Juvenile Death Penalty Essays (Examples)

" (Potter, 1999)
Supreme Court finally strikes down juvenile executions

On Mar. 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down once and for all juvenile executions in the United States, abandoning nations such as Nigeria, Congo, China, Pakistan and others whose records of human rights abuse are staggering.

The 5-4 decision reverses the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes.

The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment's strict ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling continues the court's practice of narrowing the scope of the death penalty, which justices reinstated in 1976. The court in 1988 outlawed executions for those 15 and younger when they committed their crimes. Three years ago, the Supreme Court justices banned executions of the mentally retarded.

Tuesday's ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible for execution.

The age of…

An interesting and similar development in juvenile justice is the issue of life imprisonment as a cruel and unusual sentence for juvenile offenders. This issue is addressed by Mark herman (2009). herman states that Joe ullivan was 13 years old when he attacked and raped an elderly woman. The court judged him as incorrigible and therefore sentenced him to life without parole. Another example is that of Terrance Graham, who took part in several armed robberies during his 16th and 17th years, also given a life sentence for these crimes. The argument appears not to be against the punishment itself, but its disproportionate nature in terms of the crimes committed and the youth of the offenders. They did not commit murder, but were effectively sentenced to eventually die in prison; the replacement for the juvenile death penalty.

According to the author, data compiled by opponents indicate that only a little…

death penalty and minors - recent Supreme Court finding
Death Penalty was extensively applied in the olden times across the world. The modern crusade for banning of capital punishment started in the 18th century with the writings of Montesquieu and also Voltaire. Some of the nations which took a lead in abolishing capital punishment are Venezuela in 1863, San Marino in 1865 and Costa ica in 1877. Presently, more than 50% of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty either by way of legal enactment or practice. The U.S. Supreme Court quashed state death penalty laws. But again in 1976, the Court restored the death penalty following the espousal of new procedures. Since 1982 till 1999, 250 to 350 persons were sentenced to death every year, however, in the last three years; the number of death sentences has come down remarkably. Among the 50 states, 13 states…

Death Penalty
Evolution of the Death Penalty in Supreme Court Jurisprudence

Capital punishment has been in existence for centuries. As early back as the Eighteenth Century B.C., the use of the death penalty was found in the Code of King Hammurabi (Death Penalty Information Center [DPIC], 2010). The utilization of the death penalty for designated crimes continued through the years and became incorporated in Britain's penal system (DPIC, 2010). Britain's use of capital punishment carried over into colonial America (DPIC, 2010). Since that time, the death penalty has been a part of the American criminal justice system. However, its use has not been without strong opposition. This paper explores the Supreme Court cases exploring this controversial topic and discusses the evolution of jurisprudence on the subject matter.

Much of the legal support or opposition for the use of the death penalty has been at the state level. Where the death…

However, the reasons why people commit crime are as different as the individuals themselves. Intentional murder comes in two different flavors. The first is the carefully plotted, well thought out, planned act. In this scenario, motivational theory takes over. The person must feel that they will gain some type of value from the action. It may be that they gain something, such as money, or they may feel that eliminating a person will offer them some type of protection. In any case, the person justifies their actions through a perceived reward in the future (Horisch and Strassmair).
In the case of an intentional murder, the death penalty may deter the action. However, several conditions must be met for the fear of death to act as a deterrent. The person must feel that there is a significant possibility that they will be caught and punished for their crimes. In many cases,…

Capital Punishment: Does it Reduce Crime?
Capital Punishment is a social controversy that epitomizes the axiom "an eye for an eye."

In the United States there are 38 states that utilize the death penalty, and usually for select crimes, including treason, and mass murder. In 2002, 71 inmates were executed, which was 5 more than 2001, and of these 71 inmates, 53 were Caucasian, and 69 were male (Capital Punishment Statistics, 2003).

Capital Punishment has been in effect since the 1970s, despite cases and controversy that it goes against a person's 8th Amendment rights. Nevertheless, there has been changes in Capital Punishment laws and "in 2002 the Court barred the execution of mentally retarded offenders, overturning its 1989 ruling on the matter. In the same year the Court ruled that the death penalty must be imposed through a finding of a jury and not a judge" (Columbia, 2003). In 2002,…

Statistics show that black murderers are far more likely than white murderers to get the death penalty, especially if the victim was white. Blacks make up 12% of the population but 40% of the population on death row, as noted. Georgia can serve as a case in point. Statistics show that a black man accused of killing a white person in Georgia is substantially more likely to receive the death penalty than a white person convicted of killing either a white or a black, and forty-six percent of the inmates on Georgia's death row are black, with most on death row for killing a white person. The situation is much the same in the 35 other states that have capital punishment. In Maryland, blacks make up nearly 90% of the prisoners on death row; in Illinois, 63%; and in Pennsylvania, 60%. The disparity nationwide is even greater when the race…

The research shown to the Supreme Court suggests just the opposite about them (Liptak, 2005).
Third, evidence shows that many teens in jail for serious crimes have significant mental health problems. Representative Henry Waxman (D) of California noted that in his state, one of the most populous in the country, there is little competent psychiatric help for youthful offenders who are incarcerated. He and his staff found that hundreds of teens held in California services were not getting the mental health services they desperately needed (Author not stated, 2005). 70% made suicide attempts while incarcerated, and nearly 75% attacked others (Author not stated, 2005). In spite of such clear evidence of instability, nearly six out of ten California facilities lacked staff with mental health training. Youthful offenders, meanwhile, had a wide range of diagnoses including not only substance abuse but AD/HD, retardation and learning disabilities (Author not stated, 2005). These…

