...trends lead to the questioning of the punishment based on whether it is serving the purpose. Doing away with the sentence would be a relief to the offenders, judicial officers and families of the offenders. Appendix A Questionnaire 1. Do you think officers of courts and police officers should be required to complete...
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...Sentencing Paper Tushar Vincent Botlero 12 March 2012 CJ/A-234 Melissa Andrewjeski Sentencing Paper Punishment has been a subject of deliberate among philosophers, political leaders, and lawyers for centuries. Various theories of punishment have been developed, each of which attempts to justify the practice in some form and to state its proper objectives. The quantity and severity of punishments were reduced, the prison system have been improved. According to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, Maryland, some of the major reasons for punishment are to reform, deterrence, rehabilitation, compensation, and retribution. Punishment for reform is intended to benefit the offender and society by changing the offender into a contributor to society. Punishment as deterrence is intended to benefit society by discouraging would-be offenders. Punishment to extract compensation is intended to benefit the victim of the offender. Finally, retribution is the only object for punishment that is primarily intended to harm the offender. Individuals are in prison because they broke the rules and would have to serve their time. Some go to federal prison and some go to state prisons. It depends on the type of crime that a person commits because these prisons harbor different types of criminals they also have different guidelines to follow in terms to punishing the inmates. Criminal offenders who benefit from prevention services and are at risk of committing...
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...minorities are treated more harshly than whites in similar incidents. However, this movement should widen the scoop of its focus to include the discrimination not just of law enforcement officials, but also of the criminal justice system itself. Disparities in sentencing have skyrocketed since the 1980s and this increase is pushed by the war on drugs. Despite the clear evidence showing that sentencing reform must become a priority for policymakers due to both the social and economic aspects of this issue, things remain the same. The purpose of this essay is to inform the debate on sentencing reform, race, and education....
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...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...
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...In most cases, sentencing and punishment are effective in the criminal justice system because the victim, offender and society usually all achieve justice by the sentence that is handed down. A sentence is a decree of punishment which forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process. The Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) is the primary source of sentencing law in New South Wales which outlines the purposes of punishment, types of penalties and the mitigating and aggravating factors that must be considered when determining an appropriate sentence. For the sentence to be an effective method of achieving justice, the judiciary must balance the rights of the offender, the needs of the victim and the interests of the community....
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...L. Elise Bowling Criminal Sentencing CRJ 301 Juvenile Justice Timothy Koester September 20, 2010 Criminal Sentencing Over the years, there has been great debate over the purpose of sentencing criminals, but it generally all boils down to the importance of deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution. All four plays an important role in sentencing, and each vary on a case-by-case basis. As far as the purpose of criminal sentencing goes, it is imperative that all courts are on the same page and strive to achieve the same outcome. Due to the ever-changing society we live in, there has always been controversy as to what the right objective was for the criminal when it comes to punishment. For long time rehabilitation was the focus in criminal sentencing, but that proved to fail due to the increase of recidivism. Now it seems that the main focus of criminal sentencing is incapacitation, which hopefully leads to deterrence, rehabilitation, or retribution. It is clear that information on the outcomes of sentences and their cost must play a crucial role in deciding the relative importance of deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution (Justice). When the criminal court system focuses on incapacitation for the offender, it does so for many reasons. There are many that feel future crime can be prevented if the criminal is locked up and physically restrained. One aspect of this is the approach to lock...
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...WHAT IS THE PLACE O F CORRECTIVE JUSTICE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE? BY SIMON CONNELL* I. WHY ASK "WHAT IS THE PLACE OF CORRECTIVE JUSTICE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE?" Traditionally, "justice" in criminal sentencing has been concerned with allowing society to respond to the offender's criminal wrongdoing by providing punishment, deterrence and denunciation. Corrective justice, the notion that a person who wrongfully harms someone else should put that harm right, has traditionally been associated with compensation and the civil law. Compensation has. increasingly become a function of the criminal law in New Zealand, bringing with it the philosophical baggage of corrective justice. A key part of the traditional notion of "justice" in criminal sentencing is that the offender's penalty should be proportional to their wrongdoing. This is refiected in the "totality principle": that the totality of the offender's penalty should refiect the totality of their wrongdoing.' For corrective justice to be done, the offender^ must provide compensation to the victim that makes up for the harm that has been caused, not compensation that is proportional to the offender's wrongdoing. However, a morally repugnant act can result in minimal loss, while a far less blameworthy act can result in catastrophic loss. As the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Personal Injury in New Zealand' puts it: "Reprehensible conduct can be followed by feather blows, while a moment's inadvertence could call down the heavens."...
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...RAKOFF, U.S.D.J. 11 Cr. 907 (JSR) SENTENCING MEMORANDUM AND ORDER The Court is called upon to impose sentence on Rajat K. Gupta, who on June 15, 2012, was found guilty by a jury of one count of conspiracy and three counts of substantive securities fraud, in connection with providing material non-public information to Raj Rajaratnam. Federal law requires a court to state, not only orally but in writing, its reasons for imposing a sentence “different from” a Guidelines sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2). See also United States v. Rattoballi, 452 F.3d 127, 128-29 (2d Cir. 2006). This will be a non-guidelines sentence, and, accordingly, the Court will both read this Sentencing Memorandum in open court and docket it promptly thereafter. Imposing a sentence on a fellow human being is a formidable responsibility. It requires a court to consider, with great care and The notion that sensitivity, a large complex of facts and factors. this complicated analysis, and moral responsibility, can be reduced to the mechanical adding-up of a small set of numbers artificially assigned to a few arbitrarily-selected variables wars with common sense. Whereas apples and oranges may have but a few salient qualities, human beings in their interactions with society are too complicated to be treated like commodities, and the attempt to do so can only lead to bizarre results. Nowhere is this more obvious than in this very case, where the Sentencing Guidelines assign just 2 points to...
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...centuries, governments have found ways to remove and punish criminals with the purpose of protecting the citizens in this country. Many punishments in those centuries were cruel, violent, and humiliating for their offenders. Today, the state and federal prisons goals of punishment are equally important as any other form of punishment but they’re less violent. All punishments in the correctional system are created to prevent further crimes from happening again and ensure the offender to commit the same offenses multiple times. Some believe that certain punishments need to be significant enough to ensure that the offender will no longer want to break the law again. All punishments are enforced to help the community be protected from offenders. Not only are offenders being kept off the streets, they are also changing for the better and rehabilitating themselves to change their behaviors. In fact, the sole purpose of punishment within the state and federal corrections system is to deterrence, incapacitate, and rehabilitate criminals to reduce further crimes from occurring. Most importantly, punishments are helping offenders realize what harms they have done to the victims of their crimes and to the community as well. After being punished, most offenders have come to realize all the damages they have done and they understand that their actions affected many individuals. Punishing offenders by sentencing them to many months or even years in prison isn’t always very beneficial. State...
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...Sentencing Brittany N Mann CJA/234 September 4, 2011 Barbara Carroll, PhD. Sentencing laws in the United States corrections vary, depending on the objectives set at the state and federal levels. Sentencing guidelines provide structure at the criminal sentencing stage by defining offense and offender elements that should be considered in each case to determine the correct sentence. There are four justifications for punishment in the United States; the four principal objectives of punishment are traditionally stated as retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation ,and incapacitation. There are many factors that determine what form of punishment you receive. The factors include the type of crime committed and previous criminal history. The state objectives for punishment are applied to misdemeanors, and the federal objective for punishment is only for felonies and serious misdemeanors. The principal objectives for punishment are retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and incapacitation. Retribution is the justification punishment in which the offender is given a sentence that is vengeful, this given to make the offender suffer for the crime committed, to also make the offender morally responsible for the offender to...
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...reversed her conviction because the law didn’t give Ms. Hughes fair warning that it included the unborn in homicide stature. An Ex Post Facto Laws criminalizes an act that was innocent when it was committed. It is the clearest example of ex post facto laws, they’re also the rarest. Ex Post Facto also increases the punishment for a crime after the crime was committed. Just as clear an rare like the first one. An example is raising the age of statutory rape form 16 to 21. Finally it takes away a defense that was available to a defendant when the crime was committed. The Ex Post Facto ban is protect private individuals by ensuring that legislature give them a fair warning about criminal and that they can rely on that requirement. The other purpose is to prevent legislators form passing arbitrary and vindictive laws. The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine takes aim similar to the ban on ex post facto. Void laws fails to give fair warning to individuals as to what the law prohibits. It can never cure the uncertainty in all laws because laws are in word, not numbers. 14 amendment of the U.S constitutional states that,” no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the Equal protection of the laws. Equal Protection is more frequently an issue in criminal procedure than it is in criminal law. First of all, equal protection doesn’t...
