Since time immemorial human society has been in need of a power which would carry out control over it and prevent crime, punishing the culprit in case of offence. Nowadays this function is performed by the system of criminal justice which comprises police, as a means of law enforcement; courts, as organizations carrying out adjudication; and jails, prisons, probations and parole as kinds of corrections. Criminal justice agencies, which are represented by the police investigating crime, and the attorneys prosecuting the offenders, are expected to operate within the rule of law. However, it is not infrequent that while rendering justice, the aforementioned agencies happen to involve in certain ethical issues in cases leading to miscarriage of justice. It is the goal of the present paper to review such areas of ethical issues within the field of criminal justice as: pretexting during investigation and police misconduct, and their influence on the investigated case.
When investigating a crime, it is often the case that certain information is obtained via pretexting a trick which is described by Hartwell (2006) as obtaining information through deception or false pretence . The participants of pretexting misinterpret their identities or purposes in order to get information which otherwise might have not been revealed to them. Another case could be when a lawyer leading the case hires a third party to obtain evidence such a party is called an undercover investigator (Hricik, 2007). On the whole, such techniques can help in advancing the investigation process and have proved to be successful. However, conducting a case with the use of pretexting and undercover investigators can raise a whole range of ethical issues and question the lawfulness and compliance of actions directed at obtaining information. There exists a set of Model Rules of Professional Conduct drawn up within the American Bar Association (2008) which can be used as guidelines in planning a proper investigation despite their inability to settle all the issues which might rise in course of the case. Otherwise there is a possibility of a retaliatory lawsuit alleging, inter alia, fraud and trespass.
Another slippery ground in the course of investigation concerns the limits of police authority when carrying out their duty. There are frequent reports of police misconduct, with the most common claims brought against police officers being false arrest (or false imprisonment), malicious prosecution, and use of excessive or unreasonable force. According to the US Department of Justice (2008).
It is a crime for one or more persons acting under color of law willfully to deprive or conspire to deprive another person of any right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. & The types of law enforcement misconduct covered by these laws include excessive force, sexual assault, intentional false arrests, or the intentional fabrication of evidence resulting in a loss of liberty to another .
As a rule, it is quite impossible to prove police misconduct since there exists a code of non-disclosure among the police officers involved in a case of exceeding power. Moreover, occurrences of police officers giving false testimony in court have been discovered. Authoritative press editions report cases when surveillance cameras records helped to discover the true course of events, and consequently charges against innocent people were dropped (Hauser, 2009).
In all the diversity of investigation cases, there cannot be one single valid and true answer to satisfy all of the ethical issues. Thus it is important to involve the principles of ethical pluralism, enlisted by Hinman, to resolve conflicts of different ethical standards. Those are the principles of Understanding, Tolerance, Standing Up Against Evil, and Fallibility (as cited in Banks, 2004). An in-depth understanding of each particular case is vital before applying any ethical standards to its resolution.
References
American Bar Association. (2008). Model Rules of Professional Conduct.
Banks, C. (2004). The Importance of Ethics in Criminal Justice. In Banks, C. Criminal Justice Ethics :Theory and Practice (pp. 3-17). London: Thousand Oaks: New Delhi: SAGE Publications, International Educational and Professional Publisher. Web.
Hartwell, R. V. (December 2006). Compliance and Ethics in Investigations: Getting It Right. The Antitrust Source, 6 (2).
Hauser, C. (March 25, 2009). When Evidence From Surveillance Cameras Leads to Charges Against Officers. The New York Times. p. A30.
Hricik, D. C. (2007). Conflicts and Confidentiality: The Ethical and Procedural Issues Concerning Experts. Macon, GA: Mercer University.
United States Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division. (2008, July 25). Addressing Police Misconduct: Laws Enforced by the United States Department of Justice.
Outline
I. INTRODUCTION
Thesis: certain ethical issues during crime investigation may lead to miscarriage of justice
II. BODY PARAGRAPH I
Transition/Opening Sentence: lawyers often obtain information via detours
Detail 1: pretexting
Detail 2: undercover investigating
Detail 3: a set of rules to rely upon when choosing an investigation strategy
III. BODY PARAGRAPH II:
Transition/Opening Sentence: the police often trespass the limits of their authority when enforcing law
Detail 1: kinds of police misconduct
Detail 2: impossibility to prove law enforcement misconduct
Detail 3: improving the situation due to surveillance cameras records
VI. CONCLUSION
Reconfirmed Thesis: when handling controversial ethical issues in sphere of criminal justice, principles of ethical pluralism should be used
Crimes are omnipresent and are part of how contemporary society functions. Despite many advancements in technology and economics, the presence of felonies and misdemeanors has not vanished. Crimes exist because of various social issues, and by addressing these societal problems, such as drug use and gender inequality, criminal justice professionals may decrease overall crime rates. This paper will explore drug use, recidivism, and domestic violence as critical issues that criminal justice specialists are facing.
Drug Use and the Role of Gender
Substance abuse is one of the most significant challenges of contemporary society. It is ubiquitous, and persons of all ages engage in this unfavorable activity. Despite being illegal, drug trafficking and distribution are not declining. The profitability of the business has led many individuals to commit crimes. The majority of people test positive for drugs when they are taken into custody, which suggests that substance use contributes to crime rates (Buccelli et al., 2016). Criminal justice professionals are faced with a dilemma on the one hand, legalizing drugs would decrease its profitability and attractiveness for aspiring outlaws. On the other hand, legalization will imminently increase the availability of drugs, thus contributing to consumption rates. It is not possible to predict how crime rates would react to such changes in legislation. The challenge is exacerbated by the lack of knowledge about the role of gender in this context. Researchers suggest that interventions designed for male drug users may not be suitable for female criminals (Buccelli et al., 2016). Therefore, criminal justice professionals should engage in sophisticated research in order to devise an appropriate solution.
Recidivism
Most crimes are committed by individuals that previously faced criminal charges. Repeating a crime after receiving punishment is called recidivism, and it is of significant concern for criminal justice professionals (Spruit et al., 2017). To address the challenge, most states have adopted the Three-strikes law, which ensures that a person who commits three serious crimes serves a life sentence. The efficacy of this law, however, is under question because the legislation does not take the age factor into account. Researchers have established that inclination toward recidivism declines over time (Spruit et al., 2017). Moreover, risk factors that predict recidivism differ significantly among various age groups (Spruit et al., 2017). Criminal justice professionals need to consider current scientific evidence and revise the Three-strikes law. At its current state, it should not be used as a common framework for battling recidivism.
