Description
Give an overview of the Criminal Justice System (Law Enforcement, Courts, Corrections, and Juvenile Justice,) and discuss the balancing of individual rights and public safety at each juncture through the criminal justice process as a defendant moves through the system. (Be sure to use in-text citations and references)Give an overview of the five contemporary philosophies regarding the purpose of punishment as discussed in the textbook. Explain what sentencing view best describes your view on why we should punish someone who is convicted of a crime. (Be sure to use in-text citations and references)
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CJ 2019
First Edition
Chapter 12
Corrections in the
Community
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Early Release and Financial Crisis
• Intermediate sentences or community corrections
– Early release and reentry programs
– Indeed intended to be punitive
• Often, early release is motivated by the financial crisis that
states are experiencing
– To deal, states turned to traditional early release
programs
▪ These programs often seen as posing a serious risk
to public safety
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Why Intermediate Sentences? (1 of 2)
• Prisoners are not successful members of society to begin
with
• Once incarcerated, prison did little to improve their lot, and
many argue that prison only makes it more difficult for
these people to live successful lives within the law
• Most have substance abuse issues which are not treated
• Many have physical or mental disabilities
• Almost half of incarcerated inmates have not completed
high school
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Why Intermediate Sentences? (2 of 2)
• Traditional incarceration, probation, and parole are failing
to stem tide of prisoners returning to prison after release
• As a result, C J system is turning to new sanctions for
offenders
• Sanctions are known as intermediate sanctions
– Sanctions between prison and traditional probation
and parole
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Huge Expense and Number of
Prisons
• The United States is transforming itself into a nation of exconvicts
• The United States has the largest, most expensive, and
fastest-growing prison system in the world
• Corrections is the second-fastest growing expense in
state budgets after Medicaid1
• Many rural communities and politicians who represent
these communities depend on prisons for their economic
viability2
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Record Numbers of Released
Prisoners
• Despite number of people sentenced to prison, a record
number is being released
• This creates a double crisis:
– Prisons that are overcrowded
– Prisoners who are returning to the community with
unmet needs
• Nationwide at least 95% of all state prisoners will be
released from prison
• Attempt to make communities safe and allow them to
prosper from prison industry is having opposite effect
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Incarceration Fails to Prepare
Offenders for Reentry (1 of 2)
• Reasons for new approaches are due to:
– Unsuccessful reentry of offenders back into the
community
– Lack of support services for successful reentry
– Ineffectiveness of parole
• Failure of offenders to be reintegrated poses serious
problem for criminal justice system
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Incarceration Fails to Prepare
Offenders for Reentry (1 of 2)
• As these unprecedented numbers of offenders go home,
their failure results in other social problems, such as
increases in child abuse, family violence, the spread of
infectious diseases, homelessness, and community
disorganization
• Offenders routinely entering, leaving, and reentering
prison is a costly pattern
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Concerns for Community Safety
• Community-based corrections
– Sanctions that are alternatives to incarceration in jail or
prison and supervision in the community after a
sentence of incarceration has been served
• Citizen opposition to locating community-based programs
in their neighborhoods is one of the primary obstacles to
community-based corrections
• Community opposition to locating prisons and correctional
facilities in their neighborhood is so strong and common
that there is a name for it
– NIMBY, or “not in my back yard”
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Intermediate Sanctions and
Community Corrections (1 of 2)
• Community-based intermediate sanctions
– Correctional punishments other than imprisonment
– Designed to reduce prison population, promote
successful reentry of offender into community, and
protect community
• Many early programs addressed pressing concerns of
prison overcrowding and skyrocketing costs
– Were not built on research and experimentation
related to criminological or correctional theory
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Intermediate Sanctions and
Community Corrections (2 of 2)
• Returning prisoners who cannot rejoin community as lawabiding citizens can have a detrimental impact on
community’s quality of life
– Impact of influence is made greater by the fact that
prisoners tend to return to certain neighborhoods
rather than being distributed throughout the state
• Intermediate sanctions most often used:
– Intensive supervision probation, split sentencing,
shock probation, boot camps, and home confinement
with electronic monitoring
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Intensive Probation Supervision (IPS)
(1 of 2)
• Probation supervised by probation and parole officers with
