pols lecture 35

Cards (33)

  • Many Issues in Criminal Justice
    • Competing models of policing
    • Racial disparities in policing & sentencing
    • No-knock warrants
    • "Tough on Crime" movement
    • Mass incarceration
    • The "War on Drugs"
    • Private prisons
    • Capital punishment
  • Criminal law
    Deals with actions harmful to the state as a whole.
    State is accuser and prosecutor.
  • Criminal prosecution process

    • Arrest made
    • Charge(s) filed
    • Evidence presented to grand jury
    • Trial process (e.g. multiple hearings, then trial)
  • Justice & redress of criminal wrongs

    Is public, not private
  • Basic types of crime
    • Violent crime (against people; homocide)
    • Property crime (against property; burgrlary)
  • Basic levels of crime
    • Misdemeanors: More minor wrongs
    • Felony: More serious, usually punishable by >1yr in state prison
  • Felony
    Disenfranchises the convicted person in some states
  • Only 10% of cases go to trial: most Plea bargain
    Necessary practice for state courts to manage caseload
    Actors in legal system recognize existence of a "trial penalty"
  • Standard of guilt
    Beyond a reasonable doubt
  • Burden of proof
    Is on the state/prosecutor
  • 1960s-1980s characterized by rising crime rate

    States respond by increasing their punitiveness
    States enact “tough on crime” sentencing laws w/ lengthier sentences & reduced judicial flexibility
    Federal gov’t encouraged adoption of “tough on crime” policies & federal sentencing guidelines via grants-in-aid
  • "War on Drugs" added & increased penalties for dealing & possessing illegal substances
    Drug use is criminalized, not just production & distribution
  • More recently, approaches to criminal justice reform once attacked as "soft on crime" being tested by states
    In part, due to costs of mass incarceration
  • Shifts in the "war on drugs"
    • Early “war” characterized by a tough-on-crime approach
    • More states and communities now approaching substance abuse as a public health problem
    • State-led decriminalization & legalization of marijuana
  • Over last few decades, crime rate has fallen
  • Five Rationales for Punishment
    • Retribution: Wrong to community must be repaid
    • Incapacitation: Societal Protection
    • Deterrence: Keep other from committing same crime
    • Rehabilitation: Reintegrate offender into society
    • Restoration/reparation: Conceives return to justice and the communal order as restitution and repairing the harm
  • Prisons
    • For incapacitation & removal of criminals
    • May also pursue other goals such as rehabilitation
    • Can be very costly & overcrowded
    • ~7% of state budgets
    • Tough on crime policies & that war on drugs have been drivers of mass incarceration
  • Conflicting policy goals regarding prisons
    • Less costly systems
    • Some states privatize prisons.
    • In conservative Texas, cost of mass incarceration led the state
    to invest in mental health & rehabilitation
    • Fewer crimes & less recidivism
    • “Tough on crime” shifting to “smart on crime”
    Humane treatment of felons
    • Must be consistent w/ 8th Amendment prohibition on “cruel & unusual punishment”
    • E.g. Prison overcrowding in CA ruled “degrading to human
    dignity”
  • Support for state-sanctioned executions

    Is a common "litmus test" of social conservatives
    • Place high value on social order
    • Ultimate “tough on crime” position
  • Common arguments for the death penalty
    • Only punishment severe enough to repay wrong (i.e. retribution)
    • Deterrence effect
  • Death Penalty Sentencing

    Sentencing Trial
    •Separate determination of sentence
    •Sentencing guidelines vary by state
    Jury considers both aggravating & mitigating factors
    •These are written into state law
    No death penalty for mentally handicapped, juvenile offenders, mentally ill (Atkins v. VA, 2002)
  • Intellectual disability
    States themselves get to define
  • Cruel & unusual punishment(Furman v Gerogia 1972)
    4 interrelated principles:
    • degrading to human dignity,
    • inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion,
    • clearly & totally rejected throughout society,
    • patently unnecessary
  • Furman v. Georgia (1972) overturned GA death penalty law because it was applied arbitrarily
  • Gregg v. Georgia (1976) Court's Answer: No, the death penalty is not inherently cruel
  • Capital Punishment & the States Today
    27 "death penalty states" (+ federal gov't & UCMJ)
    6 states w/ official moratoria on executions
    Texas:
    • 1/3 executions nationwide after Furman
    • Currently 192 inmates
  • The Decline of the Death Penalty

    1. Life-without-parole sentencing now available in all 50 states
    2. Growing doubts about deterrence effect on violent crime
    • But many scientific studies find no demonstrable relationship
    • Many conservatives insist it deters
    3. Persistent concerns about unfair application
    • Social, racial, & economic biases
  • Police power
    States have police power. Not just policing, but a general power to make laws for the welfare of their communities
  • Much of U.S. criminal justice apparatus is state-level
  • State asserts an exclusive right to punish crime
  • Role of State
    Crime is prosecuted and punished by the state.
    The county pays for all costs of prosecution and incarceration
  • Decline of Death Penatly Pt. 2
    4. Delays
    • Average time on death row is ~9 years. Most have been on death row years, even decades longer
    5. Expense
    • Multiple studies find death penalty cases to cost millions more than life imprisonment (~2.3M per case)
    • Housing Death Row inmates is ~2-4 times more expensive
    • Increased difficulty of procuring drugs for executions
    6. Possibility of errors in the form of wrongful convictions
  • Punishment for crime sanctions violations of the social order