Discuss whether discrimination is inevitable in the criminal justice system, in relation to race.
Criminal Justice System - Semester 2 assignment Discuss whether discrimination is inevitable in the criminal justice system, in relation to race. The Criminal justice system (CJS) is the system of practices used by local governments to maintain and control crime, and to punish those who violate laws with criminal penalties in order to protect society. According to Hudson 1996 it is "The process through which the state responds to behaviour that it deems unacceptable. Criminal justice is delivered through a series of stages: charge, prosecution, trial; sentence appeal; and punishment. These processes and the agencies which carry them out are referred to collectively as the criminal justice system". When processing the offender through the CJS, the government must keep within the framework of laws that protect individual rights. Discrimination within the CJS is the differential treatment based on a person's sex, gender, social class, race, ethnicity, religion, age, disability or any other improper ground. There are two types of discrimination; these are known as direct and indirect. Direct discrimination is obvious discrimination, this occurs when factors such as a person's race, sex, marital status, religion or gender are used as an explicit reason for discriminating against them. Indirect discrimination occurs when rules and regulations have a discriminatory effect on
Child sexual abuse: The comparison of the situation in UK, Germany and Poland
The following essay is titled "Child sexual abuse: The comparison of the situation in UK, Germany and Poland". It is going to present the problem of child sexual abuse in these three countries and show how the legal system in these countries deals with this problem. It will be very interesting to see how different the situation can be even in countries that lay next to each other. The essay is going to start from Germany, it will briefly describe how the child welfare system have developed in there, then it will present some facts known about the extend of the problem of child sexual abuse and present how the German Criminal Code responds to this. After that there will be examples of problems given that may make it difficult for the different agencies to protect and help children. The next country presented in this essay will be Poland. It will be very interesting to see how big are the differences in dealing with child sexual abuse in a country that lays directly next to Germany. The findings presenting here will be shocking, showing that there are still countries where there is a very limited knowledge on this subject and that they are not taking care of the problem accordingly. The last country where the situation is going to be presented will be United Kingdom. It will show briefly when the child protection system developed in UK and how it has changed since then. It will
In order to compare Probation and Prisons, it is important to define the aims of each service, and to ask the question what are the aims of each and do they achieve these aims
In order to compare Probation and Prisons, it is important to define the aims of each service, and to ask the question what are the aims of each and do they achieve these aims. We also need to understand the meanings of punishment and rehabilitation. To define punishment the definition provided by Barbara Hudson will be used: 'punishment, in criminology, is punishment for crime, imposed by the judiciary in accordance with penal law, and administered by penal institutions such as prisons and the National Probation Service (NPS).' (Hudson, 2002, p234.) The definition of rehabilitation of offenders will be provided by M Cavadino & J Dignan: 'the provision of training and treatment which would cure them of their criminality, benefiting both them and society as a whole.' (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006, pg 22) It can be argued that prison is the best option for persistent and violent crimes, here the purpose of punishment can be seen as to deter, retribution and prevention. The prison environment is seen to achieve all of these purposes. The threat of loss of liberty by serving a custodial sentence should deter reoffending. Offenders who are in prison are prevented from reoffending during this time, and the public perceive the punishment as a way to gain retribution from the offender for the crime they have committed. Another opinion maybe that prison should only be used for the most
Crime is a Social Construct. Discuss in relation to two criminological theories.
Crime is a social construct.' Analyse and discuss this statement with reference to any TWO criminological theories. In order to examine the above we must ask ourselves the question 'what is crime? The Cambridge dictionary definition of crime states that is an 'illegal act' or 'something against the law'. This essays aims to delve beyond the illegal act itself and consider the laws and subsequent crime that is controlled and constructed by society. The paper will consider both the Internationalist theory alongside that of the rational choice theory in considering the above. As mentioned above in order for society to recognise and record a crime an illegal act will have taken place. This act will have contravened a law created by the law makers of that society. The British legal system is ever evolving and it seems that new laws are brought about every week, with the introduction of new laws so there is an introduction of new crimes and vice versa. Laws are equally abolished over time leading to the decrimilisation of certain acts. Take for example marital rape, up until recently it was perfectly legal to rape your wife, this all changed in 1991when the law was abolished and husbands could be prosecuted for raping their wives (Rapecrisis). Another example is that of homosexual relationships, the law changed in 1967 making homosexual relationships lawful and thus non
Critically assess electronic 'tagging'. Include both technical and ethical considerations in your discussion.