Domestic Violence
Domestic violence rates have been increasing steadily for many years. Today, 25% of women have experienced some abuse from their intimate partners (National statistics, 2020). The absence of a decline in this percentage suggests that the criminal justice system has not been effective in addressing this issue. Professionals need to develop new response mechanisms to decrease domestic violence rates nationally. To accomplish this task, criminal justice workers need to have a holistic picture of the issue, need to understand why such acts of abuse occur, and how they can be prevented.
Conclusion
The criminal justice system has failed to decrease crime rates due to the lack of knowledge in relevant scientific areas. For instance, there is not enough information to make a decision in regards to drug legalization with the aim of decreasing drug-associated crimes. Moreover, the current Three-strikes law does not take many age-related intricacies of human behavior into account. Domestic violence continues to increase because no appropriate response strategies exist today.
References
Buccelli, C., Della Casa, E., Paternoster, M., Niola, M., & Pieri, M. (2016). Gender differences in drug abuse in the forensic toxicological approach. Forensic Science International, 265, 89-95. Web.
National statistics. (2020). National Coalition against Domestic Violence. Web.
Spruit, A., van der Put, C., Gubbels, J., & Bindels, A. (2017). Age differences in the severity, impact and relative importance of dynamic risk factors for recidivism. Journal of Criminal Justice, 50, 69-77. Web.
Recent events, such as the widespread incidents of police brutality and the increasingly frequent failed death row executions, have drawn a lot of attention toward the issue of criminal law enforcement in the United States. They also exposed the deficiencies and shortfalls of the criminal justice system, which has long been a source of disagreement between the Democrats and the Republicans, making any changes to the policy unlikely. However, now that conservative politicians, like their liberal counterparts, have come to acknowledge the inefficiency of the current system, there is hope for a comprehensive policy reform. The US criminal justice system urgently needs to be reformed as the current policy undermines justice and transparency in the US society.
The term criminal justice administration refers to a set of policies and resource management practices that define how crime-committing individuals are treated in the society (Cole, Smith, & Dejong, 2014, p. 89). The US policy approach was formulated in the late 1960s and 1970s a period marked by a rapidly growing crime rate under a predominantly Republican government. The way new media channels, particularly television, exposed crimes, especially the most violent ones, agitated the public opinion. The citizens of the United States grew less and less tolerant of criminals, and, under the public pressure, the government opted out for the so-called get tough approach to criminal justice (Andrews & Bonta, 2010, p. 40). The common perception was that criminals choose the lifestyle they lead and thus they deserve to fully face the consequences of their actions, regardless of the specific context. While the origins of this approach are understandable, its results were largely unforeseen. A predominantly punitive approach, with its non-discriminating and inflexible view on crime, resulted in an oversimplification of the intricate concept of crime and is now threatening what it is intended to protect justice in the United States.
The root of the problem is the inadequate legislation that resulted in a peculiar application of the law, with people receiving unjustifiably long sentences for relatively minor transgressions. For instance, implementation of mandatory minimum sentences, particularly in relation to possession or distribution of drugs, has filled the US prisons with non-violent drug offenders, some of them serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for possessing minuscule amounts of drugs. Mandatory minimums were initially intended to reduce the extent of judicial discretion to ensure that some crimes were punished by a certain number of years in prison (Cassell & Luna, 2011, p. 219). First introduced in 1951, these provisions did not become truly problematic until the War on Drugs when they started to raise questions about the erosion of transparency and the truth-seeking function of the US criminal justice system (Cassell & Luna, 2011, p. 219-220). Currently, even when the mandatory minimum requirements are reviewed and amended in some state legislations, these changes do not apply retrospectively to those already convicted under these provisions (Cassell & Luna, 2011, p. 225). To make the matter even more preposterous, some of the drug offenders are currently serving their sentences for possession or distribution of marijuana a substance whose recreational consumption has been recently legalized in several states. Clearly, a new understanding of what constitutes and what causes crimes has emerged, highlighting the obsoleteness of the concept of mandatory minimum sentencing and similar laws.
Policies like mandatory minimums demonstrate the commitment of the US legal system to the crime control model at the expense of the due process model (Cole et al., 2014, p. 14). The former model values speed and efficiency above everything else: the system is performing well if it is capable of apprehending and convicting as many offenders as possible. Another example of such legislation is the three strikes laws, requiring that those who have committed two prior offenses get a considerably longer sentence on their third strike (Andrews, & Bonta, 2010). The due process model, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of everyone receiving a fair trial based on carefully examined information, all while being represented by a qualified defender. Surely, the two models are not necessarily mutually exclusive but they do represent two extremes on one spectrum. For too long, the policy pendulum in the American criminal justice system has swung to the crime control model. It resulted in mass incarceration and large economic strains on the state and federal budgets. Currently, America is the leading country in terms of the number of its imprisoned citizens, outperforming illiberal regimes like Russia and China (Cullen, Johnson, & Nagin, 2011). The exploding incarceration rates naturally caused a significant increase in criminal justice expenses. Currently, about $60 billion is spent annually on correctional institutions, which represents a 235% increase since 1982 (Subramanian, Delaney, Roberts, Fishman, & McGarry, 2015, p. 12). Clearly, the current state of affairs is not sustainable in the long run, especially since some states are forced to prioritize prison maintenance over education in their budgets.
Another grave implication of the current inadequate legislation is the disproportionate adverse impact it has on racial and socioeconomic minorities in the United States. The most affected group are the African Americans, who represent about 40% of all prisoners but account for only 10% of the total population (Cullen et al., 2011). This distribution is clearly influenced by the existing prejudices in the criminal law enforcement practices: for instance, policing is largely concentrated in minority neighborhoods, and schools in such areas are more likely to implement zero-tolerance policies (Subramanian et al., 2015, p. 15). The bail system also disproportionally favors those who can afford it, meaning disadvantaged socioeconomic groups are not given an equal opportunity when it comes to just treatment. Currently, the prisons are filled with those who may have committed a minor offense, such as driving with a suspended license, but who are too poor or too ill to afford bail (Subramanian et al., 2015, p. 2). Thus, rather than delivering justice, the system appears to be merely furthering the socioeconomic cleavages in the United States.
Even though incarceration itself is already flawed, former prisoners experience further problems upon their release. Particularly, some states make former inmates subject to the so-called collateral consequences. These penalties vary from prisoner disenfranchisement to suspension of a drivers license to inability to receive an education loan or get a job. As Chin duly notes, having a criminal record represents the modern form of civil death or a loss of individual civil rights comparable to the barbaric practice of outlawry in the Middle Ages (Chin, 2012). The criminal justice system has been criticized for not putting enough effort into prisoner rehabilitation to help former inmates make a successful transition back into the community as law-abiding citizens. Insufficient resources are currently allocated for prison education and job training, and former inmates come out of the prison unprepared to live in the society (Cole et al., 2014, p. 645). Being stripped of education and employment opportunities and, in some cases, deprived of public housing, many former inmates have no choice but to return to crime a vicious circle responsible for creating a permanent underclass.
