Contemporary Criminal Justice Issues

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Ways in Which Constitutional Amendments and Supreme Court Cases Influence Decision-making

It is true to say that constitutional amendments during a constitution-making process are a key determinant that affects the legal provisions. The people who draft constitutional amendments target a sustainable legal future for the Americans, which is integrated with the US Supreme Court decisions concerning various issues (Trantidis, 2017). Amending the constitution is important because it enables judges of the Supreme Court to have reference points concerning various issues that affect the government’s welfare. For example, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments allowed the judges to have a staunch stand concerning slavery and equal protection under the law in the US, respectively. Under the same amendments, the key issues were how to end the Civil War in the US (Trantidis, 2017). When major amendments are made in the US constitution, the decision-making process on the legal ground becomes easy since the judicial minds press on a certain clause under the constitution that guides the making a legal choice.

During that process of Supreme Court decision-making, the judges always make sure they have a ratification perspective guiding their verdicts in courts. Matters presented in Supreme Court are of major interest to the people of the US, and thus, the judges ensure that there is no conflict of interest between the defendants and plaintiffs (Reardon, 2017). In a given case, the law clerks, solicitor general and the media usually play a key role in the decision making of the Supreme Court. The cases may be a contested battle between the civilians and the government. Therefore, those cases influence judges to apply their legal, ideological, personal and political perspectives when making verdicts so that all the matters are equally weighed for the concerned parties. For example, the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) influenced judges’ decisions on who can ultimately choose what the law is (Reardon, 2017). Through the case, the Court was influenced by the ability to integrate laws on the ground of whether to are constitutional or not under the judicial power to review laws.

Research Methods and Data Analysis

A needle exchange program provides clean needles to intravenous drug users. The research proposal is on the effectiveness of the needle exchange program in reducing infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis in New Orleans. The research question is, does the provision of clean needles through the needle exchange program in New Orleans reduce infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis? The independent variable, in this case, is the provision of clean needles under the needle exchange program. In contrast, the dependent variable is the reduction of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis (Liamputtong, 2020). The independent variable is the cause, which means the changes in the program concerning the needles. When it comes to the dependent variable, it means the effect, and that means the reduction of infectious diseases will be the effect that the independent variable shall determine.

The null hypothesis is that needle exchange programs reduce infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. The alternative hypothesis is that providing clean needles under the needle exchange program does not reduce infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis (Liamputtong, 2020). The variables, in this case, will be measured by measurement instruments. For example, the independent and dependent variables shall be measured using scales. In this case, the effectiveness of needles shall be categorized under nominal variables that will be used to categorize data and attributes during the research (Liamputtong, 2020). The variables will be under the nominal level of measurement because of the possibility of using words, letters, and alphanumeric symbols during data collection.

The most suitable research design (RD) to use in this research proposal is a cross-sectional study. The reason is that the data from respondents shall be from different individuals at a single point at different times (Liamputtong, 2020). Additionally, using this RD is important as the variables will be observed without influencing them. The population of interest include males and females in New Orleans aged 26-40 years who have had frequent hospitalization due to infectious diseases. The sampling method will be the use of clusters where samples shall be taken from different categories based on age, gender and the other key determinants.

The sample shall contain 100 individuals grouped into 10 clusters wherein each there shall be taken samples to leverage the results (Liamputtong, 2020). To conceptualize the variables, the researcher will be required to define abstract ideas with specific characteristics. For example, one may decide to use the educational background to ascertain the credibility of the response. Operationalization shall be achieved by specifying how a given concept shall be measured in a certain study (Liamputtong, 2020). For example, a researcher may focus on introducing surveys from other regions apart from New Orleans to determine the reliability of the data given. The control variable to use in this research proposal is the type of questions. The questions must be uniform for all respondents and shall be administered similarly.

The major ethical issue associated with this study is the disclosure of ones’ health status. Additionally, the study may bring bias from the response given by the infected people (Liamputtong, 2020). The respondents will have informed consent to solve them, and data shall be clustered randomly. The degrees of freedom shall comprise a T-distribution table whereby the third shall be fixed once the first two numbers are picked. The researcher may not choose the third item in the given cluster set, giving a significance level of 0.05 (Liamputtong, 2020). If the p-values lie below 0.05, the results will be considered statistically significant. The measurement approach will have reliability and validity when the samples collected will have the same implications in the results tested. From the research outcome, the authorities in New Orleans shall be probed to encourage the needle exchange program. The reason is that the government shall be fighting the rise of infectious diseases in the southern city of the US.

CJ 505 3-2: Criminal Justice Administration

The problem with the medium-security prison administration is the type of leadership applied. When people become obsessed with giving orders and not leading others in doing the exact task, it lowers the morale of the junior employees because they are subjected to an authoritative environment. Chris Argyris believed that if people are treated positively and have shared responsibility, there is high chance that delivery shall be notably productive (Jacobs, 2020). When managers do not show their staff how to do tasks by themselves, leading as an example, there is low productivity. Therefore, in this case, what is happening is that the prison officers are receiving orders and the leaders are not responsible for assisting them, hence expressing frustration with the job.

Frederick Irving Herzberg believed that for employees to feel satisfied, they must be motivated. Under his Two-Factor theory, the hygiene factors include the environmental aspects that determine whether employees are satisfied (Jacobs, 2020). In this case, subjecting the security officers to an authoritative leadership style lowered their morale hence, not motivating them due to a poor working environment which is a negative hygiene factor.

CJ 521 Criminological Theories

Label and Rational Choice Theories

The Label Theory suggests that applying a label, whether informally designating a person as evil or troublemaker or a more formal incarceration record, has a long-term impact on the person. In other words, label theory insinuates that once a criminal, always a criminal (Shin, 2018). The policies that inspired label theory was concerned with reducing the initial labels’ negative impacts, thus, providing a new chance of growing. For example, ‘Ban the box’ policies restrict employers from asking job seekers about their criminal records where evidence may indicate a reduced probability of getting hired. Rational Choice Theory is tough on crime, and it suggests that the decision to commit a crime is developed from logical reasoning of cost versus reward (Shin, 2018). The theory presses on punishing the offender under the assumption that they were aware of what might come from their action.

From the Rational Choice Theory’s point of view, actions that lead to corporate fraud, embezzlement of funds and extortion are forms of white-collar crime since they are non-violent and planned with the right logical judgment. From the Label Theory, white-collar crime is actions that are planned from prior experience to break a given law (Shin, 2018). For example, non-payment of taxes results from a company’s previous attempts to defraud a state. According to Rational Choice Theory, aggravated assault causes significant bodily injuries such as armed robbery, forceful access to someone’s property and taking it and attacking with a deadly weapon (Shin, 2018). The Label theory may see aggravated assault as one in which a special victim is evident, for example, where the victim’s characteristics tally the relationship with the perpetrator. For example, if a close ally rapes one, the repercussions may have been foreseen if the two parties have had sexual encounters that did not lead to the actual deed.

References

Jacobs, J. (2020). How is criminal justice related to the rest of justice?Criminal Justice Ethics, 39(2), 111-136. Web.

Liamputtong, P. (2020). Qualitative research methods. Oxford University Press.

Reardon, S. (2017). Science and the US Supreme Court. Nature, 7(3), 55-58.

Shin, D. (2018). How to understand and analyze criminological theories. Journal Of Korean Criminological Association, 12(2), 73-97.

Trantidis, A. (2017). The problem of constitutional legitimation: What the debate on electoral quotas tells us about the legitimacy of decision-making rules in constitutional choice. Constitutional Political Economy, 28(2), 195-208.

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