Criminal justice systems and their functions

Criminal Justice Administration

Taking into account the fact that criminal justice administrators are faced with right-versus-wrong decisions and must balance the wants and needs of their employees, the politicians and the citizens, this work will describe the ethical decisions-making process that criminal justice administrators engage in when attempting to determine a course of action and will discuss the potential perceptions to the employees, the politicians and the citizens and how this influences the administrator.

Criminal Justice Administration Overview

It is pointed out in the work entitled: "Sentencing Values and Sentencing Structures," published in the Judicial Studies Institute Journal that "In a dissenting opinion in which she disagreed with the Court's analysis, Judge Higgins said: 'The judicial lodestar, whether in difficult questions of interpretation of humanitarian law, or in resolving claimed tensions between competing norms, must be those values that international law seeks to promote and protect. In the present case, it is the physical survival of peoples that we must constantly have in view." (O'Malley, nd) O'Malley notes that within the realm of this 'lodestar' are competing perspectives, norms and interests. The fact is, that is the case in all areas of criminal justice administration and all of these must be considered by the individual who fills the role of criminal justice administrator. O'Malley additionally states as follows:

central plank of critical theory, and one of its more valuable contributions to contemporary policy debate, is that apparently neutral concepts such as equality before the law, due process and proportionate punishment often serve to mask underlying structural inequalities and social injustice. Rhetorical commitment to neutral, equality-based principles tends to sustain the status quo and seldom does much to address cycles of disadvantage." (nd)

While structured sentencing is not preferable to many, if not most, structured sentencing has at least set out a guideline for sentencing that is purported to be in place in order to avoid disparities in sentencing however, this is not always the outcome. For instance, statistics show that African-American men are disproportionately sentenced to prison sentences as compared to their white counterparts. Harsher sentencing of certain crimes has tended to target young black men resulting in the disproportionate number of young African-American men who are presently serving time in prison.

The work entitled: "Fifteen Years After the Federal Sentencing Revolution: How Mandatory Minimums Have Undermined Effective and Just Narcotics Sentencing..(Perspectives on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Mandatory Sentencing)" published in the American Criminal Law Journal states that: "The most fundamental current constraint on judicial authority is that judges are bound, with certain limited exceptions, to impose sentences within the range determined by the Guidelines." (Weinstein, 2003) This range is dependent upon the charges that are brought against the defendant in the criminal case as well as "some aspects of the conduct underlying the charges." (Weinstein, 2003) Judges are legally required to "impose a specific sentence is subject to the exercise of discretion in two areas" which are those of:

1) the judge makes the determination that the sentence must be within the Guideline range; and 2) in cases which involve downward departures where the sentence imposed may be below the applicable guidelines range. (Weinstein, 2003)