With the negative consequences of the current criminal justice policy being so pervasive and well-documented, it seems surprising why the status quo persisted for so long. The answer is more simple and yet more complex than one may think. Public security and individual freedom are believed to present an irreconcilable trade-off, with every society deciding how much of each it is willing to sacrifice. Even though the crime rates in the United States are not necessarily higher than in other developed countries, the majority public opinion often seems to favor security over freedom, especially since those most affected rarely have a voice in the matter (Kelly, 2014). The ever-growing terrorist threat only gave more legitimacy to such opinions. However, reforming the criminal justice system does not mean unleashing vile criminals back into the society. Rather, it implies remedying the injustice done to individuals who have received disproportionate sentences and re-allocating the efforts and funds toward rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Thus, decades of inadequate governance exacerbated the problem of criminal justice administration, as currently the system is overburdened with costly mass incarceration, disadvantaging the vulnerable members of the society and creating a permanent underclass because of insufficient rehabilitation efforts. A major policy overhaul is long overdue: it is time to acknowledge that the tough-on-crime approach, however promising it sounds in populist rhetoric, is failing the US society and instead turn to the due process approach to criminal justice.
References
Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2010). Rehabilitating criminal justice policy and practice. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16(1), 39-55.
Cassell, P. G., & Luna, E. (2011). Sense and sensibility in mandatory minimum sentencing. Federal Sentencing Reporter, 23(3), 219-227.
Chin, G. J. (2012). The new civil death: Rethinking punishment in the era of mass conviction. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 160, 1789-1833.
Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & Dejong, C. (2014). The American System of Criminal Justice (14th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Cullen, F. T., Johnson, C. L., & Nagin, D. S. (2011). Prisons do not reduce recidivism: The high cost of ignoring science. The Prison Journal, 91(3), 48S-65S.
Kelly, J. J. (2014). Balancing national security and freedom: Reactions to terrorism and its effect on citizens civil liberties, civil rights, and privacy (Masters thesis, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD). Web.
Subramanian, R., Delaney, R., Roberts, S., Fishman, N., & McGarry, P. (2015). Incarcerations front door: The misuse of jails in America. Web.
Drawing on theories of moral panic and punitiveness, and relying on relevant contemporary examples, this paper purposes to critically discuss how politicization of criminal justice influences penal policy.
Perhaps the best theoretical approach that could best expound on politicization of criminal justice, a process through which the political class snatch the opportunities to make use of criminal justice issues to facilitate their endeavours (Blumstein, 2007), is the moral panic theory.
Stanley Cohen (1972) cited in Farmer (2010) is credited as the first person to use the phrase moral panic to depict a situation where mainstream media and the police develop a twirl of respectable fear by focussing attention to a scenario, real or imagined, that threatens the values and interests of society. The main agenda of creating a moral panic, according to Farmer (2010), is to stimulate public anxiety with the hope of generating changes in critical areas such as policing and the administration of criminal justice.
Going by this theory, it can be suggested that politicians have mastered the art of creating a moral panic out of situations that do not call for such fear, but which they use to penetrate essential institutions, such as the criminal justice, to influence the penal policy to their benefits.
Although it cannot be denied that terrorism is a global threat, politicians in high positions of influence in society backed up by the popular media and other right-thinking people, employed an overly stylized and stereotypical demeanour to influence the community on taking moral positions and making judgements that the Muslim faith and terrorism cannot be separated.
The result of such stereotyping under the pretext of war on terror is that, presently, &Muslim immigrant communities are in crisis in the secular West confronting the conditionality of their citizenship, even in the second generation (Humphrey, 2007 p. 10). But what is more interesting is the fact that politicians used the perceived threat of terrorism to infiltrate the justice system and introduce policies that view legitimate Muslim immigrants as potential threat to national security.
Consequently, instead of the policymaking process in criminal justice taking place at many different levels as indicated by Ryan (1999), the politicians hijacked the whole process to introduce morally questionable policies through the backdoor.
The war on drugs, the threat of superpredators, and the August 2011 riots in Britain after a black man was supposedly shot by police, are all examples of situations which have triggered moral panics, but which we have seen politicians and like-minded people react viscerally, impulsively, and mechanistically rather than assume a reasoned and informed policy approach to criminal justice which involves all stakeholders, including the public (Ryan, 1999).
The second framework that could be used to illuminate the politicization of criminal justice and subsequent control and manipulation of the penal policy is the theory of punitiveness. According to Green (2009), the term punitiveness is used by many criminological scholars &to indicate the presence of harsh public attitudes toward offenders (p. 519).
Consequently, it can be argued that punitive dispositions among people, particularly those in positions of power and influence, can be intrinsically associated with specific fears and concerns about possible moral and social breakdown to a point where the actors are, actively or passively, forced to make ad hoc, impulsive, and arbitrary policies, which may not necessarily be reasoned or but which are taken to preserve the popular discourse at least according to the actors (Blumstein, 2007).
While Nelken (2009) notes that many countries are characterized by increasing punitiveness in their criminal justice systems, Ryan (1999) observes that this trend is being stimulated by penal populism, which is being facilitated by political entities such as the New Labour (implying politicians).
The 2011 Britain riots illuminate the increasingly punitive character of criminal justice policies taking shape in the U.K., but which can be attributed to the political class in its attempt to irrationally deal with perceived moral and social breakdown rather than involving a reasoned and considered analysis of what transpired to ignite the riots.
The many convictions that have transpired ever since the outbreak of the riots in August give credence to the fact that Britain is following in the footsteps of neo-liberal societies, such as the U.S., &who have the highest prison rates because they follow social and economic policies that lead to what they describe as exclusionary cultural attitudes towards [their] deviant and marginalized fellow citizens (Nelken, 2009 p. 295).
It is important to note that it is these exclusionary cultural attitudes as described by Nelken (2009) that have served to enhance criminality among the Black youth in the American society (Farmer, 2010), as they are looked upon by the predominantly white leadership as people who are bent on committing crime.
It should not escape mention that the recent riots witnessed in Britain were triggered by similar exclusionary cultural attitudes in that the victim, a member of the black community, was shot due to perceived gun crime.
This notwithstanding, we have seen how the political leadership have used this and other previous cases to make misconstrued political appeal linked to acting tough on crime, but which have nevertheless materialized in making Britains. Judiciary to also act tough on the rioters by handing them heavy sentences due to the temptations that the political class triggered when they knowingly acted to arouse the publics mood and attitudes about the crime committed during the riots. The above insights demonstrate how the politicization of criminal justice influences penal policy.
