Fair Punishment Analysis

This paper discusses three critical issues in the criminal justice system. It touches on the general issues of punishment philosophies, sentence decision making, and prison overcrowding and focused more specifically on the negative effects of each. Highlighted in this informational paper is the interrelated nature of the issues; each issue affects and is affected by the others. Data and information has been gathered from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense

The Justice system seeks to prevent crimes and to capture those who have committed crimes. But what are the causes of crime, maybe poverty, or greed, or is sometimes caused by the system. Is the risk worth the reward and is reward the worth risking the punishment? Power and influence is threaded deeply into the Criminal Justice System. Are all offenders caught and processed with the same demeanor and given the same punishment? The system needs to be impartial to all offenders regardless of the offender’s social position, job or yearly income. The general punishment for most crimes is incarceration in most states with a difference in duration to adjust per each crime. This is the deterrent against crime. This is what should be keeping

Capital Punishment has ended the lives of criminals for centuries. People have debated whether the government should have the power to decide one person’s life. On one side, people think the government does not have the right to play God as well as believe that the death penalty is simply unethical. Forty-eight percent of a half sample survey stated that life imprisonment was a better punishment for murder while forty-seven percent stated that capital punishment was a better punishment (Newport). However, capital punishment should be enforced throughout the country to help deter crime, benefit the economy, and ensures retribution.

What has society done about reforming sentencing laws in order to reduce the incarceration population? The fair sentencing Act which was signed by president Obama has helped reduce the number of inmates impacted by mandatory minimum sentencing by “reducing the disparity in the amounts of powder cocaine and crack cocaine required for the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences and eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine, it also increases penalties for major drug traffickers” (White House 2010). What the Act did was changed the ratio of Crack cocaine v Cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 (U. S. Department of Justice 2010). This Act is beneficial because it

“A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. The study, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Crimonology, concluded, “There is overwhelming consensus among America’s top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty.” A previous study in 1996 had come to similar conclusions.”

Within the past decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of heinous crimes committed, causing some of the laws to significantly change. During the 1970s, some dramatic changes occurred when laws shifted from one extreme to another: rehabilitation to retribution. Such circumstances created an additional emphasis on the offense rather than on the offender. During the 1980s, the “get-tough-on-crime” era began; thus, radical changes in laws continued up until the late 1990s. Throughout the period of the Industrial Society, the United States had two bipolar types of punishment: harsh and lenient. Today, the main focus of the Criminal Justice System is about retribution and punishment.

California Proposition 62, the Repeal of the Death Penalty Initiative, is on the November 8, 2016, ballot in California as an initiated state statute. California is one of the 30 states in which death penalty is legal. This referendum plays a vital role in deciding the criminal system justice system. There exist many arguments from the people in support and in opposition of this proposition. People in favor of the Proposition 62 are mostly former death penalty advocates, while the people in opposition are the ones who have been the indirect victims of some worst criminals. The question raised by this proposition is similar to the issue raised in Just Mercy, which talks about problems in the American justice system.

Preventing judges from taking relevant factors of a case into account when it comes to sentencing defies proportionality. Although two people can commit the same offence, the circumstances that lead to that offence can differ for an almost unlimited number of factors. It is up to judges take these factors into consideration when determining a proper sentence. It takes careful weighing to ensure all cases involving the same offences have similar sentencing and, at the same time, to treat two unique cases differently (8 Wright, pg 4). MMS remove this fundamental feature from our judicial system and allocate the power of sentencing to the Crown. This also gives the Crown leverage over the defence and the accused. Because punishments from MMS can

A convenience sample was gathered from the District Attorney and Public Defender offices in California. One state alone was used considering that this survey deals with sentencing practices and such practices vary by state in the United States. All head District Attorneys and Public Defenders in all 58 counties in California were contacted over an 18-month period by means of email, telephone, and postal mail

Law enforcement over the past few decades has been incarcerating more inmates and creating a media storm on their harsh methods. It seems as though the agenda has changed from “to protect and serve” to arresting individuals as much as possible. In the same context, the death penalty has been increasing over the years as well. We live in a country where Americans want to feel safe, but at the same time, many citizens are supporting these harsh punishments on offenders of the law. Therefore, the following literature review will discuss mass incarceration, long-term imprisonment and the death penalty theories.

Drug crimes against groups of differences have always been a topic of debate in the United States. The range of these disparities ranges from the use of marijuana to the use of crack between lower-class individuals. Groups of difference, such as lower-class African-Americans suffered very harsh penalties for the use of crack cocaine.

The Deterrence theory is a key element in the Criminal Justice System. It’s principles about justice appeal to us because it adapts to our ideas of what we identify as fairness. Punish the sinful and the ones who break the law, swiftly, to the extent that pain will dissuade them from committing a crime ever again. Its sole purpose, to instill fear. Fear of breaking the law because of its punishments. We not only use this theory to punish criminals, but it is a basis in which we raise our kids and pets on, that breaking the rules can lead to consequences. The deterrence theory says that people obey the law because they are scared of getting caught and being punished. It is said that people do not commit crimes because they are afraid of getting caught, instead they are being motivated by some other deep need. In my paper, I will address the two theorists who re-conceptualized the deterrence theory, the principles and two types of deterrence as well as give short insight into my own opinions on the deterrence theory.

This weeks topic talks about reasonable sentencing, one that follows the guidelines set by the United States Sentencing Commission (Lane, 2007), and unreasonable sentencing, one that does not fall within those guidelines and is not justified by the judge (Lane, 2007). Many factors are taken into account when determining the sentence issued by the judge. Some of these factors are drug involvement, criminal history, premeditation, amount of harm or damage done, and whether or not the accused accepts responsibility for their actions (Sentencing and Rehabilitation, 2012). If the judge feels that a more severe or less severe punishment is warranted and can give justifiable reasons for such he can issue such a sentence and still be considered

The “justice as retribution” worldwide emphasizes on punitive measures such as deterrence and incapacitation in order to establish justice against offenders who have committed significant crimes including murder, robbery, or theft (Wenzel et al., 2008). This implies that punishment remains a central element in order to deter future crimes because members of the society would learn the importance of social norms and regulations as violation of those laws would promote harmful consequences (Wenzel et al., 2008). The offenders sentenced to punishment do not need to demonstrate remorse or empathy towards the victim for the harms inflicted on them (Wenzel et al., 2008). Punishment is viewed as justice because it labels the individual as the culprit of the state, which deprives the individual’s status (Wenzel et al., 2008). Nevertheless, when the punishment is imposed against the offender, then the statuses of the victim and the community members are restored (Wenzel et al., 2008).

Throughout time, the use of punishment has changed drastically. Not only has the actual infliction of punishment changed, the reasoning behind this punishment has also changed. There have been numerous scholars, educators, and researchers that have presented various theories on the reasoning behind societal punishment. Some of these theories are closely similar, however some are drastically different. It is important to note that these theorists have broad perceptions that can be rooted back to specific time periods throughout history. Societal punishment is defined as, “punishment being a complex social institution, shaped by the ensemble of social and historical forces and having a range of effects that reach well beyond the population of offenders” (Garland, 1991).