Inside the Criminal Justice System

Courts are established social, political, and judicial institutions necessary for the manifestation of justice and the maintenance of law and order. The courts are part of the judicial branch of government, as outlined in Article III of the United States Constitution. Courts are the arenas in which the law is tried and applied. Judges are the presiding officers of the court. The United States Supreme Court is the most fundamental court because has "the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes over them," (United States Courts, 2012). This is true even though even though the court does not expressly enforce that law; enforcement is the province of the executive branch.

A conspiracy theory is a theory that argues that the rich and those with power seek the make sure the criminal justice system fails because they benefit from that failure. Conspiracy theories are hard to be proven and for it to succeed, it has to be kept a secret. There’s no credibility in the sources due to the degree of secrecy. Conspiracy theories are invalid because it doesn’t correspond with how people behave most of the time. The Pyrrhic defeat theory isn’t a conspiracy theory because the theory bases itself on why the criminal justice system fails and that’s due to our own shortcoming of not trying hard enough to prevent it.

Since the policy was enacted in the early 1990s, three strikes laws have been one of the most controversial issues facing the American criminal justice system. In general, advocates believe that locking up criminals will protect society. Critics believe that three-strike policy can only be effective with offenders that are on their last strikes (Worrall, 2008). However, other critics explain how three-strike laws don’t significantly reduce crime because most criminals mature out of the criminal lifestyle (Worrall, 2004).

In the criminal justice system there is very rarely a single linchpin that can be pointed to and held responsible for the failure to convict a seemingly guilty person. This reigns true for the very public prosecutions of both Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman. In the eyes of a vast majority of the public, fueled by media spectacle and opinion, Anthony and Zimmerman were guilty even before they ever saw the inside of a courtroom. There simply could be no other answer. The public was subsequently outraged when, after what seemed to be trials of certainty, juries acquitted each. The public sought to find someone, or something to blame. The verdict could not be accepted and many turned their focus to condemn the workings of the criminal

Women are an increasingly visible segment of the prison population confined in not just Amderican prsions but also prisons worldwide. Their numbers are increasing at such a rate that far outstrips even the remarkable rate of growth among incarcerated men. In a interview with the Independent, Carol Hedderman, professor of criminology at the University of Leicester, said “looking at the growing number of women in jail could eventually help lower the prison population overall” (Branagh, 2010). In response to the growing number of female imprisonment in this assignment I will analyise the key weaknesses in the criminal justice system stating why women end up in prisons, and when they do what disadavatages to they face by being in the system. There are a number of factors that I will discus such as the dispersal of prisons and how they result to isolation the women inmates face, how the system deals with mothers with new born or children on a whole. Also how gender inequality plays a key role in the prisons and finally I will disucss other methods of punishements for women which control the over crowded women population and can help improve the criminal justice process.

The U.S. criminal justice system is responsible for those who violate the law and to be punished according to the crime committed. The controversial issue between the extreme cases and justice served is whether or not capital punishment violates the 8th amendment. For the extreme cases that result in the death penalty punishment is brought upon by a 3 drug protocol also known as, lethal injection. Until 2009, majority of the states used a 3 drug protocol, including sodium thiopental used for anesthetic, pancuronium bromide for a paralytic agent, and potassium chloride to stop the heart (DPIC, 2016). The combination of the lethal drugs varies state by state, however the doses administrated depend on the person and in which takes an expert

In the United States the criminal justice system does not always create policies that affect everyone equally. There are many policies that seem to target a specific group of people, whether this is intentional or not is beside the point. The important thing is to change the criminal justice system in order to stop race disparities. Marc Mauer in his lecture speaks of the reason for the disparity between races when it comes to the incarceration rate, as well as steps that can be taken in order to elevate, and or stop the disparity in the criminal justice system. Other topics that Mauer covers are the impact that policies can have on a specific group in the United States, and the overwhelming disproportion when it comes to drug arrest, and the people who get arrested.

The American Criminal Justice system is arguably one of the most fair systems in the world. However, like anything it has its flaws. There are many flaws but the largest three, in my opinion, would be the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate of any other country, the high penalties for drug users, as well as the jury system. The high incarceration rates and the penalties for drug users affect each other but they are still issues on their own. In fact, many of issues within our system coincide within each other.

