Tom Shamshak has been part of the Criminal Justice system for a long time now. After an interview with Tom Shamshak I was able to get his general disposition and point of view on certain areas. Shamshak started off as a police officer and he dedicated a lot of his time to the department. Through hard work and dedication he was able to rise through the ranks becoming Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant and Chief. Shamshak states that his career has been very rewarding from an officer to chief he has met a lot of people and learned countless things. Also a law enforcement career provides great benefits. Such benefits include Health and Medical Insurance, Dental Insurance, Life Insurance and a great retirement plan with a pension. Shamshak believes that being in law enforcement the biggest challenge is finding the right balance between his professional time and personal time. Not achieving the right work and personal life balance can lead to stress and trouble in the home also he states that this is a major contributor to family issues. Shamshak implies that a police officer’s identity is his work and that it can be all consuming, and that officers often need to be reminded that the most important source of stress relief is the family network. When you have stress at work and at home it can become overwhelming and noticed in work performance. Also supervisors need to check up on their officers and realize when too much work is being done that it could possibly contribute to the
It is easy to take a look across the occupational spectrum and see that Law Enforcement is a very emotional and dangerous job. Law enforcement officials come in contact with homicides, street violence, and other tragedies while “protecting and serving”. They
The Criminal Justice System has undergone numerous, yet significant, changes within the last century. In fact, current research reflects the progressive movement from one of rehabilitation to that of punishment and retribution. Such transition reflects issues pertaining to the management and supervision and treatment of offenders. This study will, therefore, consider and evaluate dilemmas within the Criminal Justice System, as well as, issues that have transpired while trying to reduce crime through punishment. Furthermore, the Criminal Justice System will be discussed through a law perspective regarding supervision and management in order to understand the current challenges and issues involving crime.
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).
The criminal justice system is a gratifying, yet often unfair ruling process. Having said that, a first-rate example of a disapproving situation is when a person(s) of African American decent receives severe punishment for a particular offense, as opposed to what a person of Caucasian decent might acquire for the same offense. My topic of choice is from the ACLU's web page via an article entitled "Race and Criminal Justice", certainly peaked my curiosity. Being a young man with a group of friends consisting predominantly of minorities, this article stuck to my brain by bringing back tons of déjà vu. An acquaintance of mine left for court, accused stealing headphones at a local Walmart with a friend. One of the court hearings was for stolen
America’s Criminal Justice system, it keeps America safe and the criminals at bay. Without any sort of criminal justice system America would be complete chaos. People would commit crimes because there would be no consequences for their actions. However, our laws didn’t just appear out of nowhere, they were created and molded to colonial America.
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 is an extremely complex, but yet extremely important part of the United States. The criminal justice system is defined as “the set of agencies and processes established by governments to control crime and impose penalties on those who violate laws). Although there are many different groups of people that make up the criminal justice system, the two main and most discussed the state division or the federal division. The state division of the criminal justice system deals with crimes that are committed within any given states boundaries. The federal division of the criminal justice system deals with crimes that are committed on property owned by the government, or if a crime is committed in multiple states.
Today the United States of America is globally ranked nineteenth in the top one hundred countries today for their criminal justice systems. Our country's police,courts, and correction systems are one of the best in the world. Each one of these systems has special functions and parts in America’s criminal justice system.
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
The criminal justice system has been around for thousands of years. It has not always been as formal and structured as it is today, but has been a constant part of society nonetheless. As nations and societies have changed, so has the criminal justice system present within each nation or society. Customs and laws have affected the punishments and procedures observed in criminal justice systems all over the world as certain punishments or laws set in one society may not apply to another society.
According to Maxeiner (2012); their area unit two principal objectives of criminal justice, to set up the difficulty for effective decision-making and therefore the ability to come to a decision. These a number of the cited as a number of the most things that show however Germany 's criminal justice system contrasts with the America 's criminal justice system. supported this; this essay are going to be comparison at a number of the basic variations between America’s and Germany’s scheme (Maxeiner, 2012). For instance; it 's clear that America 's judges square measure arguably disemboweled and second prosecution and police agencies is on the state level and not native level. America 's criminal justice acts on the class-conscious system and in contrast to America, Germany 's functionary square measure continually an official. Germany 's criminal procedure operates on one code and is more unified compared to America (Maxeiner, 2012). distinction between America and Deutschland’s Substantive Law one among the most variations between the Yankee and German criminal justice is that since America embraces death penalty; there 's none in Germany (Maxeiner, 2012). Germany 's sentences square measure much deemed lower compared to America, and this is often by the distinction in decision-making by judges from these nations. For example; each countries use police and prosecutors to analyze and gift a case before the court (Maxeiner, 2012). On the contrary; the excellence comes once the
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
As crime coexists with humanity, the presence of the police force ensures the suppression of crime and the safety for our society. Every occupation has its own work stress. What is unique is all the different stress found in one job. Aside from the heroic services police officers perform in their duty, they experience overwhelming stress in their daily duty. Police stress refers to the negative pressures related to police work (Police Stress, n.d.). In order to maintain peace and order, there must be an effective police force up and running. For that to happen, departments need to be aware and deal with the negative effects caused by police stress. Whereas, police officers must conquer their stress in order to work at their
Every year the miscarriage of justice becomes an increasing problem in the United States, due to disquieting issues and crevices within the criminal justice system. Individuals such as William Dillon, have served protracted sentences for deplorable crimes which they did not commit. Over time, innocence group projects’ have exposed wrongful convictions through new advances in forensic science and reforms in the system. Among these advances, contains the evolution of DNA testing and the competence to apply the biology of the body’s cells to resolve crimes. This has produced meaningful changes in the criminal justice field, giving hope that freedom may be near for the wrongly convicted. Still, the battle has yet to be won for many innocent victims