Larimer Country Alternative Sentencing Case Study

The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past forty years, and many Americans today tend to believe that the high levels of incarceration in our country stem from factors such as racism, socioeconomic differences, and drugs. While these factors have contributed to the incarceration rate present in our country today, I argue that the most important reason our country has such a high incarceration rate is the policy changes that have occurred since the 1970s. During this time, the United States has enacted policy changes that have produced an astounding rise in the use of imprisonment for social control. These policy changes were enacted in order to achieve greater consistency, certainty, and severity and include sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three strikes laws (National Research Council 2014). Furthermore, I argue that mandatory sentencing has had the most significant effect on the incarceration rate.

Not only do the eligibility requirements of drug courts vary across the board, but the way the programs operate and their outcomes vary considerably, especially when it comes down to how they choose to operationalize the ten key components (Carey & Waller, 2011; Mackin et. al, 2009). In 1997, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals published these key components. The first key component is that drug courts integrate alcohol and other drug treatment services with justice system case processing (NADCP, 1997). Being that the mission of drug courts is to combat the abuse of drugs and alcohol it is imperative for them to promote recovery through coordinated responses. The second key component states that drug courts should use a

In “Remodeling American Sentencing: A Ten-Step Blueprint for Moving past Mass Incarceration,” the author shows how imprisonment is harsher and tougher in the United States than any other western country. He also mentions how unfair, severe and ineffective they are on reducing crime rates; and mentions changes in the sentences in the future. Tonry states that the United States locks up seven to ten times more of its citizens than other western countries, or that many states spend more on prisons than on education (Tonry 504). So what the country did to the rise of crime rates was it passed harsher laws and built more and larger prisons. However, European countries dealt with this same problem differently. Their governments reduced

This essay explains sentencing in the United States Criminal Justice system. The objectives of punishment in the United States corrections is to help deter crime and to ensure reoffenders don’t reoffend. Sentencing impacts the corrections system and society in a positive manor by eliminating offenders out of the community. Sentencing may include one of the following: probation, fines, prison, community service, probation and so forth depending on the state you reside and the type of offense you commit. Each crime committed doesn’t have a set sentence, therefore they are determined on a case to case basis. The main goal of the criminal justice system is to defend the community and serve justice. Sentencing plays a vital role in the Criminal Justice system.

People in The United States have been affected by the prison system, it has saved many lives, but on the other hand, people have prosecuted for minor crimes, to end up spending a lot of time in jail, which breaks apart families for far too long, it also creates a big rift between the people of this fine nation and their distrust of the law. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan has issued a law that has cut funding for the mental institutions in the United states as called the deinstitutionalization of mental health, and to show ways of how we can bring our mental health system into place. Also in the same era laws have been put in place to put harsher laws on drug offenders called mandatory minimum sentencing, some people like non-violent, first-time drug offender are being treated the same way as a drug lord, and a way that we can fix that is push laws in congress to loosen minimum sentencing. Not to forget to mention the death penalty, how tax payers are wasting our money on keep prisoners on death row. Having a poor mental health system, strict mandatory minimum sentencing, racial bias in our prisons, and death penalty laws has led people to enter our prison system wrongfully. By fixing those rules we can help our society grow, and achieve greatness by doing right to our prison system.

Similar to the Sentencing Reform Act, the purpose of the United States Sentencing Commission is to prevent inequity of sentencing among federal judges. It’s role is to serve as a strict guideline for Judges to adhere and limits the discretion at which a Judge may alter the length of sentence. The goal of this commission is to hamper factors such as race, sex, socioeconomic status, etc to affect the length of sentence, and aims for the guideline to stand on a neutral ground.

In 1994, Los Angeles County established its first Drug Court Program; within a few months, a second court was implemented. These two programs were the beginning of the Los Angeles County Drug Court system and represented a growing “movement to significantly alter the criminal justice system’s response to drug addiction and crime” (Fielding et al., 2002, p. 218). As of 2015, there are 12 adult drug courts in Los Angeles County that specialize in drug treatment services for drug involved and dependent offenders. According to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (1997) the mission of “drug courts is to stop the abuse of alcohol and other drugs and related criminal activity” (p. 7). Drug courts utilize a team approach to promote

