While strictly enforcing existing laws would result in immediate action to reduce crime, at best this approach could only produce short-term results since it does not address the underlying social issues concerning the reasons why certain communities experience high levels of crime. In a peer-review journal article, Acikkol, Mercan, and Ziyalar (2011) take the position that there are two basic approaches to addressing crime, either forensically or socially. In the forensic approach, evidence is gathered, eye-witnesses are interviewed, and a case is made to prosecute the offender. This approach is punitive in nature since it seeks to punish the offender. Law breakers pose a threat to society that must be appropriately addressed, yet the forensic …show more content…
A social approach to crime, as opposed to a forensic approach, seeks to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place. Given that poverty or a lack of resources is a motivating factor in petty crimes, which cannot simply be explained away as acts of greed, are at the root of numerous urban crimes then it would make sense to lift impoverished populations out of poverty. In order to lift people out of poverty, they need access to jobs. In order to qualify, for a job a person needs skills. Skills and training are obtained through opportunities for a quality education. Therefore, cutting back on spending on social programs so that the city's budget can be spent primarily on law enforcement to attempt to stop crime through forensics is misguided penny wise, pound foolish management. According to U.S. Census Data and the Vera Institute of Justice, cited by CNN Money (2016) 40 US States spend more money on incarcerating prisoners than on education. If allocating a larger portion of governmental budgets on law enforcement instead of education or social programs truly worked, then the United States would already have low crimes
Reiman and Leighton comprehensively begin the discussion of crime by outlining their main objectives, establishing the immediate problems surrounding crime control in America, and setting the groundwork for their premises. In recent years, the crime rate in the United States has declined. This decline is generally attributed to ‘tough on crime’ and mass incarceration policies, but the authors are quick to assert that other variables--economic, social-- are greater contributors to this decrease, with the ‘imprisonment binge’ only actually contributing a small amount to the decline. These strict crime enforcement policies might have a small impact on crime prevention, but criminologists are concerned with the potential effect such policies might have on criminal justice procedures--promoting profit rather than safety-- and endangering citizens’ rights (particularly those considered minorities).
The investigation of crime, society’s reaction to it and approaches to prevent it are all areas that have interested me from my adolescent years. I have an interest and passion for Criminology studies for the strict purpose of wanting to fulfill a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of crime and exploring how crimes affect our society. This shady interest in the criminal world has encouraged me to pursue the subject at degree level and to seriously consider a career in a related field. At the beginning of the course my understanding on crime and criminology was mostly derived from the internet or media. These tools became very useful for me to learn different subjects of crime.
Therefore, emphasizes efforts to prevent crime ex ante instance of relying heavily on ex post penalties. Limitation of this policy is that it does not offer programmatic initiatives or structural and decision-making changes for securing community engagement. Rather is evolving strategy, which the dissimilar replicas of community prosecution efforts that make it problematic to define what community prosecution actually looks like. Reason for this it is critics of approach being without “a coherent vision” and is “lacking in structure, even chaotic”. Moreover, the evaluation of this approach make it difficult due to the mixture of policies it represents prospective varies from application to application (Miles, 2014). As a result, introducing
To formulate the law, it was decided that the most valuable approach to reduce violent crimes was through a mandated policy decision requiring identification through past behavior of those who demonstrated clear conduct to participate in violent criminal and whose conduct was not discouraged by the usual concepts of punishment. Reed (2004) stated, “The overall purpose of punishment within the criminal justice system is to prevent the commission of crimes to deter recidivism. For this objective to be successful, punishment must be effective in addressing the problems and solutions for the entire system, not just in individual cases” (p. 502). In reducing crimes, various methods and theories are taken into account. Some of these methods are additional police, additional courts, mandatory sentencing, and increased prosecutorial resources (Reed, 2004). Because the Three Strikes Law varies from state to state, this leads to the many problems it causes in the criminal justice system.
To begin with, criminal justice is a system that is designed to maintain social control, which means it is a necessary aspect of every society since “Laws are the conditions under which independent and isolated men united to form a society” (Beccaria, 1764: 16). In order words, crime control deals with the methods that are taken by a society to reduce its crime. As a matter of fact, there are various crime control strategies from community policing to risk assessments. In addition to the different tactics for controlling crime, there are several theories that not only attempt to explain the causes of crime, but also outline different ways to handle offenders; for example, deterrence, rehabilitation, and even retribution.