Through which he concluded that each execution prevents around seven or eight people from committing murder (Worsnop 402). In 1985, an economist from the University of North Carolina by the name of Stephen K. Layson published a report that showed that every execution of a murderer deterred eighteen would be murderers (Guernsey 68). While the numbers from these studies seem quite low as compared to the large number of murders committed every day in the United States, the numbers become quite large when discussed in the terms of every year executions. (Guernsey 65)
The opponents of capital punishment here give different points which are also quite true. According to the critics of capital punishment many of the people who commit acts of murder are either retarded or are immature. Capital punishment doesn't have an effect on the youth and immature people. As Richard L. Worsnop writes in his article entitled…

It appears that they were not aware of the situation with illiams when it came to the mental illness and the child abuse, but it is also possible that they kept silent about the issue against an attorney that they knew to be incompetent in order to get a conviction. Speculation is all that is available on that issue where the prosecution is concerned since accounts of what happened to Alexander illiams do not indicate whether the prosecution had knowledge of the mental health problems that illiams had and/or the abusive home that he came from.
THE ATTORNEY'S INVESTIGATION

Perhaps this section should be more appropriately called 'the attorney's lack of investigation,' as that is largely what took place. There were many mitigating circumstances that surrounded Alexander illiams and the murder that he committed, but the incompetent attorney that was assigned to him failed to investigate any of them (Juvenile,…

adults have an episode or two from their youth of which they are not extremely proud. Perhaps it involved sneaking a beer (or several beers) at a social function, or lying about one's plans for the evening to get permission to attend a questionable event. Most kids have learned the hard way on at least a few experiences -- speeding, missing curfew, or cheating on a test. Younger children are taught that taking a pack of gum from the store without paying for it is wrong, and that there are certain words on television that they shouldn't repeat in school. e accept these facts of life fairly easily; minors aren't mentally or socially equipped to know how they should behave all of the time. Children have to be taught about social mores, and teenagers test authority without considering the consequences in a way that most adults would. Lawbreaking -- whether…

Capital Punishment in Texas
Khalil, Samy. "Doing the impossible: Appellate reweighing of harm and mitigation in capital cases after Williams v. Taylor, with a special focus on Texas." Texas Law Review, 80(1): November 2001. Proquest Database.

In this article, Khalil examines how state and federal courts have overturned death sentences, from a period covering the reinstitution of the death penalty in 1976 to 2001. The author focuses on sentences that have been upset due to the failure of defense lawyers to both investigate and present mitigating evidence during trial. The author makes a strong argument by referring to Williams v. Taylor, which argues that appellate courts cannot be expected to reweigh harm and mitigation when attorneys present adequate defense representation. In the case of Texas, the author rightly observes that appellate courts would have difficulty reviewing all capital cases arising from Texas, since even fact-finders in Texas are not required…

Death Penalty
In the city of New Orleans, murder is an epidemic; one cannot watch a local news program or read a newspaper without hearing of another murder. The deaths and their attendant toll on families and loved ones are devastating, but the impact is not limited to the victims. Instead, this epidemic of murder impacts the entire community; the murders demonstrate a lack of respect for the value of human life, as well as a callous disregard for the rule of law. The justice system appears to be broken, and it appears that people commit murder without considering the morality of their actions or feeling the real-life consequences to them if they are caught. The disregard for the law can be understood when placed in context; even murderers who are caught, prosecuted, and convicted of their crimes tend to serve marginal sentences before being returned to the community to…

Death Penalty
There are many situations and concerns in the world that require using ethical thought. There are many issues we read about an learn about when we have to ask ourselves what we believe in. hich side do we take on euthanasia or abortion or sexual morays? It is the responsibility of all people to explore these issues so that their opinions are education and well-informed. It is the lazy individual who formulates their opinions on innuendo and rumor. hat is ethical? hat is moral? hat is right? hat is good? It is everyone's responsibility to ask themselves these questions and formulate their own answers to these extremely important issues. Perhaps one of the most controversial topics for debate is over the ethical right of the death penalty. Some feel the penalty to too severe and inhumane. Others feel the penalty is just and not used often enough. How…

A philosopher looking at this article would likely believe that the author was using consequentialist arguments, because the author appears to feel that the action that must be taken is one that would make everything better. This betterment would be the 'consequence' of not allowing capital punishment for anyone that was under 18 when his or her crime was committed. The article is really very persuasive in that it makes the U.S. look bad and shows that there can be mistakes made when someone is executed and DNA and other evidence later may show that the person was actually innocent of the crime. However, those that believe strongly in justice will not want capital punishment abolished, no matter what the age of the criminal.

ibliography

Schetky, Diane H., MD. (2001). Juveniles and the death penalty. American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. AAPL Newsletter, 26(3), 9-10. Retrieved May 27,…

egardless of social status, defendants who are poorly represented by their attorneys are more likely to receive death sentences than those who are zealously represented by counsel. (in Opposition to the Death Penalty: Arbitrariness and Discrimination, 2004). While death penalty opponents cite the fact that an Alabama woman whose attorney was so drunk during her trial that the trial judge held him in contempt had her death sentence upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court as a reason to abolish the death penalty, that same incident could just as easily be used as a reason to overhaul the legal system, not abolish capital punishment (the Lack of Competent Legal Counsel, 2004).
One of the most controversial arguments regarding the death penalty is that the imposition of the death penalty is a violation of human rights. Opponents of the death penalty cite the very "different"-ness of death as a reason that it…

Based on statistics, nearly one million eighth graders admit getting drunk and another 1.2 million twelfth graders are considered binge drinkers. Heroin use by young adults has doubled from 1991 to 1996 and even teenage compulsive gambling is on the rise (http://www.einstein.edu/e3front.dll?durki=8576,2004).

Youth Gangs and Violence - The Starting Point

It should be noted that violence started from the family affecting the whole society. hat an individual has for a family, what can be seen in the society, what is seen in the environment are all clear reflections of the kind of people a certain society is bringing up - whether it is a deviance to the society or not.

Now, pertaining to the crimes and how the government solved it, it must be remembered that the laws are already there, it is already being maintained by the concerned officials and followed the U.S. citizen. But there are still some…

The United States is one of the few industrialized, democratic nations in the world which still permits capital punishment on a state-by-state basis. Not all states have the death penalty but executions are still carried out in the United States and the punishment remains controversial.
Despite the singularity of its status internationally, the death penalty has historically been a popular policy in the United States, even though it has been hotly debated throughout US history in the legislature and the courts. This essay on death penalty will examine its legal statusin the United States, its history, and its future.

[toc]

Topics
The Future of the Death Penalty in America

Why America Has a Death Penalty

Death Penalty: Arguments and Counter-Arguments

Death Penalty Pros and Cons

[ more topics for death penalty ]
Titles
A Comparison of the Death Penalty in Different Countries and the United States

The Death Penalty Debate…

Death Penalty in Michigan
There are, at present, 38 states with the death penalty and 12 without (deathpenaltyinfo.org 2004). Michigan is one of the 12. From 1976, there have been 906 executions in the U.S.: 517 were white, 310 blacks; 57 hispanic; and 22, other races. More than 80% of these cases involved white victims, although only 50% of murder victims were white. Case studies on race showed that 96% had racial undertones, whereby 98% of the chief district attorneys were white and only 1% were black. Another study conducted in Philadelphia revealed that more blacks were given the death penalty than white and other races at 38%. Still another study conducted in North Carolina said that the death sentence went up by 3.5 times when the victims were white (deathpenaltyinfo.org). Records show that 37 states with the death penalty used lethal injection method in 739 executions, 151 by electrocution,…

Death Penalty: Here to Stay?
Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects about the American criminal justice system today is the fact that the United States is the only Western nation that still uses capital punishment as a "sentence of last resort" for select types of criminal acts (Morris & Vila, 1997; Schmalleger, 2006). This legacy was not carved in stone, though, and the new states that comprised the United States were, at the beginning of the 19th century, among some of the first jurisdictions in the world to restrict the use of the death penalty and to substitute imprisonment in its place; however, today, the United States remains "the singular holdout among western nations, the lone practitioner of capital punishment and a quite vigorous practitioner at that" (Cottroll, 2004, p. 1641). To determine how the death penalty came about in the United States and what changes have taken place…

Capital Punishment
Solitary confinement represents one among the best means of keeping modern-day prisoners from communication and conflict, but has the most injurious effects on their health. Individuals imprisoned in conditions of solitary confinement demonstrate more psychotic behavior compared to normal prisoners; this includes higher rate of suicides (Thesis Statement). After a prisoner loses his/her mental capacity of understanding the reason for his/her imprisonment or punishment, subjecting him/her to solitary confinement is pointless. If one loses one's ability of understanding punishment, the consequences associated with one's actions become irrelevant and have no value. Thus, solitary confinement is crueler than capital punishment.

Lately, the subject of whether or not solitary confinement constitutes greater torture for prisoners than capital punishment (or death penalty), is gaining popularity (Writer Thoughts). The debate has reached a juncture where the favored option is capital punishment.

Solitary Confinement/Capital Punishment Background

During the early part of the 19th…

She answered that no one had condemned her. Jesus then said to her, "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin" (John 8:11).
Because the woman was not stoned in the end, many interpret it to mean that Jesus changed Mosaic law and then this argument is extended to capital punishment in general. However, Jesus still left the opportunity for her to be stoned. If one of the people in the crowd had been without sin, then the woman would have still been stoned. He did not tell them not to stone her, he only set a condition on who should cast the first stone. He said nothing about the second or third stone, only the first. Luckily, for the woman, there were no qualified takers who could cast the first stone. Therefore, Jesus did not abolish capital punishment in this passage.…

In oodson v. North Carolina, the Court held that an offense may not carry a mandatory capital punishment sentence, concluding that it violated both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because it precluded consideration of factors such as the defendant's character and life experiences in coming to a punishment decision (Larson 2003). This decision was affirmed in Roberts v. Louisiana when the Court held that even where a state narrowly defines an offense for which capital punishment be given, a mandatory imposition of the death penalty is unconstitutional (Larson 2003).

In Zant v. Stephens, a petitioner again alleged that an aggravating circumstance listed in the Georgia capital sentencing statue was invalid, and although the Court rejected the claim, it addressed the constitutionality of aggravating circumstances (Larson 2003). The Court held that an aggravating circumstance must "genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must reasonably justify the…

omen and the Death Penalty Analysis
An Analysis of the Historical Effect of Gender and Race on the Application of the Death Penalty in the United States

hile the debate over capital punishment continues to rage in the United States, questions of why the death penalty is viewed as ethical by some, while others would view it as unethical become increasingly significant. In addition, there are new controversies concerning the ethical nature of the death penalty in view of new technology such as DNA evidence that has cleared many death row prisoners. The ethical debate over the death penalty has resulted in the practice being abolished in most industrialized nations, and the United States remains the only advanced country in the world with the death penalty (with the exception of Belgium, where the practice is legal but is virtually nonexistent). However, capital punishment remains a viable punishment for capital crimes…

Jail Time and Death Penalty: Finding New Ways to Deter Criminal Behavior
Jail Time and Death Penalty: A Deterrent?

For years many law enforcement agencies have relied on the assumption that jail time or the death penalty serve as adequate deterrents to crime or criminal activity. However multiple studies confirm that jail time and the death penalty are not effective methods alone for deterring criminals. Because of this it is important that law enforcement agents, government officials and community members work together to uncover effective tools for deterring crime and discouraging criminals from repeating crimes after release.

Jail time and the death penalty do not deter crime. Early Gallup Polls conducted in the 1980s and 1990s show that while roughly two thirds of Americans and law enforcement agents support the death penalty, there is inadequate evidence supporting its use as an effective deterrent to crime (Akers & adelet, 1996). Many…

Economic conditions that have forced both parents to work and have caused teenaged unemployment have also been associated with delinquency, as children are not only unsupervised, but also unoccupied. In addition to this, children who face undue hardships, such as physical and sexual abuse, as well as failure to perform academically, also often turn to delinquency (oberts, 2005). Like Kim and Kim (2008) point out for South Korean children, stress is a likely culprit for the fact that dealing with difficult situations turns into delinquency in youth. This problem is further compounded if the youth has not had instruction in making good choices from parents and teachers (oberts, 2005).
Thus, although they are on separate sides of the world, the United States and South Korea face many of the same problems when it comes to juvenile delinquents. In both countries, the lack of a definite role for criminal justice personnel…

The actual court proceedings in a juvenile court consist of the arrest procedure, search and seizure, and custodial interrogation (Calderon 2006). The concept has been that the delinquent is a child rather than a criminal. Hence, rehabilitation rather than punishment is the court and the system's goal. ut the major aspects of the juvenile justice system continue to hound its supporters. One is the cause of serious juvenile crime. Another is that young offenders need to be rehabilitated under a surrogate entity of the parens patriae concept. Another is a recent redefinition of young violent offenders as adults and their transfer to adult courts and the criminal or adult justice system. There has been increasing belief that they pose a serious and genuine threat to the safety of other young people and the community as a whole. An increase in serious juvenile crimes warrants more severe punishment. ut moving them…

The historic year of 1910, which was marked by South Africa's unification, saw an attempt to develop a national prison and punitive policy. This goal was encapsulated within the 13th Act of 1911 (Prisons and Reformatories Act) as well as within the establishment of a Prisons Department. The Act served to revoke, partially or completely, every penal system-related law in place within the country's four colonies prior to its unification (i.e., laws implemented between 1902 and 1910) (Singh, 2005). Nooshin Erfani-Ghadimi claims that prisons in the nation are often overpopulated, thereby overburdening their ventilation, sanitation, and healthcare facilities. Single cells may be used to house three inmates while the communal cells that are meant to house forty inmates may be packed with twice that amount of inmates, forcing them to sleep in triple or double bunks (Smith-Spark, 2014).
Brazil's Justice Ministry is in charge of the nation's prison system, whose…

Death penalty is generally conceived of as the supreme legal sanction, inflicted only against perpetrators of the most serious crimes. The human rights community has traditionally held a stance against the death penalty for a wide variety of reasons: critics argue that the death penalty is inhuman and degrading; that it is inappropriately applied and often politically motivated; and that rather than reducing crime, the viciousness of the punishment only serves as an inspiration to further violence.
Historically the death penalty has existed all around the world. Only since the beginning of the twentieth century has the death penalty been rejected by a growing number of people and states. International law discourages but does not prohibit it. Article 6 (paragraphs 2 and 5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political ights states that "sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the…

In numerous states, specific laws which govern how juvenile offenders are treated in the court and prison systems are separate "from the criminal code used for adult offenders," a situation which can often be found in other state correctional systems. Of course, all those convicted of crimes against society "must be held accountable for their actions," yet when dealing with young offenders, most state courts seems to stress this idea to the maximum while also taking in account that "the basis of a sound juvenile justice system lies in getting to the root causes of delinquent and law-breaking behavior," meaning that early intervention is far more important for young offenders that it is for older offenders. Basically, much more emphasis is placed on treatment programs, education and "preparing juveniles to re-enter" society as responsible adults than in adult correctional systems ("Juvenile Services," 2007, Internet).

Also, there are a number of…

Introduction
In the past, there was no such term as “juvenile delinquent” or “juvenile delinquency” within the justice system. As frightening as it is to consider, over a hundred years ago, children who committed crimes were thrown into prisons with adults and some children were even sentenced to corporal punishment or even death (Yale.edu, 2000). Reformers of the justice system were the ones who pushed for a distinct court system for the treatment of juveniles, with the underlying notion being that these young people could potentially be helped and reformed. “Central to the concept of juvenile court was the principle of parens patriae. This meant that instead of lawyers fighting to decide guilt or innocence, the court would act as a parent or guardian interested in protecting and helping the child” (yale.edu, 2000). These reforms were novel at the time, and helped to enact changes such as closed hearings for…

Population sizes will be dependent upon the total number of potential study participants that are identified during the research phase. Public opinion data will be collected by a survey administered to persons at random. Data collected from professionals in the field will be collected via interview techniques. Data collected from the surveys will be analyzed using descriptive statistics, as are appropriate for the data and the research question. Interview data will be coded and categorized for further analysis.
This research study requires different types of information from different sources. Two distinct data collection methods will be used for the study groups. This necessitates the use of different data analysis methods for each particular method as well.

Limitations of Study

This study will attempt to achieve synthesis of the issues involved in the decision to lower the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults. However, it is possible that…

Future ole of the Juvenile Justice System in the United States
Young people are naturally prone to experimentation and impulsive behaviors that frequently result in their involvement with the law enforcement community, and police officers today generally enjoy wide latitude in resolving these incidents. In fact, in some if not most cases, police officers can release young offenders into the custody of their parents or guardians without the further involvement of the criminal justice system. Even when young offenders are arrested, though, the juvenile justice system tends to afford them with more leniency than their adult counterparts, due in part to the view that the role of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate rather than punish. These enlightened views of juvenile justice, though, are being replaced with "get-tough-on-crime" approaches in some states, and there remains a paucity of standardized models for states to follow. To gain some fresh insights…

Causes of Juvenile Delinquency
Criminal Justice

The problem of juvenile delinquency is becoming more complicated and universal, and crime prevention programs are either unequipped to deal with the present realities or do not exist. Many developing countries have done little or nothing to deal with these problems, and international programs are obviously insufficient. Developed countries are engaged in activities aimed at juvenile crime prevention, but the overall effect of these programs is rather weak because the mechanisms in place are often inadequate to address the existing situation. On the whole, current efforts to fight juvenile delinquency are characterized by the lack of systematic action and the absence of task-oriented and effective social work with both offenders and victims, whether real or potential. Analysis is further complicated by a lack of international comparative data. (WY, 2003) The paper is a meditation and investigation of the causes of juvenile delinquency. While it…

They may know what they have done and freely confess to it, but a true understanding of what they have done is not really present.
It is somewhat like the difference between knowing that jumping off the roof and hitting the ground will hurt, and actually making the jump and understanding what it feels like to hit the ground that hard from 10 or 15 feet up. The concept of what it really means to take another human being's life is not there; nor is the concept of being executed by the state for the taking of that life.

Third, the person must have an IQ that is significantly below average. There are quite a few people out there who do not have an 'average' intelligence score, (around 100 to 110, as previously mentioned), but that does not make them mentally retarded to the point that their reasoning and abilities…

Criminal Justice
Juveniles who are Imprisoned for Life with No Parole

We live in a world where human beings of any age commit and are punished for menial to heinous crimes. In other words, humans at every stage of life are committing and being punished for crimes, including children and teenagers, called juveniles under the law until they reach adulthood. The paper will explore and debate the pros and cons of sentencing juveniles as LWOPs. The paper will reference recent and groundbreaking cases of juvenile crime and debatable sentencing. The paper aims to provide a modern context within which to examine and debate the use of life sentencing without parole for juvenile offenders. Ultimately, the paper concludes that LWOP for juveniles should, with great discrimination and in the rarest of cases, be used around the world, but before doing so, the stipulations for its use must be clearly stated and…

Criminological Event
acism has always been a defining feature of the American criminal justice system, including racial profiling, disparities in arrests convictions and sentencing between minorities and whites, and in the use of the death penalty. acial profiling against blacks, immigrants and minorities has always existed in the American criminal justice system, as has the belief that minorities in general and blacks in particular are always more likely to commit crimes. American society and its legal system were founded on white supremacy going back to the colonial period, and critical race criminology would always consider these historical factors as well as the legal means to counter them. From the 17th Century onward, Black Codes and slave patrols were used to control the black population, and keep them confined to farms and plantations. Blacks did not have the right to trial by jury or to testify against whites, and the law…

Children who commit crimes of violence be tried as adults in the criminal justice system?
Juveniles should be treated as adults in the criminal justice system. The paper is an analysis of this view and also deals with an opposing argument.

Most societies seek a sort of "revenge" on the habitual offenders of its norms of behavior and this is termed as retribution. In the case of young offenders, this is sometimes translated into putting them in adult courts instead of juvenile courts. This also reflects the anger of society for their crimes. This is an important question that has to be looked into, especially in the social milieu of the United States. The trial of youth as adults is already accepted in some of the states, when there are incidences of serious crime. At the same time we keep on referring to the children as the greatest available resource…

Reward and Punishment
The American system of justice is designed to ensure that criminal activity is punished and those responsible for crime are made to serve retribution for their choices. The system is based on the idea that it is better for 100 criminals to get away with crime than for one innocent man to go to prison. However, miscarriages of justice still take place in the American justice system. Innocent people go to prison and guilty people go free. Those unsatisfied with the situation have been known to take matters into their own hands. This vigilantism has been a major topic of debate with regard to ethics and the determination of what is morally right or wrong. The system is designed so that the regular everyday citizen does not have to perform the punishment on the criminals. The severity of a crime is supposed to have a direct correlation…

Murder Trial of Nicholas Lindsey, March 2012
Factual and Procedural Background

On the evening of February 21, 2011, Police Officer David Crawford of the St. Petersburg, Florida police department was fatally shot while investigating a report of a suspicious person or prowler in a residential neighborhood. After a 24-hour search expedition, police arrested and booked 16-year-old Nicolas Lindsey on charges of first-degree murder. Lindsey confessed to the killing in a taped statement to police shortly thereafter.[footnoteRef:-1] [-1: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-23/justice/florida.officer.shot_1_police-officer-fatal-shooting-petersburg-police-maj?_s=PM:CRIME]

Lindsey was arraigned in court the next day, and the judge ordered that he be held in custody without bail. A grand jury which convened the following week indicted Lindsey on first-degree murder of a police officer, whereupon the state Attorney General charged Lindsey as an adult based on the seriousness of the offense and that he was over age 14.

Jury selection began on March 19, 2012 and the jury heard…

Sexual Predators Prosecution
TOO HARSH AND DISADVANTAGEOUS

Sexual Predators' Prosecution

Sexual predators are persons who sexually victimize other persons (ILGA, 2009). They may be rapists, molesters, peeping toms or sexual deviants. A sexual deviant is convicted for rape, attempted rape, child molestation or abuse, incest, sodomy or indecent sexual assault or exposure. A judge may, however, convict a sexual predator for a crime unrelated to the sexual act. If the offender takes a child from home without parental consent, he may be convicted for kidnapping. As of 2009, 17 States have laws that penalize sexual predators, specifically a sub-class of sexually violent predators or SVP. Of these 17, Illinois adopted and enforces the broadest definition of SVP as sex offenders who victimize persons below 18 years old, regardless of past convictions. The other 16 define SVPs as those who victimize others below 12 years old and who have prior sex…

Hayes was pressurized into making a statement which placed him and Matthews at the scene of the crime. Hayes and Matthews were no where near the scene of the crime when it happened. Hayes had to make a forced statement where he claimed he drove Matthews to the store and only heard gunshots after Matthew entered the store. He did not bother to ask Matthews about the activity inside Hayes was also forced into making a false confession. The prosecutors relied on this false confession and the witnesses' confession to try Matthews.
The prosecutors used witness testimony to convict Matthews. They did not have any forensic or scientific evidence which could link Matthews to the murder. One of the witnesses alleged that he managed to catch a glimpse of Matthews in the rearview mirror at the scene of the crime. The district attorney believed that it was enough evidence to…

I do, however, contend that appropriate rehabilitation programs will make this at least unlikely.
On the other hand, one must acknowledge that such rehabilitation programs are not always available and often not appropriate to the specific person having committed the crime. Hence, what I am suggesting is that more research be commissioned to create better ways of responding to various criminal offenses. Offenders of certain petty crimes, for example, can be required to commit a number of hours to appropriate community services along with being admitted to rehabilitation groups or programs.

While I therefore do not doubt that danger to society can be limited by removing certain offenders from the streets, I highly doubt that it is an appropriate response to all criminal activity.

Furthermore, what length of incarceration would be deemed appropriate for the removal of any given criminal to ensure that he or she does not offend again?…

Florida Law Enforcement
Tallahassee, Florida

Sen. Jeff osky and ep. Julie Krupa

Director, Florida Criminal Statistics

Analysis of Florida crime and arrest data: 2001 to 2011

Per your request, the following breakdown of murders by male Floridians during the period 2001 through 2011 is provided in Table 1 and depicted graphically in Figure 1 below.

ecapitulation of Murder Statistics for the State of Florida: Male -- 2001 through 2011

Murder (males)

ecapitulation of Murder Statistics for the State of Florida: Male -- 2001 through 2011

Crime in Florida: Uniform Crime eports (2013)

The murder rate in the State of Florida for the period 2001 through 2011 equals 626 murders per year. As can be seen from the statistics in Table 1 and depicted graphically in Figure 2 above, there was a spike in the murder rate beginning in 2005 that peaked in 2008 which has since declined to lower than…

Violent Minors
Traditionally the rule is that anyone was under the age of 18 years old who commits a crime will be tried in the juvenile court system; however, under certain circumstances juveniles can be tried in criminal courts as adults. The designation of the age of the defendant defined as a juvenile or minor who could be tried as an adult is determined by state law, and this age varies from state to state. A study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) described data from over 40 of the major urban counties in the United States. The study found that prosecuting juveniles in criminal court (as adults) was generally performed only when serious crimes were committed such as murder, robbery, or aggravated assault (BJS, 2014). An interesting associated finding of the study, which was originally conducted in 1998, was that in the 40 counties studied juveniles were more…