Federal sentencing practices and mandatory minimum laws are far too harsh, and ruins the lives of thousands of united citizens every year. In a modern era where the affects of drugs such as marijuana are well documented there is no logical reason that it should still be classified as a schedule 1 narcotic on a federal level. Even if it made sense in a sane world for marijuana to be a schedule 1 drug, the penalty for having it, or any other drug of the same classification is entirely too harsh. The unfair laws in place can lead to situations that no one in their right mind would consider fair or right. This is the kind of situation Clarence Aaron found himself in when he was 24 years old, and still finds himself in today. Aaron is serving 3 life sentences for being a part of a 1500 dollar cocaine deal in college. Ronald

The Larimer County 8th Judicial District Adult Drug Court program is a governmental agency that provides helps to individuals within the judicial system with drug abuse related offenses gain the tools for success to become a positive member of the community. The clients in this program have voluntarily chosen to be in this program and follow the terms and conditions of their probation as signed by a drug court contract that follows there terms and conditions set by the court. This may seem like a forced step or little step to some, but in reality, this is the first biggest step for drug abuse individuals because it means they are admitting they have a problem with drug abuse. Now it’s the Adult Drug Court team’s opportunity to provide the

The recording is based on research founded by Nazgol Ghandnoosh, who is a research analyst for the sentencing project. The sentencing project is a non-profit group that advocates for the criminal justice reform. She also, is an author of a report called “Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies, which is about her study of police shootings disproportionately affecting African American and how media coverage shows racial bias against African American. In addition, a 2002 survey found that people made an estimate that 40 percent of those that committed violent crimes were African American, but the real percentage was only 29 percent. According to Nazgol Ghandnoosh (2015), a research

More and more people in Britain are being sentenced to jail time: this is a fact. In 2004, there are currently over eighty thousand inmates.[1] (Peter Reydt, 2004 / Scottish Executive, 2003) Crime is on the increase but our prisons are already overcrowded. Consequently, new prisons will be required to accommodate prisoners. Where will the money come from to pay for the construction of new prisons?

The NADCP was formed from the original drug court professionals who gathered to advocate the effectiveness of the drug court model and to work with future drug court team members across the country in providing the guidance needed to formulate an effective model (Webster, 2015). Under OJP funding, it established Drug Court Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance Project (DCCTAP) in 1995 to aid in planning, implementation, and assessments of drug courts (Webster, 2015). In cooperation between NADCP and DCCTAP, both organizations convened in a committee to develop a set of principles or components for drug court to adopt. The report: Defining Drug Courts: The Key Components, provides a framework for each individual jurisdictions in implementing its drug court program based on 10 key components of a drug court and provide a performance benchmark for each of the 10 components (NADCP, 1995; Saum & Hiller,

Mandatory minimum sentencing for illegal drug laws is not something that should be used. I do not agree with it. There are many examples of people who have little or no criminal record at all who are being punished for years at a time for something that did not bring harm to someone else. The longer someone is in prison the money we have to pay for them being there. " It costs anywhere between $20,000 and $40,000 per year to house inmates in federal and state correctional facilities." (Hirby) According to statistics if it really cost about $20,000 a year to house an inmate and we give them a minimum 5 year sentencing that comes out to $100,000. That is more money in five years to spend on them while they practically do nothing. Just think,

Drug court was first started in 1989 in Miami, Florida. Drug court came about due to the link between crime and drug abuse. This drug related crimes caused the jails to become over populated. Drug court became the solution to aid in the recovery of SUD as well as weed out petite drug related crimes and hard criminals. This is in intensive program with court supervision, case management for prosecution and/or incarceration. As well as a team of professional that assist the client in with the court, probation, treatment and police. These professional meet up with the client to discuss the program and how they are doing in it. This is a abstinence base program that help with rapid treatment entry, integrated treatment and court service, drug testing, and a sanctions and reward system (Miller,2015)

I propose to abolish the mandatory minimum sentencing because it is costly to our criminal justice system. However, the system needs to be restructured due to the overcrowding of our jails and prison. Our prison is overcrowded with an offender who was sentenced for drug traffic and carry a weapon (Schmallegar, F. & Smykia, J. 2014) The man that at the bottom of the pole is not the main problem because he does not have the resource to transport drugs to different countries or cities. The law needs to focus on the distributor that takes advantage of the economic status of the poor by using them as the dope boy. If this issue is not addressed the taxpayer money will continue to pay for the housing of little fish drug dealer because he will be