Chapter 1 Lecture Notes Fundamentals of Criminal Justice Essential Themes and Practices PDF

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Peak, Introduction to Criminal Justice

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Chapter 1 Fundamentals of Criminal Justice: Essential Themes and Practices Summary: It is important to know the foundations of the criminal justice system to give a better understanding of where we stand as a system. The consensus versus conflict debate discusses group structures and how group dynamics can affect society. The primary difference between the consensus and conflict theorists with respect to their view of government vis-à-vis the governed concerns their evaluation of the legitimacy of the actions of ruling groups in contemporary societies. The crime control and due process models are also important structures within the criminal justice system because they discuss whether the ends justify the means. An overview of the flow and functions of the criminal justice system is provided with a flowchart. The wedding cake model of criminal justice is a model of the criminal justice process whereby a four-tiered hierarchy exists, with a few celebrated cases at the top, and lower tiers increasing in size as the severity of cases become less (serious felonies, felonies, and misdemeanors). Discretion and ethics are important parts of the criminal justice system with discretion being authority to make decisions in enforcing the law based on one’s observations and judgment (“spirit of the law”) rather than the letter of the law and ethics being a set of rules or values that spell out appropriate human conduct. Objectives:  Explain the importance of studying and understanding our criminal justice system  Describe the foundations of our criminal justice system, including its legal and historical bases  Define the crime control and due process models of criminal justice  Review the influence of politics on our criminal justice system, as well as what can constitute “good politics” and “bad politics”  Relate the importance of citizen responses to crime and willingness to become involved in the criminal justice process  Describe the fundamentals of the criminal justice process—the offender’s flow through the police, courts, and corrections components, and the functions of each component  Explain the “wedding cake” model of criminal justice  Describe the importance of discretion and ethics throughout the justice system Outline:  Foundations of Criminal Justice: Legal and Historical Bases  Three-Strikes Law: a crime control strategy whereby an offender who commits three or more violent offenses will be sentenced to a lengthy term in prison, usually 25 years to life  First passed in California  Thought to curb crime, but later softened to only include a violent or serious third strike o The Consensus-versus-Conflict Debate  Consensus

Peak, Introduction to Criminal Justice

Said to exist where a society functions as a result of a group’s common interests and values, which have been developed largely because the people have experienced similar socialization  John Locke o Believed that the chief purpose of government was the protection of property. o Social Contract: people joined together, forming governments to which they surrendered their rights of selfprotection; in return, they received governmental protection of their lives, property, and liberty.  Thomas Hobbs o All people essentially irrational and selfish  Conflict  Said to exist in societies where the worker class is exploited by the ruling class, which owns and controls the means of production and thus maintains the constant state of conflict between the two classes  Jean-Jacques Rousseau o “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” o Described conflict between the classes  The primary difference between the consensus and conflict theorists with respect to their view of government vis-à-vis the governed concerns their evaluation of the legitimacy of the actions of ruling groups in contemporary societies. Crime Control and Due Process: Do Ends Justify Means? o Due Process  Packer’s view that criminal defendants should be presumed innocent, courts must protect suspects’ rights, and there must be some limits placed on police powers. o Crime Control  A model by Packer that emphasizes law and order and argues that every effort must be made to suppress crime, and to try, convict, and incarcerate offenders. o Stress the difference between these models of criminal justice processes  Neither completely dominate in United States crime policy Politics and Criminal Justice o Permeating the Field  Politicians: want to do what is right for society, but can be prompted out of desire to grandstand for votes or react out of anger  Police: Chiefs and Sheriffs serve city councils and electors  Courts: bound by law and budgets, but some judges elected, leaving room for political influence o Good Politics, Bad Politics  Political influence 

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Peak, Introduction to Criminal Justice

