Criminal Justice Today 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.

Just as there is culture existing in the free world, there is also a different culture existing within the world of prisons. This culture is known as inmate subculture, and comprises of its own distinct set of informal norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and its own language. Prison lingo is primarily a spoken language; it can be written down, but it is not intended to be used for writing and so it has its own special features and its own problems for students. Prison lingo overlaps with street talk, teen talk, rhyming slang, and the home dialects of prisoners so it is sometimes difficult to say whether this word or that phrase should be included, but there is a host of words that are clearly part of prison lingo.1 The prison lingo is known as “Prison argot.” The word “argot” originated in mid-19th century (denoting the jargon or slang of criminals): from French. Argot is mainly a secret language used by groups to prevent other groups from being able to fathom their conversations. This paper will analyze and explore some of the popular prison argots.

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

The U.S. criminal justice system is made up of different but equally important divisions to ensure proper criminal justice functions are performed. This system is broken up into three different segments: law enforcement, the courts, and corrections These segments work together to enforce justice to all when a crime has been committed (Schmalleger, 2013).

In prisons today, rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution are all elements that provide a justice to society. Prisons effectively do their part in seeing that one if not more of these elements are met and successfully done. If it were not for these elements, than what would a prison be good for? It is highly debated upon whether or not these elements are done properly. It is a fact that these are and a fact that throughout the remainder of time these will be a successful part of prison life.

Prison culture or the “values, norms and attitudes that inmates form in terms of institutional survival” (Bartollas, 2013), can be described in one of three models. The Deprivation Model describes the inmate’s behavior as the product of the environment, more specifically the attempt to adapt to that which he is deprived of as a result of incarceration (Bartollas, 2013). An example of such would be the pseudo family unit or physical relationships that inmates form as a result of the absence of such relationships while incarcerated.

However, the reality is that prisons are no longer designed as correctional facilities, but instead, obedience schools. Not only do prisons affect those incarcerated, they force society’s members into predefined roles (Anonymous, 2012). This is caused because prisons are designed

Christopher E. Smith, Police Professionalism and the Rights of Criminal Defendants, 26 Crim. L. Bull. 155, 158 (1990)

After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests.

According to the prisons inspectorate, the ‘health’ of a prison should be measured according to safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement (HMCIP, 2013). Choose one of these factors, and using academic research to support your argument, discuss to what extent this represents a critical element of imprisonment in contemporary society.

When we do research on daily prison life, we come across two typical but less than ideal situations: either social imaginaries cloud our judgment or information provided by the prisons themselves hide certain weak or bad aspects that they do not want to make public. We can also find information on TV, but most of the time it either exaggerates or minimizes the facts. In order to obtain more reliable information, we have to have access to people who are working or have worked in this institution, and such will be the sources of this essay. We will be describing and giving examples of prison violence according to three types of violence: sexual, physical and psychological violence.

With too strong a Marxist perspective, the hypermasculine prison culture is solely an extension of societal inequality, and not a phenomenon of its own, resulting from the process of prisonization. The long-term effects of imprisonment, or prisonization, creates an environment that is separate from modern society. As men spend longer periods of time imprisoned, the segregation from society and restriction of choices creates a new environment, with a focus on an appearance of masculinity. The hypermasculine prison subculture that develops from prisonization creates a separate and unique environment. Instances of inequality and masculinity register in a different form in a prison than in society, leading to particular circumstances, such as the prisoner’s resistance to

Once you enter a prison, you are in a completely different world. The sound of the door as it closes drives the realization home: your freedom is gone. Whatever luxuries you had before are gone. Everything you once took for granted you now long for, and contemplate with reverence. This being the case, there are now two new sets of rules you have to follow: the rules of the staff, and the rules of the inmates. Of course, these will conflict, but you have to deal with it now. Prison subculture is different from the outside world and even varies between men’s and women’s. The men’s subculture is probably the better known of the two. It has its own set of ebonics, attitudes, statuses, and values. Inmates say that

While dedicated research on the subject of psychological damage as a result of imprisonment is surprisingly sparse there are a few articles that touch on the subject. Prison is a ripe case study for many Psychology scholars due to its inherently insular nature and varied subcultures. Researchers have noticed frightening trends among inmates such as increased aggression, impairment of executive functions, and increased development of psychosomatic disorders.

“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime