...Opening Argument: Truth in Sentencing Laws do not Deter Crime Truth in sentencing was developed to keep inmates (especially more violent) to serve 85% or more of their initial time in prison. Although it is to insure the safety and builds a better relationship within society, there can be some negative outcomes such as the availability of plea bargaining to receive lesser sentences or inmates who are serving their complete sentence have the inability to adapt to society once released. Using the plea bargaining system has saved a lot of time and money for the court work group because of the willingness of the suspect to forfeit their freedom whereas a person proceeds to trial and receive a harsher term “…more than 90 percent of all criminal cases do not go to trial because the offender pleads guilty to a lesser charge. Even violent crimes are routinely plea-bargained--an estimated 77 percent of rape cases, 85 percent of aggravated assault cases, and 87 percent of robbery cases.” (Anne Morrison Piehl, 1995) . Piehl and DiIulio explained that criminals almost always have the option to discuss a plea bargain to avoid trial, and also prosecutors are more than willing to proceed with the deal because it cuts time on their work load as well as reduce the funding to conduct these trials. In most cases, people eventually adapt to their environment. In cases when a person is in prison, he/she have molded to the familiar everyday lifestyle that comes with it. “A stronger penalty for...
Words: 431 - Pages: 2
...their crime. The trial process can be extensive, but criminal charges can also be settled in the pretrial process. The pretrial process largely determines the outcome of a criminal case; most criminal cases never make it to trial. Charges against the defendant may be dropped or dismissed due to a lack of evidence. The defendant may also plead guilty without trial. Many guilty pleas result from plea negotiations between the prosecutors and defendant or defense attorneys. This pretrial process makes a formal criminal trial unnecessary (Scheb & Sharma, 2013). There are various roles in the criminal trial process, including the judge, the prosecuting attorneys, the jury, and the expert witnesses such as forensic psychologists. The assortment of roles has a high effect on the outcome for the defendant. A prosecutor is responsible for determining what charges to pursue and whether to plea bargain with the defendant. A jury decides a verdict. A judge decides a sentence. A forensic psychologist can influence all of these decisions by serving as an expert witness after their interaction with the defendant. All of these positions involve a great deal of discretion. This work seeks to research existing guidelines for decisions of prosecutors in bringing charges against a defendant, of judges in sentencing a defendant, of forensic psychologists in giving expert testimony,...
Words: 3921 - Pages: 16
...Racism and Our Justice System Even after everything the United States (US) has been through involving the racism and stereotyping of non-Caucasian people; the people who are sworn to protect these people and treat them with the equal treatment they show to all other people, are some of the main contributors to the corruption of the US Justice System. African Americans face many discriminating obstacles while being incarcerated, some of these discriminating barriers consist of: higher cost of bail, longer sentencing, and unlawful plea bargains, all compared to a Caucasian facing charges for the same crime. Firstly, with my personal opinion I think the amount for bail should be decided by the offense, so every offense has a set bail cost. Then if people get charged multiple times for the same offences just double the cost of bail, people will soon learn from their mistakes. Anyway, studies show, significantly in three counties: Barnstable, Berkshire, and Plymouth, all in Massachusetts, the cost of bail for whites is substantially less than that of African Americans. In Barnstable, the cost of bail nearly quadruples black cost from white. Blacks median bail cost was 20 thousand dollars; whereas, whites cost of bail was a median 5 thousand dollars. In Berkshire however, even though bail is only 5 thousand dollars for blacks it is 5 times higher than that of whites coming in at a median 1 thousand dollars(MassInc Staff). Secondly, according to the National Association for the...
Words: 997 - Pages: 4
...PRINCIPLES OF SENTENCING: TOWARDS A EUROPEAN CONVERSATION Paper delivered at Conference on “The Limits of the Criminal Law” at Leiden University, January 23, 2008 and subsequently published in Cupido (ed), Limits of Criminal Law (Nijmegen, 2008).[1] Tom O’Malley Senior Lecturer in Law National University of Ireland Galway First, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the students of Leiden Law School for having organised this conference. Thanks to their vision and energy, representatives from several European countries have gathered in this historic venue to discuss some key aspects of criminal law and criminal procedure. More often than not, we think of European law solely in terms of European Union law, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights or both. Needless to say, the study of European law even in this limited sense is of the highest importance given its impact on our national legal systems and our daily lives. However, growing levels of legal and political integration now demand that we broaden our vision of European law to encompass the domestic legal systems of individual European states. Some work has already begun in this regard,[2] but it is only on rare occasions such as this that we can engage in a meaningful exchange of ideas and information on areas of common concern. Criminal justice is a most appropriate and worthy topic with which to begin. In times past, sentencing would not have featured very prominently...
Words: 9462 - Pages: 38
...Equal Opportunities for Minorities in the Criminal Justice System Wendell Wrice English 122 English Composition II Prof. Deborah Zeringue October 7, 2013 For many Americans the scales of justice is blind. It stands as a symbol that everyone is treated fairly in the eyes of the law. Many Americans, especially minorities this is simply not the case. In fact the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world-five times the world’s average. A total of 2,380,000 are now in prison. The US has five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population (Fisher, 2010).In fact minorities make up a large share of the prison population in the U.S. African Americans have a 32 percent chance of serving time in prison at some point of time in their lives, Hispanic males have a 17 percent chance, while white males a 6 percent chance (Fisher, 2010) . Such disproportions of incarceration rates gives reason to believe that minorities, especially African Americans commit the majority of crimes requiring incarceration or the fact that our justice system is flawed to the point where it singles out a specific racial or ethnic group. The question of why there are so many minorities especially African Americans being held in our...
Words: 2104 - Pages: 9
...In the United States, sentencing varies from place to place and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Each state has established their own set guidelines and even those can be different from the Federal sentencing guidelines. Sentencing Guidelines are rules that a judge is supposed to follow to determine sentences for individuals and organizations convicted of felonies and serious misdemeanors. These Guidelines do not apply to less serious misdemeanor crimes. The United States Sentencing Commission was created by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and created these guidelines. In the beginning they were mandatory and very strict. People kept calling for longer, harsher sentences (Marvell 1995 p. 696). Congress enacted the Sentence Reform Act to satisfy...
Words: 2135 - Pages: 9
...Case Analysis (pg. 351) 1. Summarize the facts that led to the defendant’s claim that he was subjected to double jeopardy. He was convicted to his concurrent 72 month sentences for his crime which he plead guilty to, in which the judgment and sentencing of said crimes never referred to his Caribou Way property. Prior to this conviction, his property had already been forfeited to the American government by order of default in this same case. His plea agreement never referred to the forfeit of his Caribou Way property. The initial forfeiture of the property was a judgment made on the open cases against Falkowski. Then, having him sentenced for concurrent 72 month terms in a correctional facility would have made that a secondary judgment on the same cases which the American government was granted possession of the property for. Considering his plea agreement referred to the forfeiture of his real estate, it would be implied that the seizing of the Caribou Way property was meant to satisfy his guilty plea, and since the judgment of the possession of the property wasn’t granted along with the sentencing of the accused, then the order of the events would show that he was subjected to double jeopardy once by the seizing of his property, and then again by the sentencing of 72 concurrent month terms for each count. Giving reason to believe that the seizing of the property didn’t satisfy the judgment placed by the court for any of the counts the accused was facing. 2. What was (were)...
Words: 883 - Pages: 4
...everyone who is accused of a crime is supposed to have a fair trial and is assumed innocent until proven guilty. Sadly, however, some would argue America’s criminal justice system has become more twisted and unfair than ever and that the rule of law has basically been vanquished in America’s criminal justice system. Outcomes of cases are generally decided now by the prosecutors and more plea bargaining is the norm over trial by jury. Yet so many people in our society today feels that people in the system gets equal opportunities. Although some people end up with different sentences and punishments people say that the American court system is a fair system. America has slowly turned into a system where justice and fairness is overruled by money and power. In the media today many people are committing crimes and walking away with a slap on the wrist. Many social media and news shows the bias in court systems through their broadcasts of issues. The American justice system is biased in their convictions and sentencing through racial disproportion, social structure, and economic standing. Our criminal justice system in biased in convictions and sentencing through racial disproportion. As stated before, the United States of America built their criminal justice system for every person accused to have an equal chance. However in America, racial disparity and racial prejudice has always been an underlying issue. Many people of different races are treated worse than those of Caucasian...
Words: 2231 - Pages: 9
...crime. Additionally when comparing crime control and due process models one needs to remember, “Proponents of both models embrace constitutional values which are necessary to the kind of society in which American wish to live” (Zalman, 2008, p. 4). In addition answers will be given to questions about the effects on law enforcement, courts, and differences between federal, and state polices, and distinguishes these values. To utilize plea bargaining is controversial because of the fear that innocent defendants would take a plea and the judge would impose unduly sentences (Neubauer, 2008, p. 20). Also the criticism focuses on the deterrent effect of the punishment itself. The crime control model, court hearings have eroded the deterrent effect of punishment (Neubauer, 2009, p. 20). “Not only is the problem serious, but there is evidence that it is getting worse, suggesting that, whatever deterrent effect the criminal justice system does have, its effectiveness in deterring crime may be decreasing over time” (Barnett-Hagel, 1977). Some believe plea bargains allow the guilty to escape a lighter sentence therefore weakens the adversary system because a person is innocent until proven and every defendant has the right to trial....