Matters taken into account for developing public policies, allocating funds and other resources, and choosing among preferred alternatives Citizens’ Responses to Crime o In order for the Criminal Justice system to function, it needs citizens willing to get involved  Ordered society would not be possible without:  Citizens reporting crime  Serve as witnesses, complainants, and jurors  Come to aid of their neighbors The Criminal Justice Process: An Overview of Flow and Functions o The Offender’s Pathways Through the Process  Criminal justice flow and process  The horizontal movement of defendants and cases through the criminal justice process, beginning with the commission of a crime, investigation, arrest, initial appearance, arraignment, trial, verdict, sentencing, and appeal (to include vertical movement, as when a case is dropped or for some other reason one leaves the system)  Vertical pathways (crimes fall out of system)  Not discovered or reported  No perpetrator identified or apprehended  Suspect arrested but later it is determined no crime was committed o Law Enforcement: Entry Into the System  Begins with reported or observed crime  Reports of victims or citizens, discovery, informants, investigative and intelligence work o Prosecution and Pretrial Services  Prosecution: the bringing of charges against an individual, based on probable cause, so as to cause the matter to go to court  Probable cause: legal term that basically refers to information that would lead a reasonable person to believe that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime  Prosecuting attorney: a federal, state, or local prosecutor who represents the people, particularly victims.  Persons charged with a crime must be taken before a judge or magistrate without unnecessary delay to an initial appearance for charges and detainment rulings  Must determine if probable cause  Preliminary hearing (judge determines)  Grand Jury hearing o Adjudication  The legal resolution of a dispute—for example, when one is declared guilty, or a juvenile is declared to be dependent and neglected—by a judge or jury  If accused pleads guilty (nolo contendere), judge accepts or rejects 

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Peak, Introduction to Criminal Justice

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o If accepted, no trial held and offender sentences then or at later date  If accused pleads not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity, a date is set for trial o Jury or bench trial o Sentencing and Sanctions, Generally  Mitigating circumstances: circumstances that would tend to lessen the severity of the sentence, such as one’s youthfulness, mental instability, not having a prior criminal record, and so on  Aggravating circumstances: elements of a crime that enhance its seriousness, such as the infliction of torture, killing of a police or corrections officer, and so on  Sentencing options  Death penalty, incarceration, probation, fines, restitution, intermediate sanctions  Sanction: a penalty or punishment o Appellate Review  Requesting that a higher court look at the arrest, trial, and so forth  All states with death penalty provide for automatic appeal of cases involving death sentences  Other cases, appeal consideration subject to discretion of appellate court o Corrections  Indeterminate sentence: a scheme whereby one is sentenced for a flexible time period (e.g., 5–10 years) so as to be released when rehabilitated or the opportunity for rehabilitation is presented  Parole: early release from prison, with conditions attached and under supervision of a parole agency  Determinate sentence: a specific, fixed-period sentence ordered by a court o The Juvenile Justice System  Child delinquency, neglect, adoption, and status offenses (truancy, running away, etc.) The Wedding Cake Model of Criminal Justice o a model of the criminal justice process whereby a four-tiered hierarchy exists, with a few celebrated cases at the top, and lower tiers increasing in size as the severity of cases become less (serious felonies, felonies, and misdemeanors) o Layer 1: Celebrated cases- command great deal of media attention because crimes are unusual or defendants are celebrities or high-ranking officials  More resources devoted to these cases o Layer 2: Serious felonies-violent crimes committed by people with lengthy criminal records and who often prey on people they do not know  Heavy treatment and punishment o Layer 3: Lesser felonies- nonviolent and typically viewed as less important than the felonies in Layer 2, offender may have no criminal record, have a prior relationship with victim, and may be charges with drug-related, financial, or other such crimes

Peak, Introduction to Criminal Justice

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 Many filtered out of system before trial by plea bargains o Layer 4: Misdemeanors- Include the so-called “junk” crimes: public drunkenness, minor theft, disturbing the peace, and so on  May deal with informally or handled by lower court Discretion and Ethics Throughout the Criminal Justice System  Discretion: authority to make decisions in enforcing the law based on one’s observations and judgment (“spirit of the law”) rather than the letter of the law o Applying the Law on the Streets  Police have unsupervised discretion; to stop or not, search or not, arrest or not  Assistant district attorneys also have a large amount of discretion o Ethics and Character: Constant Dilemmas  Ethics: a set of rules or values that spell out appropriate human conduct  Character in the criminal justice arena is of foremost importance, for, without it, nothing else matters  “Character,” it might be said, “is who we are when no one is watching”...