List of References
Blumstein, A (2007). The Roots of Punitiveness in a Democracy. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology & Crime Prevention, 8 (1), pp. 2-16.
Farmer, S (2010). Criminality of Black Youth in Inner-City Schools: Moral Panic, Moral Imagination, and Moral Formation. Ethnicity & Education, 13 (3), pp. 367-381.
Green, D.A (2009). Feeding Wolves: Punitiveness and Culture. European Journal of Criminology, 6 (6), pp. 517-536.
Humphrey, M (2007). Culturalising the Abject: Islam, Law, and Moral Panic in the West. Australian Journal of Social Sciences, 42 (1), pp. 9-25.
Nelken, D (2009). Comparative Criminal Justice: Beyond Ethnocentrism and Relativism. European Journal of Criminology, 6 (4), pp. 291-311.
Ryan, M (1999). Penal Policy Making towards the Millennium: Elites and Populists; New Labour and the New Criminology. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 27, pp. 1-22.
How Foster Care affects the criminal justice in the United States
A detailed history of the creation of the social agency
Historically, the destiny of dependent children has been put on adults contributions and goodwill where adults were expected to look after the dependent children. Throughout the history of the United States, the children welfare system has evolved according to shifting values and attitudes about what responsibilities governmental agencies should take in the defence and care of abandoned and abused children. In the US, it was English Poor Law, which led to the growth and eventual legislation of family foster care.
In the year 1562, these regulations permitted the placements of needy children into practice service until they were old enough to be self-sufficient. When the children became old enough, they were permitted to move on with life and live on their own.
This system was brought to the US and marked the foundation of placing children into willing families. Although this practice allowed cruelty and mistreatment, it was a step ahead from almshouses where children didnt gain any skills and were exposed to unbearable environs and unsavoury people.
At this time, the early government interventions on behalf of children needing care were characterized more by realistic concerns about meeting the physical needs of children rather than by concern about the negative consequences of abuse and abandonment of childrens development.
John (1993) notes in 1636, at the time the Jamestown Colony was found, aged seven years old, Benjamin Eaton became USs first foster child.
As public awareness about child abuse and the damage it caused grew, the importance of child protection received greater attention by government officials. (Tarren & Hazell 2006) notes in 1853, Charles Loring Brace, then a minister and director of the New York Childrens Aid Society, formed the free foster home movement group with the main concern of the increasing number of homeless and hungry children in the streets of New York.
Brace saw the need and came up with a system to offer these children homes. Acknowledging, it was Braces caring and imaginative actions which marked the beginning of the foster care agency. (John 1993).
Gradually, the foster care system started to take course. Starting in the early 1900s, the federal Government and other social bodies became more concerned and engaged themselves in looking and offering homes to these needy children. Now, foster parents were required to have licences and have reports and records to ensure that the children received proper care of in a decent and dependable manner.
In 1997, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was enacted and was meant to reduce the duration children were permitted to remain in foster care before they could be adopted. The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 was passed to help promote youths who were becoming of age to attain self-sufficiency.
The most recent legislation is the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, which extends other benefits and financing for foster children at the age bracket, 18-21 and for Indian children in racial regions.
A presentation of the mission statement of the social agency
Foster care is inspired to provide a place where children can heal, fostering families build up, and where peacefulness and private development are achieved. The intention of foster care agency is to evade unnecessary institutionalization of children and adults by offering caring, community-based, in-home placings to the many needy children.
The mission of foster care under the child welfare system in the United States is to provide care to children. The system recognizes that foster care should be an inclusive teamwork effort among the care-givers, social workers, the placing agencies, the birth parents, the children and those contributing to the childrens welfare.
Foster care is not only put in place to cater for the provision of safe alternative homes for neglected children but to provide permanent and well being for the children. The role of foster care is a surrogate parent to the children and infants. The social agencys role of provision of permanent and long-term foster care to children and young people in need of a permanent family placement is a very vital issue that the social agency strives to fulfill. It is not only relevant for the social agencies but also for the judicial system.
Foster care promotes family-based assistance to out-of-home children by: enabling the exchange of information among persons and organizations of different regions; enhancing foster care as a vital plan of family based care; organizing conferences and seminars; consultations; socializing; and assistance. It aims at providing safe, permanent and fostering families within the childrens own environment by sustaining bonds; thus reducing the negative impacts.
Financial reports/summaries of the operations of the social agency
In 1995, each state got more than $2.7 billion in federal aid for about half of the approximated The Federal government offers significant financial assistance to fund foster care programs. The governments contribution is seen to have grown from about $300 million in 1981 to nearly $10 billion in 2005.
According to the General Accounting Office, in 1993 almost $1.2 billion Federal dollars were allocated to foster care maintenance, while a supplementary $1.2 billion in refunds were allocated to states for foster care-related administrative programs in 495,000 children in foster care. By 2001, federal assistance rose to $4.7 billion with the number of foster care children assisted by the federal increasing by about 26%.
According to a study conducted by the Child Welfare League of America, the annual welfare cost of one child living with his or her mother is $2,644, while the average cost for the childs care in residential group care is $36,500. (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services 2004). Currently, the annual expenditures on foster care services are estimated at 15 billion dollar.
A critical analysis of the effectiveness of the social agency
The Fosters care agency has a lot of challenges that affect its effectiveness when caring out its mandate. The social agency plays a very crucial role as it has a character of the social rehabilitation agency. The social agency faces limited recourses despite the fact that there has been a growing demand for the services nationally.
Therefore the agency cannot carry it some of it vital roles hence lack the positive results that the agency is supposed to deliver. The lack of resources has resulted in missing the targets set by the agency as its daily expenditure increases especially in the training programs for the foster parents and adolescent children and in maintaining its interaction with the criminal justice system. (Harden 2004)
The agency has a very intensive program which is involved in the training of children who have different social problems. The involvement of children in juvenile delinquencies stems from exposure to abuse and an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects often co-occurs with mood and anxiety problems among children and young people. Other causes may be depressing relationships between the children and their surroundings and social hostility.
For girls it is much more complex due to the fact that they are present in male oriented institutions and programs that are not well crafted to their specific needs. Therefore there is need for services to be based and set up in consideration of gender. This highlighted by figures showing a steady increase in delinquencies among females as compared to males (Lawrence, et al 2006) ways in which the social agency could improve its effectiveness towards its social goals.
The social agency in its endeavor to improve its effectiveness and realize its mission and goal of providing permanence in foster care to underprivileged children, should prepare reports on a monthly basis so as to assess progress and analyze what needs to be done.
This reports should be discussed by all stakeholders so that solutions and policies being developed should be inclusive and be able to cater for all children under foster care whether males or females. The criminal justice board should carry out periodical monitoring workshops to ensure that the agencies are effective.