Critically assess electronic 'tagging'. Include both technical and ethical considerations in your discussion. The prison population in England and Wales has risen considerably to more than 60,000 during the past few years. Government spending on imprisonment is at record levels. To imprison the current population costs in excess of £1.5 billion per year (Prison Reform Trust, 1997). This rapidly rising prison population not only in the UK but also in other parts of the world, and the obvious escalating costs to the taxpayer, has encouraged policy makers to consider the use of electronic monitoring as an alternative sanction to incarceration (Vass, 1990). The pressure to find a solution to prison overcrowding has contributed to the incredible growth in interest of electronic monitoring programmes around the world (Esteves, 1990; Baumer & Mendelsohn, 1992). For all practical purposes electronic monitoring equipment first became commercially available early in 1985 (Nellis, 1991; Baumer & Mendelsohn, 1992), although experiments actually began at Harvard University in 1964 by psychologist Robert Schwitzgebel as a way of tracking psychiatric patients in the U.S (Nellis, 1991; Renzema, 1992). During trials in the 1960s the usefulness of the technology as a way of monitoring offenders was soon realised (Nellis, 1991; Vass, 1992). Though the first trial took place in Massachusetts
Globalisation and Transnational Terrorism
Some critics suggest that globalisation has exacerbated the problem of transnational terrorism. Giving suitable examples, explain why this might be so. Globalisation has opened borders, facilitated the transition of goods, services, populations, money, communications and ideas. While each of these transitions has benefits, each of them likewise has a darker side that if exploited can exacerbate problems such as transnational terrorism. There are four primary examples of how globalisation has exacerbated transnational terrorism. These being; globalisation facilitates acts of transnational terrorism; globalisation acts as a raison d'etre for some transnational terrorist groups (TNTG) and that cultural resistance to the effects of globalisation may exacerbate transnational terrorism; that the development of new minorities increases the recruitment pool and lastly that in some cases globalisation had led to a weakening of controls previous enjoyed by the state. By defining transnational terrorism and investigating these four factors, this paper intends to outline how globalisation has exacerbated the issue of transnational terrorism. Transnational terrorism is unlike past incarnations of political violence, exhibiting a networked and distributed organisational structure, having no single state affiliation, the ability to operate beyond the borders of a home base state or
Critically Discuss the Extent to which the Rise in the Incarceration and Warehousing of Offenders Represents the Arrival of the New Penology
Critically Discuss the Extent to which the Rise in the Incarceration and Warehousing of Offenders Represents the Arrival of the New Penology In recent years the number of people in prison has risen considerably and looks to continually increase. The reason for the rise in the prison population has been credited to a theoretical aspect of penology, advocated by Feeley and Simon (2003) as The New Penology, which is based upon making punishment more individual to the risk, and harm an offender may cause and thus making their sentence longer in order to protect the public from them. This essay is going to discuss the higher levels of incarceration and to conclude whether the reason for the increase of those being incarcerated are due to sentencing practitioners adopting the principles of The New Penology. In order to do this, this essay will first look at the historical origins of the use of prison and the theories behind punishments and then move on to consider how this has informed present-day thinking about the purpose of imprisonment and how new concepts of warehousing prisoners and Supermax prisons are related to the concepts of The New Penology. This will include exploring the ideologies of deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, punishment/retribution and denunciation. Finally, this essay will conclude about the possible reasons of the rise in incapacitation and
Race Crime
Critically account for the disproportionate presence of some ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system. Use comparative data to illustrate your answer. There have been many studies conducted by both academics and government organisations to gain further insight into the reasons why, when compared to their representation as members of the population as a whole, people from black minority ethnic backgrounds, widely referred to as BME groups, are massively overrepresented in the criminal justice system in England and Wales (Webster, 2007;111). However, Feilzer and Hood have warned that 'all research has failed to conclusively prove whether different outcomes for minority ethnic people have been due to discrimination or as a result of other factors' (Webster, 2007;112). This essay aims to critically account for the disproportionate presence of BME groups in the criminal justice system, in particular the police, the prison service and the courts, exploring possible reasons for the overrepresentation such as social exclusion and socio-economic disadvantage. The essay will also draw comparisons with other countries such as the United States of America and Australia. Criticism of the police and their relationship with BME groups is nothing new, and tensions within British society were exacerbated with the influx of West Indian immigrants in the 1950's. A study conducted in
Feminism and Criminology
Feminism and criminology Feminism is a collection of different theoretical perspectives such as liberal, Marxist, social and radical feminism which all explain the oppression of women in different ways. Feminism re-emerged in the late 1960's and feminist criminology was a result of old, established chauvinism in the academic discipline where women were viewed as degraded minor figures. Gender should be treated as an essential part of criminology but instead it's a specialist topic of study. In this essay I will attempt to discuss different branches of criminology such as, biological, social, psychological, liberal and radical feminism. Analyse them from a critic's point of view and answer the fundamental question if feminism is important to the study of criminology and what kind of impact it has had over the past few decades. My essay will carefully examine and evaluate the way in which female offenders were presented and understood in criminological theory and the rise of feminist criminology. Lombroso and Ferrero were two of the first criminologists to look at female criminals and crime. Their research was mainly biological based on assessment of skulls and facial appearances. Lombroso argued that females commit less crime because they are less highly developed than males, and the female criminal was unnatural, masculine and not a normal woman. Lombroso and Ferrero, (1885)
1 Why are crime statistics often a misleading indication of the amount of crime in society? Your answer should address both official and unofficial measurements.
Why are crime statistics often a misleading indication of the amount of crime in society? Your answer should address both official and unofficial measurements. First of all to find out whether crime statistics are actually a misleading indication of crime in society we need to define what crime is first, in different societies there are different concepts and ideas of what crime is defined as, as legal meanings and shared social understandings differ from societies, most societies or individuals would agree that crime should be defined as an evil act or behaviour that goes rebels against the law. The lists of acts that are defined as crime e.g. murder, rape, suicide etc are constantly changing e.g. rape was considered to be ok for a man to commit on their wife, it wasn't until 1992 that it was defined as a crime. Therefore Crimes may be classified in various ways, what is considered as a crime changes over time as a result of governments. Also another difficulty with crime is that of measuring it, as most official measurements are presumably made by the Home Office it raises questions such as who actually produces the stats?, what is counted? How are these stats counted? Is there anything in the stats that are left out? The British Crime Survey is an annual victimisation survey carried out by the Home Office which is an institute in charge of criminal justice issues,