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...Week Three Read Me First Correctional Policy and Procedures INTRODUCTION For centuries, societies had no trouble stating that the purpose of sentencing was punishment and that punishment was retribution. With the Age of Enlightenment and utilitarian thinking, society recognized three additional goals: deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. The relative importance of these goals became tied to conservative, liberal, or radical ideology. In assuming management of a prison, wardens are responsible for perimeter security and maintaining an orderly, secure internal environment. Wardens often regard themselves as administrators, rather than leaders. As wardens become more educated, the formal structure of modern prisons is likely to resemble a large, private organization with an established hierarchy and defined responsibilities. When governments confine people, they assume certain responsibilities toward them, including provision of constitutional living conditions, thus avoiding law suits and court interventions. Other management issues, such as classification, custody, and control, are also a high priority for modern prisons. During the last several decades, there has been a move toward professionalization in—moving from custody to control to care. Achieving scientific, uniform, and successful administration of public punishment through professional development is the goal of the American Correctional Association. In this professionalization effort, issues...
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...Experts have different views about how to deal with recidivism. Some believe that custodial sentencing is the best way of reducing re-offending, others think that prison may not be the solution and that there are better alternatives. There is also much debate about whether treatment programmes reduce re-offending. Discuss ways of dealing with the problem of recidivism, refer to the views outlined above in your answer. (12) Custodial sentencing is the imposing of a punishment, consisting of mandatory custody of the convict, either in prison (Incarceration) or in some other closed therapeutic/reducational institution. As recidivism refers to the re-offending rate, critics argue that custodial sentencing does not work and cite high recidivism rates as evidence for this. This is due to official statistics showing that 70% of offenders re-offend after custodial sentencing within 2 years of release, which consequently shows that prison may not be the solution. Even with high recidivism rates, custodial sentences might stop more crime than noncustodial sentences. These findings are inconsistent with prisons as a powerful specific deterrent (dwelling on actions/message goes out to the public) and high recidivism rates suggest that many offenders simply are not moved by imprisonment enough to stay out of trouble. On the other hand however, custodial sentencing has been proven to be a good solution as it has been found that not every type of offender re-offends, sex offenders have been...
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...the common law world. It is known as the ‘art of sentencing’, by taking account into all factors within a case and by applying a judicial officer’s own intuition, determining and concluding with an appropriate sentencing outcome. This sentencing methodology over time, has attracted many criticisms, as judges and magistrates may be personally biased and influenced by different cultures, which are said to have caused the inconsistency within the criminal justice system. If we are placing the importance of judicial discretion on a full spectrum, the concepts of intuitive synthesis with high importance, and mandatory sentencing marked with least, will possess their positions at...
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...Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Katie Miller ENG/130 January 12, 2014 Timothy Resh University of Phoenix Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Mandatory minimum sentencing has led to many unintended results. It has triggered unwarranted disparity in sentencing and contributed greatly to the overcrowding epidemic now facing our prison system. In this paper, the author will explore some of the negative consequences incurred due to mandatory minimum sentencing. Furthermore, the author will examine the effect this has had on non-violent offenders and the burden it has put on both the taxpayers and our prison system. Finally, the author will discuss the overwhelming affect it has had on our judicial system. An Overview Mandatory minimum sentences require a judge to impose a statutorily fixed sentence on offenders convicted of certain crimes, regardless of other mitigating factors. Discussions on mandatory minimum sentencing indicate the purpose to be multifaceted. Using mandatory minimum sentencing reduces crime, especially drug use, controls judicial discretion over certain sentencing decisions, increases prison sentences for serious and violent offenders; and lets everyone know that action is being taken to fight criminal activity. However, it is widely acknowledged that mandatory minimum sentencing laws have not always achieved their objectives and have often resulted in unintended consequences such as sentencing inequities and unduly harsh penalties. Overcrowding ...
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