Cooperation between the social agency and the criminal justice system is very vital for effective services to be realized. The social agency should adhere to performance analyst monitors put in place by the criminal justice system and analyses performance in relation to warrants, community penalty breaches and awarding of licenses.
On the other hand, in case of breach of the rules and regulations by social agencies, the criminal justice system should effect penalties such as revocation of licenses. Prediction concerning the future of the social agency and its impact on the criminal justice system
The Future of the social agency lies in it taking measures to correct the current challenges that it is facing in order to remain efficient and effective and more importantly, have a healthy and sustainable relationship with the criminal justice system.
In order to do this, the agency should be well funded to run its programs effectively thus not experience budgetary constraints as it is have before. In addition the agency should recruit more Para-legal and legal staff to assist in the judicial and legal operations that hence making it easy to work with the criminal justice system by bringing corrective programs into its system at an early stage.
Another issue affecting the agency is lack of enough placements hence more children are still being left out in hostile environments whereby they develop into juveniles at a very young age and carry with them this trait into adulthood or into the foster care program should they get a placement. Past research has shown that former children in foster homes, at least 42 per cent of them ended in prisons once they got into adulthood while 15 percent of them got to prison during their teen hood.
Therefore in order for the agency to be successful, apart from its economical and human resource factors, the agency should take into account the role that placement of children in homes has on them. Thus children who are placed in environmentally friendly homes grow to develop positive attributes while those who are in hostile environments develop negative attributes, a factor that plays a big role in them ending up in prison later on.
Thus both the agency and the criminal justice system should device positive and educative training programs to train the children into being more positive and self conscience while getting rid of attributes they might have acquired during the foster program. Also there should be continuous supervision of children in the program to ensure that they are in placements that contribute to their welfare in the end. (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services 2004).
Hence if all the above factors are taken into consideration, the agency is bound to produce positive results while decreasing the number of children who end up in the criminal justice system.
References
Harden, B (2004). Safety and stability for foster children: a developmental perspective . The Future of children / Center for the Future of Children, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Vol. 11, pp 34-89.
John K. ( 1993). Adoption of Children with Special Needs, Brookings Institution: The Future of Children, Vol. 3, Adoption, pp. 62-76
Lawrence, C. Carlson, E & Egeland, B (2006). The impact of foster care on development . Development and psychopathology, Vol 1, pp. 5776.
Tarren, M; & Hazell, P (2006). Mental health of children in foster and kinship care in New South Wales, Australia . Journal of paediatrics and child health, Vol 3, pp. 8997.
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, (2004). Child Maltreatment, Vol 6, pp.25-96.
Criminal justice refers to the study and application of laws pertaining criminal behavior. It is usually studied by people and professionals who either defend or prosecute those accused of crime or people advocating for change in the prevailing criminal justice system. The major group in this case that is directly and more often involved in criminal justice supervision is the police. They require diversified training in field like management for them to be effective (Garner, 2008, pg 161).
The word justice implies that those accused of criminal offence should be arrested, prosecuted, tried and judged fairly, seeing to it that those found guilty face the required repercussion while those proved innocent are freed. This has not always been possible due to the fact that law has been applied variously in addition to undergoing numerous unfair transformations, as well as having various interpretations thus the need of some extra effort to be successful in this field (Ellis-Christensen, 2010).
Needs-Based Motivation
Every human being has basic needs whose satisfaction motivates him to do the right thing. In the field of criminal justice, it is necessary to understand whether failure to satisfy the following needs may result to the criminal acts.
Physiological needs are the basic motivational drive for need based theory. They determine homeostasis and appetite in the body of human beings. Failure to satisfy physiological needs may lead to a craving of the lacking food element leading to criminal acts to satisfy it. Incase physiological needs are not well satisfied, and then there arises security needs.
Every person prefers a safe environment in which unpredictable negative events rarely happen. In case the above two are not satisfied, then there arise social needs whereby a person feels unappreciated and strives keenly to find company. Again, there are esteem needs whereby every person needs self respect and respect from others. Above all the other needs, there is self actualization need where by every individual must do what he is fitted for to have peace with himself (Maslow, 1970).
Motivation-Hygiene Theory
This theory was developed by Frederick Herzberg and it is a motivational theory that builds on Maslow need-based motivational theory. This theory was developed through a statistics carried out among 203 accountants and engineers selected from nine companies in Pittsburgh. The responses among these workers were fairly consistent and it was evident that satisfaction in the working place was as a result of contentment from the job itself.
Its important in that it seeks to determine the factors leading to motivation especially in the working environment thus helping to improve the relationship between the employer and the employee thus reducing incidences of criminal acts. In criminal justice supervisory practices, it is important in solving matters related to criminal practices, for instance during strikes in the working place or any other issue concerning the employer and employee (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2007).
Theory Y
This is an employee motivational theory which makes the following assumptions. Investing on and putting physical and mental effort in work is natural. Control and threats of punishment are not necessarily the best methods of putting employees into work since man has self direction and self control in objectives he is committed to.
Employees commitment to their work is triggered by the rewards there in, thus they will work as long as they feel they have a role to play and in the process benefit from their input; indeed, their willingness to be creative and contribute to the success of the organization can be used as a problem solving tool.
Finally, the intellectual potentialities are not fully utilized in the modern industrial life; thus it would be important to provide an enabling environment in order to enhance problem solving and effective management of employees. In supervisory practices, it is important in avoiding the actions that may render criminal activities in companys management (McGregor & Cutcher-Gershenfeld, 2006).
Theory X
This theory holds that naturally, people dislike work whereby they must be coerced to perform. Also, it holds that people prefer to be directed. The importance of this theory is that it gives the employers responsibility to always be keen on how the employees carry themselves on. When the management is keen on employers, employees tend to perform better to avoid conflict with their employer. However, this does not wholly define the conduct of people since there are many other factors that influence peoples performance.
Expectancy Theory
This theory of motivation was developed by psychologist Victor H. Vroom of Yale School of Management. This theory seeks to explain that employees are motivated to work towards a certain goal if they can see the worth of that goal and if they think their efforts will help them achieve that goal. In one way, it supports what Martin Luther king said that every human being lives and involves in various activities because of hope.
This theory enables people make a choice that has a benefit in future. The impact of this theory in most organizations is the belief that commitment and more dedication to utilization of competence will not only enhance employees performance, but also the overall achievement in the organization. Employees are usually motivated by these rewards which results to better performance in the company. In criminal justice, this theory enables the people involved to understand better the root causes of some of criminal acts (Matt, 2009).
