merely on an anonymous tip. The anonymous tip received was that a black man standing at a bus stop was carrying a concealed firearm. Out of the three black men at the bus stop, they searched the man wearing the plaid shirt, as described in the tip. Although public safety issues were recognized, the conviction was overturned. This unlawful search violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which states, in simpler terms, that the police cannot search an individual or take their property without probable cause.

Most people get killed over what is known as the “Code of The Street.” In the movie it shows that their code of the street was revenge. They killed Ricky Doughboy and his friends killed them. It also shows that violence and crime happens all over something petty. In one scene in the movie they show Ferris walking into Ricky

Throughout this whole term we have learned numerous roles of the criminal justice profession. How on a macro level law enforcement has made points to serve and protect, all the way down to the micro level of society. Men and women risk their lives every day to make sure that the law is obeyed, and their community is still held together. In the following paper you will see how the criminal justice profession helps on an individual and societal level. But what does each level mean you may ask, well let’s break it down a little. Individual need is person to person with the law, where societal is in the community of the law enforcement. The first individual need are assaults in and around bars. "The proliferation of bars in many communities

The criminal justice system is comprised of three parts: police, courts, and corrections. Each component has its own duties, responsibilities, and distinct purposes, but would fail if not effectively working with each other component. Police enforce what is right or wrong, courts provide means of checking whether laws reflect majority of society, and corrections maintain social solidarity through control of an offender (Vago, 2012). Structural functionalists view law, or the criminal justice system, as effectively controlling individuals’ behavior (Browning, 2015).

The criminal justice system consists of models and theories that often contradict one another. Of these models are the crime control model, the due process, model, the consensus model and the conflict model. In this paper these models are evaluated and defined, as well as each entity in the criminal justice systems role within each model. Policing, corrections and the court system all subscribe to each model in some way and in a hurried manner in cases that dictate such a response. As described by Erik Luna in the Models of Criminal Procedure, the following statement summarizes the aforementioned most appropriately.

This first week the assignment was to Define crime, its relationship to the law, and the two most common models of how society determines which acts are criminal, Describe the government structure as it applies to the criminal justice system, Identify choice theories and the their assumptions in regards to crime, Describe the components of the criminal justice system and the criminal justice process, Identify the goals of the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice system is a group of institutions that work together to protect a society, prevent and control crime, and maintain justice; enforcing the laws regulated by society. As the years have gone by and society has evolved; so have the criminal justice system and its methods to accomplish its role in society. This short analysis will evaluate the main facts that have been affecting the criminal justice system for decades and have influenced the evolution the justice system is enduring in a changing society (Muraski, 2009). Amongst the changes in the system, we will discuss the effect the changes have had on the citizens and how their perceptions have evolved as well.

A theory is an explanation of why or how things are related to each other (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Additionally, a theory is defined as a plausible or scientifically acceptable principle, or a body of principles, offered to explain phenomena (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2017). Furthermore, crime theories examine and attempt to identify relationships among humans, criminal behavior, and specific factors such as biological factors, psychological factors, sociological factors, and economic factors (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Since we have defined a theory, let us further discuss how theories are created beginning with the components of a theory.

As the nineties began, the general theory of crime became the most prominent criminological theory ever proposed; furthermore, it is empirically recognized as the primary determinant in deviant and criminal behaviors. Known also as the self-control theory, the general theory of crime can most simply be defined as the absence or lack of self-control that an individual possesses, which in turn may lead them to commit unusual and or unlawful deeds. Authored by educator Michael R. Gottfredson and sociologist Travis Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (1990) essentially “dumbed down” every theory of crime into two words, self-control. The widely accepted book holds that low self-control is the main reason that a person initiates all crimes, ranging from murder and rape to burglary and embezzlement. Gottfredson and Hirschi also highlighted, in A General Theory of Crime (1990), that low self-control correlates with personal impulsivity. This impulsive attitude leads individuals to become insensitive to deviant behaviors such as smoking, drinking, illicit sex, and gambling (p. 90). The extreme simplicity, yet accuracy, of Gottfredson’s and Hirschi’s general theory of crime (self-control theory), make it the most empirically supported theory of criminal conduct, as well as deviant acts.

“While elected officials are charged with managing the administration of criminal justice, they always do so with an eye toward politics, and herein lies an important source of the tension between the pursuit of coherent policy

1). Criminology arose from the social scientific community over the year and has since come into its own discipline, it examines the entire process of lawmaking, law breaking, and law enforcing” (as cited in Akers, & Sellers, 2013). Criminology seeks to discover the depth of crime at both the micro and macro levels, from the individual’s natural biological and psychological characteristics, the nurturing of social and structural institutions, to policy, prevention and control.

However, after his check is rejected, he turns instead to impersonating a Pan Am pilot after seeing one sign autographs to a small child outside the bank. After acquiring a uniform from the company by saying that he “lost” his, he forges his credentials and passports after he creates a fake, Pan Am Air salary check and successfully cashing it in. His need for money to survive on his own drives these decisions to act on these illegal activities, outweighing the cost he will end up paying for committing them. Part of the Rational Choice Theory is whatever techniques the criminal learns and perfects to avoid detection from authorities. Frank’s first run in with authority is when FBI Agent Carl Hanratty tracks him through his forged Pan Am bills to a hotel he was staying at. In Frank and Carl’s first meeting, Frank impersonates a Secret Service agent named Barry Allen (after The Flash) when confronted by Carl’s gun, convincing the agent long enough in order for him to escape. After his close call, he retires to Georgia, where he impulsively convinces the hospital and town that he is a Harvard medical doctor after meeting a new, young nurse named Brenda, whom he ends up falling in love with. The branch that Frank was assigned to was chief doctor of the pediatric ward, where they don’t do much work. The motivation behind this was to get closer to Brenda, whom he had an attraction to when he first met her. His growing love for

Next, Huntington argues that political institutionalization should play a greater role when writing about political development. Institutionalization can be a characteristic of any political system, it can be clearly defined and measured, and it is a reversible process. As defined by Huntington, political development is “the institutionalization of political organizations and procedures” (393). Different degrees of institutionalization can be applied to organizations based on their their adaptability or rigidity, complexity or simplicity, autonomy or subordination, and coherence or disunity. An organization that is more adaptable to changes has a greater level of institutionalization. An older organization--which has had more time to adjust to its successes and failures--is more likely to have a higher level of institutionalization than a younger organization, which is more likely to be rigid and less adaptable. In addition, an organization that has

Criminology and criminal justice are multidimensional studies that require numerous perspectives in order to create well-rounded findings. Crime is largely intertwined with culture. In order to understand why crime and more specifically, why certain crimes occur in a region, one must understand the cultural dimensions at play. Additionally, one cannot analyze how crime should be dealt with applying only one culture’s model for criminal justice. Simply put, different countries have different criminal justice systems. It would be unconscious to analyze the methods of adjudicating crime without factoring in the widely diverse cultural and political dimensions associated with each region or country and their crime. No one single criminal justice system is entirely flawless. Therefore it is dangerous to approach criminal justice with an ethnocentric approach.

Even though criminology in principle is a descriptive, empirical and non-normative science, the subject of its investigations cannot be defined without criteria that rest upon social evaluations. Empirical studies of criminology should always be based upon the existing legal definitions of the concept of criminality if a well-defined and controllable mass of knowledge is to be obtained. This does not imply, however, that the field of criminology can be defined simply on the basis of the legal concept of crime. This concept is not constant from time to time from place to