The judicial processes that have been adopted by the current criminal justice system of the United States of America include mandatory minimums that diminish the importance of certain factors in a case such as the context of the situation and the power of judges to decide on an appropriate sentence; furthermore, they result in more serious, yet overlooked, implications of racial bias and unfair plea bargaining. Mandatory minimums are strict sentences that a judge must abide by when determining how much prison time the accused is to receive as punishment. Although the majority of offenses to which mandatory minimums apply to are drug offenses, there are a variety of offenses including immigration, firearms, and fraud that are linked to a minimum sentence. The concept of enacting mandatory minimum sentences to particular offenses has such a great influence on court verdicts that in the fiscal year of 2010 alone, “27.2% of cases involved a conviction of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum [and] 53.4%...remained subject to the mandatory minimum penalty at sentencing” (USSC, 121). When the government first instituted mandatory minimums for drug offenses with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, it was meant to resolve the problems of drug distribution and abuse, but these sentences bring about more problems than resolutions. As the time approaches to impose a sentence for a case involving a mandatory minimum, the judge has no choice but to assign the accused at least that amount

The United States’ criminal justice system has been under scrutiny by countries of equal standing for good reason, what this country is doing, in an attempt to eliminate crime, is not working. Currently, in the United States, we are living in an era of “mass incarceration.” Almost 1% of men in this country and .1% of women are incarcerated (Phelps). With an incarceration rate of roughly 693/100,000 The U.S. stands far behind it’s NATO counterparts with the next highest rate of incarceration, in the United Kingdom, at roughly 145/100,000 (Wagner et al.). These high incarceration rates are reason for concern, and many researchers have begun to suggest solutions to this dilemma. In order to begin to solve this problem, we need to further

To what extent has the media shaped your understanding of crime and the criminal justice system?

The United States criminal justice system has failed to rehabilitate criminals. Even after being penalized for their crimes, prisoners continue to commit crimes without learning that what they did was wrong from being incarcerated and are sent back to prison. Jails are set up to aid those imprisoned by helping them obtain skills that will hopefully reduce future incidences and allow them to act like the citizens they should be. However, punishing criminals is not as productive as many think it is. This is shown by the increased imprisonment rate from 250,000 in 1976 to almost 2 million by 2003 (Lynch 26, 49). Instead of learning how to work towards handling their problems, inmates are expected to learn from their mistakes by being isolated from society and even sometimes from human contact. Since the prisoners are unable to learn from their delinquencies after doing time in prison, many recommit offenses and find themselves back in jail. Prisons should become more education based, to achieve this goal the overall costs of prisons has to decrees. According to Shadd Maruna, director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice for Queen’s Law, “of the more than 100,000 released from prison each year, 70 percent will return to prison.” The re-incarceration is mainly due to the incapability of these convicts to re-adapt into society. After being detached from the real world, it is problematic to adjust to changes, depending on how long the prisoners were

The United States criminal justice system has an extensive history that can be traced as far as the colonial period. Our founding forefathers placed great emphasis in creating laws that would safeguard the protection of people in the free world resulting in the development of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Although the Constitution and Bill of Rights remain as the standing living document of how laws are fundamentally interpreted and applied, the procedures from which justice is carried out has drastically changed over the past 200 years. The justice system through state and federal levels as it stands today is held to the highest standards for imposing justice on those who commit criminal acts or break the law while simultaneously

Growing up in an upper-middle-class and relatively conservative family in China, I have yet to have the chance to personally meet or talk to anyone who has been or currently is incarcerated. Also, I had no prior experiences of discussing criminal behaviors with someone that is involved in the criminal justice system. This was my first time interviewing a police officer, and it was through this interview that I fully understood and experienced the complexity of crime. While China has a completely different political ideology that leads to a different criminal justice system from the United States, similar theories of criminology still apply to the explanation of criminal behaviors. Moreover, crime is a complicated matter that can be associated with social, cultural and political events. In the interview, Officer Z offered his opinions on criminal behaviors and what motivates people to commit the crime, which could lead to incarceration, torture and even death penalty. As a police officer of the same city for over two decades, he concluded that crimes, including theft, rape and assault, were often drug related. Besides his views on criminal behaviors, Officer Z also revealed the corruption in China and how these corruptions affected the system in catching criminals. This article focuses on my interaction with Officer Z and applications of the theories on criminal behaviors that he described to me.

The notion that punishment should be equal to the crime is a major philosophy in the US criminal justice system. However, finding a great balance between justice and punishment is often a blurred line. Over the past 40 years, the population of state and federal prisons have risen drastically. Polices such as the war on drugs and get tough on crime have caused judges to give out more incarceration years than ever before. With such are large prison population, the resources needed to operate is much greater than ever before. Many in the criminal justice system began to question if excess sentencing is responsible for the failed prison system. This essay will explore the theories of proportional sentencing and how they could be implement. This essay will look at the current polices of sentencing and the how theories associated with proportional sentencing could be used to repair a broken punishment system.