Sensitivity Theory
Sensitivity theory of motivation holds that people differ in the types and amount of reinforcement they require in order to be productive in their area of work. This theory works better in management and supervisory practices in order to be able to know the best methods to use in motivating each and every employee.
There may be some behaviors among the employee that may lead to criminal acts that managers should be very keen about. For instance, some people crave too much love, attention, companionship or acceptance making it hard to satisfy or motivate them in any way to work hard. It is important for the managers to understand their juniors individually in order to reduce cases of criminal activities in the work place (Corr, 2008 & Ther, 1996).
Conclusion
In the supervisory practices in the field of criminal justice, it is important for the management to learn in details the theories of motivation since they are the root causes of criminal activities by the employees in most companies. Their understanding will enable the management to avoid conflict with the employees as well as motivate them for better performance.
References
Corr, P. (2008). The reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The death penalty has been a largely debated form of punishment in the U.S. since its inception. The law supporting this unkind and unfair sentence was thus, put under scrutiny and consequently several death sentences were either overturned or could only be carried out on proportionate grounds by the supreme courts heralding a new era in the criminal justice system of the US.
The legal arguments for this decision made by the higher courts were cited in line with the 8th amendment that called for the exclusive considerations on several factors that mainly touched on racial disparities, age of a convict, proper evidence that can incriminate the accused persons, respective human rights action plans against such people, satisfactory judgment delivered either by unanimous decision or a majority of votes by the judges and so on (Burns 1).
Age
The Supreme Court made a decision based on the 8th amendment to relook into criminal cases viewed as cruel or unusual, and instead provided an alternative favorable form of punishment. Most death sentences were slashed down to life imprisonment, leaving only deserved cases as death sentences.
For instance, some states were forced to repackage their judicial laws after realizing that the judgment commonly delivered never materialized particularly when the cases involved were referred back to the supreme courts, which in turn, after careful hearing, overturned the rulings in favor of the accused. This occurred in cases that were considered to lack the 8th amendment thresholds for the death penalty.
These circumstances made several states to re-enact laws governing the death penalty, which was a major concern to the supreme courts contradiction to the imposition of death sentence arbitrarily. The application of such fair trials justifying the subsequent sentences handed down by the supreme courts began from the year 1972.
This was after the capital punishment was found to be unconstitutionally biased and cruel. An exception to this is in cases where sentences were delivered after considering the extra routine endorsement. The cases and the respective judgment on the death penalty jurisprudence handed by the supreme courts entirely depended on the moral significance culpable by the law and factors of discretion (Head 1).
The Supreme Court in accordance with the laws governing the 8th amendment decided that death penalty for a minor is a harsh kind of penalty. This is supported by the fact that in a 5-4 court ruling, it was labeled unconstitutional when any convict at the time of committing the crime is below the age of 18.
Thus, it is morally incorrect to implicate children who commit crime in relation to adults who has acted in the same way since their respective intentions cannot apply together. Example of such ruling involving a minor was a criminal case for Christopher Simmons who was sentenced to death but later overruled; Case, Roper v Simmons.
Another example of such case in which the age of a convict was contested involved a 15 year old at the time of committing the crime. William Thompson was sentenced to death after being convicted of murder. Due to this, the Supreme Court overturned the decision of an Oklahoma court by explaining that the execution of the minor violated the eighth amendment statute. The case here is, Thompson v. Oklahoma.
Racial disparities
Another main issue surrounding the death penalty is the racial inequality that has been historically characteristic with handing of the penalty in the U.S. For instance, consider a case involving an African American who was convicted of two counts of robbery plus one count of murder. After convictions in county courts and subsequently condemned to death, his plea was heard whereby the Supreme Court ruling overturned the death penalty imposed.
The final ruling stated that the majority should not dictate matters of humanity since it is unconstitutional. For example, it was viewed that those accused of killing white people could easily be handed the death sentence compared to murderers for black persons. After much consideration and scrutiny of the penalty, the courts offered a platform for the voiceless like the accused person in question.i.e case, McCleskey v kemp.
Mental state of the convict
Mental instability in most people is believed to have unnatural rage subconscious to a persons mind. It is for this reason that informed the Supreme Court to offer a reprieve on death penalty for mentally retarded persons who commit a criminal offence.
As a result of this, the death sentence was found to be unconstitutionally excessive thereby restricting the states power to deliver death penalty as a form of punishment on similar cases under the same state of mind. For instance, Daryl Atkins was convicted of murder even though his IQ score was 59 hence; the Supreme Court reversed the earlier ruling which did not evaluate his condition as that of mild mental condition; Case, Atkins v. Virginia (Jacobs 1).
Proper evidence of aggravating circumstances
Proper reasons were to be evaluated so as to be used against a convict. For instance, in order to incriminate a person, the Supreme Court made a decision to provide a clear distinction on where imposition of death can be allowed. It was unanimously passed that there could be circumstances when the evidence produced could exempt on the death penalty for non-murder offenses like rape except for crimes comparable to treason.
This was seen during the trial for Antonym Coker who escaped from custody but got re-arrested and condemned to death penalty for rape. The Supreme Court in turn overturned the first sentence arguing that it was too harsh on the ground that most rape cases may not involve murder.
Another similar case in which a sentence by the lower court was annulled by that of the Supreme Court took place in Lousiana.The criminal case involved Patrick Kennedy accused of raping his 8 year old step daughter. The Supreme Court then scrutinized his case after a successful appeal against a capital punishment handed earlier.
The argument of the higher court then concluded that imposing the death penalty against the convict was against the 8th amendment and therefore unconstitutional because the crime neither resulted nor was intended to terminate the innocent life of his victim (Radelet & Akers 1). Therefore, the ruling decided that the accused should instead be sent to life imprisonment; Case, Kennedy v. Louisiana.
Method of delivering the death sentence
In cases where the method used to administer the death penalty is considered cruel and painful, the Supreme Court could then deliberate on a particular ruling by a junior state court. This was observed during the sentencing of Ralph Baze who was convicted for murder and sure enough condemned to death by a Kentucky state court by lethal injection and instead appealed against the ruling, only for the sentence to be re-affirmed by the Supreme Court since the method for its application was considered safe after all.
The same scenario was also witnessed during the trial of Jimmy L. Glass who was sentenced to death according to the legal argument of Louisiana court by electrocution. Through his lawyers, he argued that the application and the intensity when passing the death sentence through electrocution can cause serious injuries and pain and therefore do not meet the humane standards as required by the constitution (White 1). The final judgment by the Supreme Court thus dismissed the petition thereby allowing the lower courts ruling to go ahead; Case, Jimmy L. Glass v.Lousiana.