This information will help investigators cluster the symptoms with a particular disease and rule out irrelevant information. The surveillance of the components gather in this step will put a perspective on the abnormal health events that are occurring on the outbreak timeline.
Dickens's attitude towards the coming revolution is one of fear and uneasiness, and he uses resources of language such as imagery, symbolism, and irony to show this attitude. Madame Defarge and other women are portrayed as figures who have darker, more powerful role, than their common role in society, and foreshadowing is used by Dickens to alert the reader as to what is ahead. First of all, imagery is used by Dickens to show the power of women and to foreshadow the coming revolution. In the first paragraph, Dickens describes how Madame Defarge, the “Missionary,” is going around telling women of the coming revolution (Lines 16-20). Each group of women that Defarge leaves are described as getting angrier and angrier as she continues telling people of the uprising.
Society has high expectations for criminal justice. Controlling the behavior of people is a difficult task, and there are several differing opinions on how this should happen. Many believe this can best accomplished by prevention through deterrence. Deterrence can be achieved from increased police patrols, good relationships with the community, and through tough penalties for convicted criminals. When deterrence fails, criminals need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. Law enforcement enforces many different crimes; some of the most serious crimes are violent crimes.
There is no perfect formula to accurately predict crime or to understand the criminal elements of the human mind, but there have been many theories that have attempted to explain crime for better or for worse. The 5th edition Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences covers the both the most famous and infamous of criminal theories. Although some ideas are convincing at first they tend to fall flat when new evidence surfaces, so when reading, researching, or just watching the news in general it is important to remain vigilant and impartial as everybody else is entitled to their opinions. Unfortunately societies tend to spread false information quickly, but it is not like it is difficult to change someone’s opinions, however the amount of people with the wrong idea grows into quite a substantial number.
Within the Criminal Justice system, comes a structure of both practices as well as organizations that main role is to uphold not only social jurisdiction, but to discourage and diminish criminal activity. The Criminal Justice system also sanctions those who violate the laws of the land with penalties and reintegration of the criminals into society. In the United States, our policy has been guided by the 1967 President 's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, which issued a ground-breaking report 'The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society ' (President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice [Presidents Commission], 1967).
Even as the clearest evidence has vindicated this policy, opponents of tough criminal justice laws deny its efficacy. Instead, a competing idea has grown up to explain violence among us. And with that idea has grown up a new policy to combat crime. This policy seeks to displace tough punishment of the guilty. Indeed it does not even address itself directly to those who commit crimes. Rather it addresses a tool that criminals, as well as millions of law-abiding citizens sometimes use. When infact the government says they only prosecute
Criminologists have long tried to fight crime and they have developed many theories along the way as tools to help them understand criminals. In the process of doing so, criminologist have realized that in order to really understand why criminals are criminals, they had to first understand the interrelationship between the law and society. A clear and thorough understanding of how they relatively connect with criminal behavior is necessary. Therefore, they then created three analytical perspectives which would help them tie the dots between social order and law, the consensus, the pluralist and the conflict perspectives. Each provides a significantly different view of society as relative to the law. However, while they all aim to the same
In our day-to-day life, it is inevitable that someone will do or say things that will hurt or upset us. In the same way, laws were created to guide people, curb crime, and restore law and order in the society but still people happen to break laws despite the existence of law. However, someone may ask what is the best way of dealing with criminal behavior? Should the society embrace the concept of “an eye for an eye” or “get to the root” of the problem, or just simply to focus on and assist the victim (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2012 pg. 12)? Many studies conducted by criminal justice scholars in line with this debate point towards punishment to crimes committed as the most acceptable means of dealing with an injustice for most societies. However, still the moral basis for punishment is a conflicting issue that has given rise to numerous competing views. This paper will address reasons why an eye for an eye is the best means of dealing with criminal behavior and not focusing on the victim nor getting to the root cause of criminal behavior (Akers, 2013).
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.
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medication that has been increasing in popularity in today’s society. It is often substituted for conventional medication14. Homeopathy was created in the seventeen hundreds when German doctor Samuel Hahnemann concluded that if a substance can induce the symptoms of an illness in a healthy person, then it can treat those symptoms in an ill person. He first tested Cinchona bark, a treatment for malaria, on himself and said to have experienced the symptoms of malaria. He also concluded that the medicine was more effective in a lower concentration therefore he invented the process of succession to reduce the side effects of the medicine and to increase its ability to heal13.