The Sentencing Circle

Circle sentencing is a scheme that was first implemented in the legal system of NSW to prevent gaol time for Aboriginal offenders. This scheme involves a circle of representatives deciding the sentence of an offender which does not involve a jail term. The representatives are normally made up of

This paper discusses three critical issues in the criminal justice system. It touches on the general issues of punishment philosophies, sentence decision making, and prison overcrowding and focused more specifically on the negative effects of each. Highlighted in this informational paper is the interrelated nature of the issues; each issue affects and is affected by the others. Data and information has been gathered from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense

The Circle of Justice is a Native American form of justice, originating in Canada that seeks healing in contrast to the regular punishment ways. Some of the good things about this is that you don’t have to go to court, going to court requires a lot of work.

In the United States there are four main goals when it comes to punishment which are retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation (DeJong, 2016, p. 288). The main goals for these punishments are to maintain order over society and to prevent recidivism (DeJong, 2016, p. 288). This ties into the Ecology perspective. By maintaining order over society and preventing recidivism, it ties into all of the issues regarding the Ecology perspective which requires for each issue to address the individual, family, community and society. Maintaining order over society and preventing recidivism strives toward making a safer environment for the individual, family, community and society. There is no universal agreement for making the severity of punishment just or fair (DeJong, 2016, p. 288). When it comes to retribution the person who is getting punished deserves the punishment (DeJong, 2016, p. 289). Retribution refers to when an individual commits a certain crime then that person must receive a punishment proportionate to that crime or suffering that they may have caused towards the victim (DeJong, 2016, p. 289). Regarding deterrence there are two types, general deterrence and specific deterrence (DeJong, 2016, p. 289). General deterrence focuses on the society in general and wants to scare everyone away from committing crimes (DeJong, 2016, p. 289). Specific deterrence focuses on criminals that have already been convicted and wants to prevent them from

Circle Justice is a Native American form of justice that a group of people that come together to help someone learn from their mistakes, to become a better person. Strengths of circle justice It reduces repeat offending more than prison for adults and at least as well as prison for youths. It provides both victims and offenders with more satisfaction that justice has been done than it did in traditional criminal justice. It reduces the crime victims' desire for violent revenge against their offenders.

Even when they were in remote areas they would still have to face the Justice System for any minor crimes they committed. The justice system would put many aboriginal people in prison and if some of them could not afford bail, they would be held in prison for a day or two until their trial date. There is a high incarceration rate of aboriginal people in prison, but what is worse is that the justice system does nothing to help the aboriginals when they are most vulnerable. The criminal justice system should introduce the different types of restorative justice – i.e. circle sentencing, group meetings - instead of incarcerating the aboriginals because firstly, the community as a whole will feel safe to either go to the cops or come in front of the court house, but also because they would not have to fear the justice system. Secondly, in terms of the community, they start to work together to find a resolution, rather than give all the power to one person to make a decision and this way the communities bonds are stronger than ever before. The community can use techniques such as reintegrated shaming, in which the community welcomes back the “offender” so that they do not feel left out or secluded. Furthermore, when a community works together, a lot can be accomplished such as the rate of crime decreasing and there would be more of a focus on helping

The concept of mandatory sentencing is a relatively new idea in the legal field. It was first introduced in 1951 with the Boggs Act, and it made simple marijuana possession a minimum of two to ten years with a $20,000 fine. This was eventually repealed by Congress in 1970, but mandatory sentences came back with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. Since then, the scope and presence of mandatory sentencing has only grown, especially mandatory sentences for drug related offenses. Recently, there has been a growing concern over the use and implementation of mandatory minimum sentencing, with many believing it reduces a judge’s ability to give out a sentence that they feel accordingly fits the crime. Many advocates for mandatory

Circle Justice was developed in the 1980s and is use to help bring healing and understanding to the victim or the offender. Circle Justice is used mostly by the Yukon, Saskatchewan, and the Manitoba but the Navajo also used circles like in Canada. Reasons why I think the circles are bad, I think they are bad because: there is no council and people make the laws not officials, people with really bad crimes get out of

The United States is less the 5% of the world population but has almost 25% of the world’s prison population (Coates, 2015; Waldman, 2016). In the last 40 years, the number of American civilians imprisoned by the United States has increased 500%. (Mauer, 2011). However, this explosion in incarceration rates has not been evenly distributed throughout the American population (Waldman, 2016). While one in seventeen White men will be imprisoned in their lifetime, one in sixteen Latino men will face this fate and for Black men, the number is one in three (Mauer,2011). Neither the racial disparity in incarceration nor its scale was accidental (Coates, 2015). The mass incarceration of Black men in the United States was a direct result of the “War

What has society done about reforming sentencing laws in order to reduce the incarceration population? The fair sentencing Act which was signed by president Obama has helped reduce the number of inmates impacted by mandatory minimum sentencing by “reducing the disparity in the amounts of powder cocaine and crack cocaine required for the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences and eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine, it also increases penalties for major drug traffickers” (White House 2010). What the Act did was changed the ratio of Crack cocaine v Cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 (U. S. Department of Justice 2010). This Act is beneficial because it

Judge Barry Stuart, a non-Aboriginal, created sentencing circles which derive from the governance practices of the First Nations. In the sentencing circles the community decisions are made collectively by the elders and the other members of the community who contribute to the debate in order to come up with an amicable decision. The use of sentencing circles helps to reduce the culture clash between Aboriginal peoples and the Western world that they live in. It would take a great deal of time to completely rid the criminal justice system of systemic racism that leads to the mass incarceration of Aboriginal peoples, but sentencing circles would be step in the right

When looking at the current criminal justice system in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, it is clear that it has failed in the treatment of aboriginal people. This problem has strengthened the idea of restorative justice as a replacement of the traditional system. When looking at implementing circles into that realm of restorative justice, there needs to be an agreement that their practices are diverse, and therefore not to force the issue. Many traditional practices are very spiritually based, and it needs to be evident that

Aboriginal circle sentencing in New South Wales (NSW) is a form of restorative justice and was introduced largely to deal with the over representation and incarceration of indigenous people in the criminal justice system. Government programs thus far do not seem to have made a significant impact in addressing this problem. Circle sentencing was first introduced in NSW in Nowra in 2002 and was primarily based on the Canadian model of restorative justice. Research conducted on the effectiveness of circle sentencing in NSW is difficult to decipher due to the different research methods used and the way effectiveness is tested, however circle sentencing has been shown to have some success in the indigenous community. The implications of these findings

The four goals of punishment in the American criminal justice system are retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. The purpose of the four goals of punishment is to ensure that the sentence the criminal is receiving is reasonable and just. It is difficult to satisfy all of the components to the highest degree for all criminals. All of the goals serve a different purpose and are significant in their own way, but when combined together they create a very complex sentencing policy for criminals.

Be sure to address the four types of sentencing models and the issues surrounding them (equity, truth-in-sentencing and proportionality).