Improper judgment
Pending cases provided relevant provisions to re-appeal the death sentence if the trial is perceived to be as a result of discretion of a judge determining the outcome of a case almost single handedly. Take for example, the trial of Timothy Ring, a convict of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment only for a state judge to step-up the penalty to another sentence by death.
Consequently though, the Supreme Court reversed the decision citing that statutory maximum sentence should be put before a jury panel since the judge was found to have acted improperly without a sitting legal bench who could have delivered a unanimous decision; Case, Ring v. Arizona.
Special procedure for capital penalty
It was realized that rulings could impose the death penalty by ignoring the nature or circumstance preceding a crime. Therefore, it was required that a jury must be able to cite a possible statutory aggravating legal requirement before delivering any formal penalty by death.
Such a case where the judgment was allowed to stand as it was involved Troy Leon who was convicted for robbery and murder for which he was handed over death sentence (Head 1). On challenging his trial, the Supreme Court rejected his plea and instead maintained the earlier verdict by dismissing the robbery factor since the statutory system was not found to violate the constitutional statutes; Case, Gregg v. Georgia.
The legislative judgments of some states
Several courts in some states decided to respond to the modification of the death penalty especially for murder committed in relation to a felony. Such states that rejected the death penalty arising from committing a felony therefore illegalized the practice hence the Supreme Court found it as an appropriate way by providing more options for fair trial.
This was arrived at after establishing the fact that, the death penalty usually imposed may be too harsh for a convict who did not participate in a murder or intended to carry out such heinous act. A case of study featured Enmund in which the death penalty was outlawed when determining the ultimate ruling by the supreme judges since they decided that it could not be imposed under circumstances of felony; Case, Enmund v. Florida.
Contrary to the above case where a reprieve was provided by the Supreme Court, in Tisons case, several state supreme courts amended their interpretation of the death penalty during such a case involving a felony by allowing capital punishment to take precedence in such future cases (White 1). This particular case was determined by analyzing noticeable circumstances of felony during the murder. The death penalty verdict was thus delivered since inquiries revealed passion and recklessness; Case, Tison v. Arizona.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is apparent that the suitability of imposing a death is questionable. From a number of precedents set on the death penalty, it is apparent that giving a life imprisonment instead of a death penalty will be more humane than a death penalty in permissible situations. All in all, a death penalty should be avoided as much as possible.
The proposed paper will focus on exploring a historical perspective of responding to female offending that is also known as violence against women (VAW). Since ancient times, attitudes towards womens rights were ambiguous and depended on males. Patriarchy was declared the pivotal issue that concerned offenses and punishment for criminals engaging in violence against women. In Ancient Athens, sex offenses against women were punished by a fine to their husband or father, providing no measures that might directly help victims (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2013). In Ancient Rome, men were polygamous, and it was documented by law. Thus, while women were deprived of the right to have several husbands, men were allowed to have several wives. The above issue meant that males could not be accused of adultery even if they did so.
Several attempts were made to resolve the identified issue. For example, in the Anglo-Saxon period, it is possible to note Alfreds laws that primarily focused on sexual intercourse which occurred without the consent of a woman. In particular, the above attempt increased the number of fines for rape and other sexual offenses. Another example is the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1976 that was introduced to protect women from such cases. Nowadays, there are several legislations that target equal treatment of women and adequate response to their offense. Therefore, it is essential to discuss this issue in detail, paying attention to its development in the course of history. The paramount goal of the proposed project is the investigation of the criminal justice system response to VAW from a historical viewpoint.
Before the Civil War, there was a rapid increase in crime rates caused by the move of rural Americans and the influx of immigrants to cities. Urbanization promoted a situation conducive to crime, and socio-economic difficulties forced people to commit illegal acts. Among the most frequent ones, one may list homicides, rapes, and violence between White and African-American populations. The patterns of crime included riots of African-Americans struggling against slavery and resistance of Whites to this movement. For example, Ku Klux Klan may be noted as the organization that used terrorism against ex-slaves and activists of African-Americans (Mecklin, 2013). These patterns affected modern brutal trends by promoting violence in African-Americans, who are unjustifiably perceived by many people as more aggressive than others. In my region, sexual offenses and theft are the main criminal trends. As for international comparisons, one may mention the Civil War in France, when similar patterns were observed.
Economic depression is the first event that impacted the criminal justice system in a post-Civil War period. Expressed in unemployment, low wages, and the overall downturn in economics, it caused negative attitudes towards the system. The second event is associated with Eastern European immigration to the US forced by the Russian Revolution and World War I (Jones & Johnstone, 2012). The mass transportation establishment is another issue that allowed plenty of people to move across the US to find a better life. The second and third events impacted the country with an increase in crime rates as they were conducive to unpunished violence. The atmosphere of instability and fear leads to even more brutality and the deterioration of social tension. While the response of the police was the improved measures to combating crime and catching criminals based on racial and ethnic control, courts and the correctional system introduced new mechanisms of punishing them such as probation, parole, and indeterminate imprisonment.
References
Chesney-Lind, M., & Pasko, L. (2013). The female offender: Girls, women, and crime (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jones, M., & Johnstone, P. (2012). History of criminal justice (5th ed.). Waltham, MA: Anderson Publishing.
Mecklin, J. (2013). The Ku Klux Klan: A study of the American mind. Redditch, UK: Read Books.
Drawing on theories of moral panic and punitiveness, and relying on relevant contemporary examples, this paper purposes to critically discuss how politicization of criminal justice influences penal policy.
Perhaps the best theoretical approach that could best expound on politicization of criminal justice, a process through which the political class snatch the opportunities to make use of criminal justice issues to facilitate their endeavours (Blumstein, 2007), is the moral panic theory.
Stanley Cohen (1972) cited in Farmer (2010) is credited as the first person to use the phrase moral panic to depict a situation where mainstream media and the police develop a twirl of respectable fear by focussing attention to a scenario, real or imagined, that threatens the values and interests of society. The main agenda of creating a moral panic, according to Farmer (2010), is to stimulate public anxiety with the hope of generating changes in critical areas such as policing and the administration of criminal justice.
Going by this theory, it can be suggested that politicians have mastered the art of creating a moral panic out of situations that do not call for such fear, but which they use to penetrate essential institutions, such as the criminal justice, to influence the penal policy to their benefits.
Although it cannot be denied that terrorism is a global threat, politicians in high positions of influence in society backed up by the popular media and other right-thinking people, employed an overly stylized and stereotypical demeanour to influence the community on taking moral positions and making judgements that the Muslim faith and terrorism cannot be separated.
The result of such stereotyping under the pretext of war on terror is that, presently, &Muslim immigrant communities are in crisis in the secular West confronting the conditionality of their citizenship, even in the second generation (Humphrey, 2007 p. 10). But what is more interesting is the fact that politicians used the perceived threat of terrorism to infiltrate the justice system and introduce policies that view legitimate Muslim immigrants as potential threat to national security.