Graham was consistent with a general trend exhibited by the court to create a more clear differentiation between appropriate juvenile vs. adult sentencing. For example, in oper v. Simmons (2005) the court declared the death penalty unconstitutional for persons under 18 (Guggenheim 2012: 3). However, the Graham decision was considered more surprising because the Court tends to give more consideration to death penalty cases. There is often great variation between juvenile laws between the states, but rather than defer to a growing trend to emphasize states' rights, the Graham decision emphasized evolving national and international standards of decency. According to Justice Kennedy, regardless of the state in which the juvenile is tried, there must be a general acknowledgement that juveniles have a "lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility...are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure; and their characters are not as…

Graham vs. Florida Focal Point Analysis
There are many issues involved in the Supreme Court decisions especially with regard to the Constitution. One important assumption is that the court is moving to create a situation where the rights of humans are being protected and arbitrariness being curbed. In the light of the fact that human rights are now a universal concept and is globally acknowledged, the fact that constitutions and laws that abridge the human rights have to go or be amended cannot be argued against. While the constitution may be supreme, the rights of humans take priority, especially in the global context. In such a case the case of Graham vs. Florida can be seen as a landmark judgement so far as the way prisoners have to be treated is concerned.

The problem is more of legal rationality because the laws are rules that a society creates for the…

Crime Delinquency Teenagers
Adolescent Terror

Virtually no one can deny that there is a definite, tangible link between adolescence and crime. Anyone not familiar with this subject would be hard pressed to dispute the eminent statistical data that alludes to that dangerous link. In 1990, teenagers were more than 3.5 times likely to commit an indexed crime than were adults in the United States. Index crimes are both violent criminal activity such as "murder & non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault" as well as serious property crime such as "burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson" (No author 1990). This point is underscored by the fact that in 2005, approximately 10,000 prisoners in the United States were serving life sentences for actions that were committed before they turned 18 (Liptak 2005). This proclivity of teenage criminal offenders is evinced overseas in other countries as well, such as in…

57. The Deterrent Effects of Arrest for Domestic Assault (Lawrence . Sherman and Richard A. Berk)

Domestic violence

Types of data/methods: Sherman and Berk found that arresting batterers reduced by half the rate of subsequent offenses against the same victim within a 6-month followup period. However, in follow-up studies, sometimes offenders assigned to the arrest group had higher levels of (recidivism) while others showed a reduction in repeat cases.

Advantages/Disadvantages: Although the repeat nature of the offenses in a series of trials shows thoroughness, the inconsistent findings about whether mandatory arrest reduces domestic violence suggests more information about the different cases might be necessary to show if arrest helps in some cases but not in others.

Question

Summarize the overall prevalence and incidence of the crime problem in the 1960s as portrayed by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (pg.361) and by the National Commission on…

I also agree to the use of media recovery devices to help in recovering the deleted record. The police cannot afford loosing the evidence since it is the most appropriate way of deciding on the case. The police should be in custody of the devices that can help in retrieving deleted media because this act as a way of securing evidences in the public.
Sentencing reform

I support the view that there should be improvement in the penal system to ensure that there is relief of the overcrowding problem. The improvement in the penal system involves diversifying on the penalties that an individual undergoes without including prisons as a vital solution. This would involve the states re-evaluating the sentence terms for the low-level crimes. Only the high-risk offenders should be in prisons while the state should go for other methods like house arrest and microchip technology in cases of low-level…

aker reviewed three landmark Supreme Court decisions on capital punishment and concluded that the death penalty is capriciously imposed on lack defendants and thus serves the extra-legal function of preserving majority group interests. He viewed discrimination in capital sentencing as deliberate and identified the primary reasons why lack defendants with white victims have been denied fairness in capital sentencing. These are prosecutorial discretion in the selective prosecution of capital cases, prosecutorial misuse of peremptory challenges to systematically exclude lacks from juries, judicial overrides by trial judges, prosecutorial misconduct and the ineffective assistance by defense counsel (Emmelman).
Helen Taylor Greene used a colonial model to explore the effectiveness and limitations placed on the police in the past and in the present (Emmelman, 2005). This colonial model showed that the police, regardless of color, were an oppressive force in many communities. Lately, lack political empowerment and ascendancy in many law enforcement departments…

Safeguarding the criminal justice system from wrongful convictions through an efficient innocence program policy evaluation proposalExecutive summaryConvicting innocent people is a global concern. The problem has been brought to the fore in the US through DNA tests that have proven the innocence of some of the people already serving jail terms. So far, up to 138 people have been exonerated of the crimes they were accused and convicted of. Of the number, 13 people were on death row. Experts observe that at least 23 people have already been executed after conviction, in the US, despite their innocence. There are persistent efforts that have led to significant progress with regard to detecting and preventing people from being wrongfully convicted. There is a lot of room for improvement in this area though. Apart from the reforms highlighted and discussed in this paper, the public is increasingly becoming aware of the problem.…

