Farmer's Response 2: Criminal Law As A Security Project (2014)

I’ve chosen to cover this topic because now more than ever news specials are being broadcast and even though each story as similar as the next they’re very captivating. The statistics on this issue is overwhelming and it involves just about every type of criminal act known. It’s become an absolute phenomenon in the United States of America.

The basis of criminal justice in the United States is one founded on both the rights of the individual and the democratic order of the people. Evinced through the myriad forms whereby liberty and equity marry into the mores of society to form the ethos of a people. However, these two systems of justice are rife with conflicts too. With the challenges of determining prevailing worth in public order and individual rights coming down to the best service of justice for society. Bearing a perpetual eye to their manifestations by the truth of how "the trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both" (Hitchens, 2003, para. 5).

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

The criminal justice system used today is to follow principles that protect and establish equality for all and while the United States criminal justice system may strive to follow these right of the people, but unfortunately, this is where the system falls short of fundamental American principles. Repeatedly the criminal justice system does the adverse of what it’s supposed to do. It does not protect the many liberties the people should have. Some may argue that the criminal justice system is indeed fair for

Chavis, Benjamin F., Jr. "U.S. Criminal Justice System Needs Urgent Reform." Washington Informer, Mar 2015, pp. 24-24,41, Global News stream; ProQuest Central, http://ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.gsu.edu/docview/1669733723?accountid=11226.

The Public Policy of Crime and Criminal Justice, by Nancy E. Marion and Willard M. Oliver. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearso

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.

Criminal law is a construct of the government, enforced through tangible measures. In a democratic society, the government is elected by the citizens, and as such, laws are generally conceived with the aim to reflect whatever ethical or moral standards are presently acceptable. However, in order to be truly effective, some legislation must circumvent current sociological viewpoints in order to create laws that are genuinely in the best interests of society. This results in a delicate balancing act, as lawmakers attempt to weigh the views of the majority against the need for laws to be both reasoned and objective.

Immemorial, governments and individual citizens have had to walk a thin tightrope between the two ideals. This controversy was the catalyst that sparked the first ten amendments of the Constitution that we know as the Bill of Rights and, how in addition to these rights secured by America's forefathers, a number of institutions have arisen to ensure the protection of individual rights in an increasingly complex world. In order to add balance to this equation, the criminal

With a great deal of debate the design of the United States along with the lay out by the founders of the country who took their roll in laying down the “rules” of the United States of America very seriously. The Articles of Confederation, the Bill of Rights, and the US Constitution lay the floor work of a layer of protection afforded to all United States Citizens. Each of the doctrines provides a step towards the written words that have granted many men and women protection from persecution as well as freedoms not received in other parts of the world. The last piece of the three historical

From the 19th century to the 20th, crime control state agencies have become instilled with ‘penal welfarism’ and rehabilitation. However since then they’ve been dominated by risk management, incapacitation and retribution. In clarifying this change Garland; the formal organisations of crime control have a tendency to be responsive. Garland states “too often our attention focuses on the state’s institutions and neglects the informal social practices upon which state

The criminal justice system is an essential aspect of American society as well as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The purpose of laws is to protect society from harm, ensure everyone’s safety, and equally treated. The criminal justice system works to protect the innocent and punish the guilty without violating the rights the criminal suspect to avoid any injustices. As society evolves the criminal justice system needs to evolve so it is important to create new laws to keep up with the evolution and new trends. As new trends and contemporary issues develop in society, they can have a direct impact on the different functions of the criminal justice

These fluctuations in criminal justice policies are not just in local governing bodies; these changes are an effort to adapt to a new technologically based modern age, and that goal of adaptation radiates to all ends of the earth, thereby having a global reach. As all societies, and populations of people alter and change, and belief systems ebb and flow, the rules and laws that govern such people must change with them. It is imperative that a governing system stay current, for without an ever-changing system of behavioral structure then those societies race faster toward

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.

In this paper I will talk about the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in preventing crime, or in the present context new security policies put in place to prevent terrorism. This falls under the umbrella of tertiary crime prevention. I’ll briefly describe the way in which tertiary crime prevention works, then look at the aims of new security policies and identify some of the problems in which the government faces when dealing with the prevention of terrorism. I’ll then provide some statistics on the types of sentences that have been imposed on individuals caught in terrorism acts, look at the different security policies and how effective they have been, and conclude by suggesting some alternative security policies that could be put in place. Crime prevention involves any action that causes a reduction in the level of criminal activity. Tertiary prevention is used after a crime has occurred in order to prevent successive incidents. Such measures can be seen in the implementation of new security policies following acts of terrorism such as the September 11,