Words: 2181 - Pages: 9
...including time served, good behavior or recommendations from prison staff or the parole board. Many prisoners may be give early parole for lesser crimes because of prison overcrowding. A prisoner may also be denied for parole if a family of a person who was hurt or killed comes forth with a convincing plea as to why the prisoner should not be released. In North Carolina, the goals for Truth in Sentencing are as follows: • Classify criminal offenses into felony and misdemeanor categories on the basis of their severity; • Recommend structures for use by a sentencing court in determining the most appropriate sentence to be imposed in a criminal case; • Develop a correctional population simulation model; • Recommend a comprehensive community corrections strategy and organizational structure for the State; and, • Study and make additional policy recommendations. A number of states also have adopted varying types of truth-in-sentencing legislation in recent years. These have been developed in a variety of ways -- as part of efforts to abolish parole, to adopt certain kinds of determinate sentencing guidelines and to implement other sentencing reforms. The impact of truth in sentencing will vary tremendously depending on the type of policy adopted and the goals behind it. In 2007, North...
Words: 398 - Pages: 2
...The study of criminal justice should begin with a basic understanding of the formal criminal justice process. A complex process that takes an offender through a series of routinized operations beginning with arrest or initial contact and concluding with reentry into society. During the justice process, prosecutors exercise individual judgment in deciding whether to maintain the offender in the system or to discharge the suspect without further action. Initial contact takes place as a result of a police action. The officers observe a person acting suspiciously, or they are contacted by a victim to report a crime. The second stage, consist in the criminal investigation, police officers gather enough evidence to identify a suspect and support...
Words: 860 - Pages: 4
...In all places of America and even the world, racism still exists. Ever since the slaves came to “The land of the free” in 1619, the Caucasian majority has viewed the African Americans and others of color as inferior people. In the Brock Turner court case a 20 year old Caucasian male raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and was only sentenced to six months of jail time, he also only ended up serving three. But in the Brian Banks court case, a African Americans male with expectations of one day joining the National Football League, was charged of rape as an adult even though he committed the crime when he was younger. Not only did he not commit the crime, there was no evidence to prove that he was guilty either. He was forced to...
Words: 591 - Pages: 3
...Introduction to Criminal Justice 100-105 Case Study Research Paper DRUG DISTRIBUTION March 09 2014 Introduction In today’s world many people are convicted for lots of different crimes and face the consequences for those crimes. For example, Unless a longer term of imprisonment or death is the prescribed penalty and notwithstanding any provision that establishes a shorter term of imprisonment, a person who has been convicted of committing or attempting or conspiring to commit any violent or aggravated felony and who has previously been convicted on separate occasions of two or more violent or aggravated felonies not committed on the same occasion shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life and is not eligible for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon or release on any basis except that the person may be eligible for commutation after the person has served at least thirty-five years. Also a person convicted of a first or second offense for the personal possession or use of a controlled substance must be placed on probation unless the person is also convicted of a violent offense. Incarceration may not be imposed as an initial condition of probation for a first offense. If a person convicted of a first offense is found to be in violation of probation or an act in violation of an order of the court related to drug treatment, the person may be incarcerated upon reinstatement of probation. Participation in an appropriate...
Words: 1654 - Pages: 7
...Racism in criminal justice system Introduction Justice is a term that we hear a lot in our everyday life and also accept it although many of us might have a doubt as to what it truly means. Justice is the phenomenon through which we could achieve righteousness and equality. But unfortunately racism has been a common practice in the criminal justice system. Racism is actually discrimination against a group or individual based on color, social and financial status. It is something that occurs more than we notice. Many scholars believe that racism play a more important role in targeting and sentencing process in the criminal justice system and this is something which should not happen in any country no matter what. In order to understand the role that racism plays in the criminal justice system we must, first, look at the role that it plays before the criminal reaches the day of sentencing in the court. There are various publications that speak on profiling and actuarial methods which unwillingly get people into the system. Though these are two major components of the discriminatory acts that exist within the criminal justice system, it does not actually begin with these institutionalized methods. It is the laws and crime control policies that create discrimination in the system. It has been witnessed that in some instances these laws and policies are set in favor of the white people and in opposition to the black ones. In this paper, a detailed discussion has been done on...
Words: 5548 - Pages: 23
...fine tuned process, where all participants involved work towards a common goal. Every transition in a true system, is a smooth change, where no participants in the system will do anything to jeopardize the proper functionality of the next process in that system. This is not the case of the U.S. criminal justice system. The U.S. criminal justice system is comprised of numerous individuals, groups, organizations, and agencies funded by both government and non-government sources. Because, the U.S. criminal justice system is funded from different entities, there are several different agendas being carried out. There are three major components to the administration of the U.S. criminal justice system: the police, the courts, and corrections. In a perfect criminal justice system the police would arrest violators of the law, the courts would prosecute all law violators, and corrections would punish and rehabilitate violators, to integrate them back into society. While this is the formula the U.S. criminal justice system governs itself by, reality shows us that this quite often this is not the case. Only ten percent of court cases ever go to trial, with almost 90 percent of trials, being settled by plea bargain before going to trial. This often time eliminates the rehabilitation aspect of corrections. There are also instances where due to over packed jails and prisons, inmates do not end up serving their whole sentence. This is a break in corrections ability to complete the process...
Words: 6671 - Pages: 27
