Federal Application and the State and Local Statutes

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Table of Contents

Role of law enforcement
Role of prosecutors and courts
Role of corrections
How the federal application differs from the state and local statutes
Opinion on the policies
Measuring the policies
References

Role of law enforcement

Policies are often meant to guide a given course in a given setup. Most federal policies like the ‘three-strikes laws’ and the capital punishment are meant to aid the organs that are charged with the responsibility of maintaining law and order in the states to deal with certain attributes of law enforcement. The ‘three-strikes laws’ is a policy that is used in the United States to aid courts in dealing with the problem of habitual law breakers in different state courts. The policy recommends the imposition of harsher sentences on people who are fond of breaking the law. The policy applies to people who engage in serious crimes like felony. On the other hand, the capital punishment is a policy that guides the prosecution of the people who have committed serious crimes. In most cases, such people are given heavy penalties that match the crimes committed. Law enforcement bodies play several roles in the two main policies. First of all, the law enforcement bodies, in this case the courts, have to interpret the issues that are spelled in the policies. This is done as a means of justifying the course that is taken by the law in relation to a person who is associated with the crimes that are spelled in the policies. The law enforcement bodies implement each set of recommendations in the policies. The law enforcers and the courts make the final act on the recommendations and have to ensure that all the stipulated points in the policies are adhered to in order to avoid controversies about the judgment made (Walsh, 2007).

Role of prosecutors and courts

Miller (2009) observed that the role of prosecutors is quite elaborate when it comes to the two policies of the ‘three-strikes laws’ and the capital punishment. For the ‘three-strikes laws’, the prosecutors are charged with the responsibility of digging into the prosecution history of a given offender and affirm that the crimes committed by the offender qualify as ‘three-strikes’. The prosecutors and the courts have to analyze the evidence and the quality of the evidence presented under each case. This is the mechanism through which they can ascertain the validity of each case. In both policies, the courts and the prosecutors have to ensure that they make a distinction between the provisions in the policies and other state and federal statutes. Therefore, it can be argued that the prosecutors and the courts are the main determinants of the level of efficiency and effectiveness in the enforcement of the policies. According to Miller (2009), the prosecutors have to line-up the events as opined by each policy since the three-strike offenders are subjected to capital punishment.

Role of corrections

Correctional bodies are charged with the responsibility of implementing the decisions and recommendations made by the courts about the victims of the policies. The corrections have to separate between the corrective aspects and the punitive aspects as prescribed in the court decisions concerning the victims of the capital punishment and the ‘three-strikes laws’. The correctional services have an elaborate role that entails dealing with the emerging issues concerning capital offenders in the prisons. This includes crimes that are committed by the offenders in the correctional facilities. The state and federal correctional policy plays a critical role in guiding the conduct of the correctional officers on the capital punishment offenders who are highlighted by the two policies (MacKenzie, n.d.).

How the federal application differs from the state and local statutes

The federal government has instituted the “capital punishment polity”. On the other hand, the “three-strikes statutes” are instituted by a state. As a federal policy, it is expected that the capital punishment is instituted within all law enforcement organs in the United States. On the other hand, the ‘three-strikes’ policy belongs to the state of California, thus it is to be enforced by all the local law enforcement bodies in the state of California. However, the federal government has developed and implemented laws that have enabled it to institute the three-strikes policy. This is similar to other states that have done so through the influence of the federal government. Significant variations are witnessed in the enforcement of these policies in the states that have already instituted them because the state and local legislatures are the enforcers of the policies. Moreover, the modalities of dealing with cases under the two polices are different. The variation comes in the timelines of prosecution and the modalities on which evidence and justifications of the evidences are done. This is depicted in the way different cases are handled in different states and local courts. It is pertinent to take note that all sentences pronounced are equal in nature for all lawbreakers. This forms the core of the two policies (LAO, 2005).

Opinion on the policies

The capital punishment and the three-strikes policies have been a subject of debate by both the public policy analysts and the public in general. However, it is critical to assess the critical relevance of such policies to the general public in the United States. There is a close relation between the two policies, with one of the policies backing the other. Both policies deal with capital offenders. The three-strikes policy originated from the state of California and has gained wide adoption by the federal government and a substantial number of other states in the US. The modalities on which the three-strike policy was implemented are quite grounded. This is based on the fact that repeat offenders can be a critical source of insecurity in a country or a state. The federal, state and local criminal justice systems in the United States have been subjected to hefty tasks due to prevalence of crime incidences. A strict enforcement of the capital punishment and the three-strike policy can aid in the reduction of the number of people who engage in hard crimes in the country. There is need for the policies to be extended to other forms of hard crimes apart from felony so that they can capture and deal with a larger number of criminals in the country. By doing this, a larger number of criminals and lawbreakers in the country would be prosecuted under the policies.

Measuring the policies

It is important to argue that the aim of these two policies is to enhance the effectiveness of dealing with criminal incidences in the United States. The objective of the two policies is to reduce the prevalence of certain levels of criminal incidences in the country. Going with the objective of the policies, it is worthwhile to argue that the effectiveness of the policies depends on the extent to which the number of crimes in the country reduces. By crime, it means the specific crimes that are the subjects of the two policies. This entails the assessment of the extent to which the policies go as far as influencing the decline of crime in the country is concerned (Joyce, 2006).

References

Joyce, P. (2006). Criminal justice: An introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.

LAO. (2005). A primer: Three strikes – the impact after more than a decade. Web.

MacKenzie, D. L. (n.d.). Criminal justice and crime prevention1. Chapter 9. Web.

Miller, K. P. (2009). Direct democracy and the courts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Walsh, J. E. (2007). Three strikes laws. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

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