Consequently, instead of the policymaking process in criminal justice taking place at many different levels as indicated by Ryan (1999), the politicians hijacked the whole process to introduce morally questionable policies through the backdoor.
The war on drugs, the threat of superpredators, and the August 2011 riots in Britain after a black man was supposedly shot by police, are all examples of situations which have triggered moral panics, but which we have seen politicians and like-minded people react viscerally, impulsively, and mechanistically rather than assume a reasoned and informed policy approach to criminal justice which involves all stakeholders, including the public (Ryan, 1999).
The second framework that could be used to illuminate the politicization of criminal justice and subsequent control and manipulation of the penal policy is the theory of punitiveness. According to Green (2009), the term punitiveness is used by many criminological scholars &to indicate the presence of harsh public attitudes toward offenders (p. 519).
Consequently, it can be argued that punitive dispositions among people, particularly those in positions of power and influence, can be intrinsically associated with specific fears and concerns about possible moral and social breakdown to a point where the actors are, actively or passively, forced to make ad hoc, impulsive, and arbitrary policies, which may not necessarily be reasoned or but which are taken to preserve the popular discourse at least according to the actors (Blumstein, 2007).
While Nelken (2009) notes that many countries are characterized by increasing punitiveness in their criminal justice systems, Ryan (1999) observes that this trend is being stimulated by penal populism, which is being facilitated by political entities such as the New Labour (implying politicians).
The 2011 Britain riots illuminate the increasingly punitive character of criminal justice policies taking shape in the U.K., but which can be attributed to the political class in its attempt to irrationally deal with perceived moral and social breakdown rather than involving a reasoned and considered analysis of what transpired to ignite the riots.
The many convictions that have transpired ever since the outbreak of the riots in August give credence to the fact that Britain is following in the footsteps of neo-liberal societies, such as the U.S., &who have the highest prison rates because they follow social and economic policies that lead to what they describe as exclusionary cultural attitudes towards [their] deviant and marginalized fellow citizens (Nelken, 2009 p. 295).
It is important to note that it is these exclusionary cultural attitudes as described by Nelken (2009) that have served to enhance criminality among the Black youth in the American society (Farmer, 2010), as they are looked upon by the predominantly white leadership as people who are bent on committing crime.
It should not escape mention that the recent riots witnessed in Britain were triggered by similar exclusionary cultural attitudes in that the victim, a member of the black community, was shot due to perceived gun crime.
This notwithstanding, we have seen how the political leadership have used this and other previous cases to make misconstrued political appeal linked to acting tough on crime, but which have nevertheless materialized in making Britains. Judiciary to also act tough on the rioters by handing them heavy sentences due to the temptations that the political class triggered when they knowingly acted to arouse the publics mood and attitudes about the crime committed during the riots. The above insights demonstrate how the politicization of criminal justice influences penal policy.
List of References
Blumstein, A (2007). The Roots of Punitiveness in a Democracy. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology & Crime Prevention, 8 (1), pp. 2-16.
Farmer, S (2010). Criminality of Black Youth in Inner-City Schools: Moral Panic, Moral Imagination, and Moral Formation. Ethnicity & Education, 13 (3), pp. 367-381.
Green, D.A (2009). Feeding Wolves: Punitiveness and Culture. European Journal of Criminology, 6 (6), pp. 517-536.
Humphrey, M (2007). Culturalising the Abject: Islam, Law, and Moral Panic in the West. Australian Journal of Social Sciences, 42 (1), pp. 9-25.
Nelken, D (2009). Comparative Criminal Justice: Beyond Ethnocentrism and Relativism. European Journal of Criminology, 6 (4), pp. 291-311.
Ryan, M (1999). Penal Policy Making towards the Millennium: Elites and Populists; New Labour and the New Criminology. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 27, pp. 1-22.
Criminal justice system reforms and other legal measures in the US have resulted in the creation of programs and specific laws that are fundamental to the improvement of child protection. This essay selects the enactment of Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act and International Parental Child Kidnapping Act from the study by Karmen (2016) and searches for evidence of the success of the provided measures to assist in the location of missing children.
The enactment of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act mandates that the FBI have to enter information regarding a missing or kidnapped child in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) records in less than two hours after receiving notification from the police. In the majority of states, the adoption of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act improved the registries greatly (Lytle, 2015). Since its enactment, it has demonstrated enhancement of child protection as many criminals of child sexual assault have been prosecuted under its directives thus resulting in the reduction of such acts. The application of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act demands every person found guilty of any sexually related offense to seek registration as a sex criminal for later posting on the internet where everyone can see. This has caused one person to be sentenced to life imprisonment for failing to register and taking advantage of his being homeless and lacking a constant physical address.
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act offers effective measures that help in finding missing children through such things as the establishment of a countrywide database that entails collection of DNA evidence and record for easy tracking of offenders. The use of Global Positioning System expertise could also result in the easy tracing of criminals. The provision of law enforcement officers with sufficient resources under the Act enables them to find criminals of offenses against children and prosecute them successfully. Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act increased the compulsory minimum imprisonment term to 25 years for the offense of abducting a child and 30 years for sexual assault (Lytle, 2015). These measures prevent would-be criminals from engaging in such acts and ensure justice for victims.
The International Parental Child Kidnapping Act is useful in enhancing child protection and offering successful measures to help in finding missing children (Karmen, 2016). It is vital to assist child victims of parental kidnapping as they could be at a high risk of missing school and developing lasting psychological challenges such as mood changes, sleep disorder, violent conduct, eating problems, and nervousness to mention a few. If the child victims of parental kidnapping grow into adulthood and do not find valuable help, they could struggle with such things as identity, interrelations, and family matters.
In an effort of ensuring child protection, the International Parental Child Kidnapping Act outlaws cases of one parent removing their children from the US or keeping them in other nations with the aim of hindering the custodial rights of the other parent. For instance, a couple could have a daughter in the US and after a marital dispute, the mother moves with the child to a different nation with the purpose of keeping her away from the father with no intention of ever returning. The Act offers successful measures of locating kidnapped children and convicting the offenders as a way of preventing such actions (Karmen, 2016). Under the Act, any parent found guilty of such a crime could spend up to three years in prison. Moreover, the return of a kidnapped child to the US is usually reached through negotiation where the United States Department of State works with foreign representatives and law enforcement officers to realize successful outcomes.
References
Karmen, A. (2016). Crime victims: An introduction to victimology (9th ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.
Lytle, R. (2015). Variation in criminal justice policy-making: An exploratory study using sex offender registration and community notification laws. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 26(3), 211-233.