1446) and it also reinforces that the offender's actions are not taken seriously by the government. A retributive system for criminal punishment accomplishes the ideal of equal liberty under law (Markel, 2004). When an individual commits a crime, they not only assert superiority over their victim, but also claim superiority, however implied, over the government body and practice of legal liberty.
Acts of wrongdoing are paired with consequences -- it is this principle in which crime and punishment have been paired as means for justice. etributive punishment for criminal behavior is rooted in the history of early civilizations as the sole deterrent of wrongdoing. In current American government, the use of "an eye for an eye" is limited to capital punishment and is believed by some to be a significant deterrent for homicide. The deterrence theory and incapacitation theory of punishment both fail at matching the punishment with the severity…

Productivity-Education/Craft/Trade -- a key to being able to stop the return to the penal system is to provide training necessary to allow the individual to find work after leaving prison. Not only is it extremely tough to get a job as a convicted felon, but the skills necessary to get a job that will afford a decent living are tough to get in prison. Earning a degree either online or through continuing education; earning a trade certificate (automotive, plumbing, wood working, etc.) will provide an occupation for the felon after leaving prison, and a focus for their energy and attention while in prison.

Consequences -- Many rehabilitation programs fail because the consequences are unrealistic. Allow people to be human, while still requiring that in order to receive the gift from society of living in society, there are consequences if the rules are broken (Clear, et.al., 2011).

How then, can Maslow's…

Ethical treatment of prisoners is a complex question, involving the nature of the prison system in the U.S. And the nature of those incarcerated in it, as well as ethical obligations that individuals owe to society as well as those that society owes to those who are imprisoned. Deontological ethics might hold, for example, that those who have violated the law and the basic moral norms of society deserve to be punished but at the same time even those convicted and imprisoned have certain basic human rights. For example, they have the right to food, clothing, shelter and medical care, and cannot be tortured, abused or brutalized. Another problem from a deontological perspective would be to criticize a society where blacks and Hispanics are a minority of the population but also the majority of the prison population, including those on death row. Indeed, they are more likely to be profiled,…

ole and Evolution of the American Prison System
Explain the Primary ole and Evolution of the American Prison System and Determine if Incarceration educes Crime

The United States constitution is the fundamental foundation of the American criminal justice system. Given that the document is now over two hundred years old, it constantly experiences numerous amendments and interpretations. As a result, the criminal justice system over the years experienced alterations in order to reflect the needs and beliefs of each subsequent generation. The configuration of the modern prison system has its basis in the late 1700's and early 1800s. The development of the modern prison system aims at protecting innocent members of the society from criminals. The prison systems also deter criminals from committing more crimes through detaining and rehabilitating them. However, more and more deluge of white-collar crimes and other crimes, burdens the American criminal justice system and the prison…

Saints and the Roughnecks - William J. Chambliss
In his seminal essay "The Saints and the Roughnecks," William J. Chambliss studied how a community's differential perceptions led to preferential treatment of a group of juvenile delinquents from upper-middle class families over another gang of delinquents from lower-class families. The main determinant for a community's reaction to a juvenile's deviant behavior was socioeconomic class.

Since this essay's publication in 1973, the idea that people get treated differently according to their class has become widely accepted. Based on Chambliss's thesis, poor people who engage in deviant behavior - ranging from shoplifting to murder - are still more likely to be prosecuted and to receive harsher punishment. They are also more likely to be perceived as guilty by the public.

The more recent research on other determinants of social stratification allows us to expand on Chambliss's original thesis. Thus, in addition to class,…

Gould, judicial systems have to address the concerns about disparate treatment and its affect on sentencing outcomes (pg.1 paragraph 1).
In 1989 the National Consortium of Task Forces and Commissions of Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts (the Consortium) was established. Its primary goal was to encourage judicial authorities to investigate the treatment of minorities in the court. The Consortium was challenged to understand if disparate treatment existed and affected sentence outcomes.

According to the author, The Consortium not only wants to know if racial disparities exist, but want to know the reasoning behind the existence. The author goes further to say that imperative data should be assessed in order to reach a fair conclusion. The Consortium should obtain information on the litigants' background, characteristics of the case, type of representation and demographics of tier of fact.

The litigants' background should be assessed for things such as household income,…

This essay discusses how the criminal justice system is an important part of the government, allowing for the prosecution, imprisonment, and rehabilitation of criminals. Apart from the court system and police, the criminal justice system has other components like criminal justice agencies that provide additional information for researchers to form studies and articles to help improve the criminal justice system as a whole. This Criminal Justice Essay will help students looking to understand what the system is and what components make up the system. By exploring the core of the criminal justice system, one can understand law and how the government carries out enforcement of the law within the country.
Titles

What is at the Core of the Criminal Justice System in the United States?

The Effects of the Criminal Justice System on Crime

Does the Criminal Justice System Need Change?

Selected Title: The Role of The American Criminal Justice…

Poor Grammar
Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system may be seen as an overpowering, puzzling as well as threatening for all those who do not work according to the system on normal basis. Thus, one can easily imagine the response of a criminal since he or she struggle to turn the very inflicting "criminal" justice system (ncvc, 1998).

There are many individuals that may include victims along with their advocates of having believed that the justice system concentrate on the criminal to the loss or damage of the victim (ncvc, 1998). However, after the passage of the isconsin Victims' Bill of Rights in 1980, the victim advocates have supported the passage of victims' rights legislation to have balance justice system (ncvc, 1998).

Thus now to some extent, all states have passed laws in order to protect the rights as well as interests of crime victims. However, the capacity and…