smaller caseloads
• More emphasis is placed on compliance with conditions of
supervision
• Offender may be required to report daily rather than twice
a month
• Can be used with either probationer or parolees
• Today, programs have been implemented in every state as
well as in the federal system
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Intensive Probation Supervision (IPS)
(2 of 2)
• Designed to provide direct supervision
– As a result, it is more punitive and controlling than
regular probation
▪ More intrusive on offender’s lives
• Many communities have adopted these programs that
have achieved goals of accountability, public safety, and
cost savings
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Split Sentencing and Shock
Probation
• Both are similar in their goal of impressing on offenders
possible consequences of their behavior by exposing
them to the brief period of imprisonment before probation
• Split Sentencing
– After brief period of imprisonment, judge brings
offender back to court and offers option of probation
• Shock Probation
– Sentence for a first-time nonviolent offender who was
not expecting a sentence, intended to impress
possible consequences of behavior by being exposed
to brief period of imprisonment before probation
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Shock Incarceration: Boot Camps
• Another form of shock incarceration program
• Designed to provide alternative sentence for young
nonviolent offenders
• Adapt military-style physical fitness and discipline training
to the correctional environment, as in basic training in
military boot camp
• Inmates participate in drill and ceremony, physical training,
work, and education
• Inmates are organized into platoons and may be required
to wear military-style clothing
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Home Confinement and Electronic
Monitoring
• Home Confinement
– Sentence is a kind of probation or suspended
sentence that more greatly restricts freedom of the
offender in the community
• Electronic Monitoring
– Uses signaling technology to achieve greater degree
of certainty in compliance at a fraction of the cost of
using probation officers for this purpose
– Devices have been generational as technology has
improved
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Reentry Programs: Preparing
Offenders to Take Responsibility
(1 of 2)
• In addition to intermediate sanctions of IPS, shock
probation, shock incarceration, home confinement, and
electronic monitoring, there is a need for programs that
focus on preparing inmates for reentry rather than
punishing them
• Many states and federal system have recognized the
importance of reentry programs
• Federal legislation and funding has been channeled to
reentry programs designed to assist individuals released
from prison
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Reentry Programs: Preparing
Offenders to Take Responsibility
(2 of 2)
• Government-sponsored reentry initiatives include:
– The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative
– The Federal Bureau of Prisons National Institute of
Corrections
– The Council of State Governments Reentry Project
– The National Reentry Resource Center
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Faith-Based Programs (1 of 2)
• Programs provided by religious-based and churchaffiliated groups
• The faith-based rehabilitation movement extends beyond
community services and reaches into the prisons
• Many prisons are allowing faith-based groups to provide
programs such as vocational classes combined with
religious instruction inside prisons in an effort to prepare
offenders for release
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Faith-Based Programs (2 of 2)
• Role in rehabilitation is controversial because they receive
federal money and may combine religious instruction with
rehabilitation
• American Civil Liberties Union opposes faith-based
groups receiving government money for their programs,
claiming it is a violation of the separation of church and
state
• To avoid these criticisms, some programs operate without
receiving government funding
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Work Release (1 of 2)
• Program that allows facilities to release inmates for paid
work in the community
• Programs were first initiated under Wisconsin’s Huber Law
in 1913, but did not become commonplace until latter half
of the twentieth century
– Law permitted county correctional facilities to release
misdemeanants for paid work in the community
• By 1975, all 50 states and federal system had some form
of work release operating
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Work Release (2 of 2)
• Obstacles to Employment
– Prejudice against hiring ex-offenders
– Lack of knowledge of how to find a job
– Lack of basic job skills, motivation, and attitude
– Lack of documentation required by employers
• Work-Release Strategies
– Limited protection against discrimination
– Job fairs
– Partnerships with businesses
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Education Release
• Program in which inmates are released to attend college
or vocational programs
• Typical education-release program for prisoners in
community corrections facilities gives them opportunity to
attend vocational, college, or university classes but
requires them to return to community corrections facility
each day
• When educational release is part of an inmate’s parole
plan, inmate is required to attend vocational training
program, community college, or university rather than go
to a full-time job
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Halfway Houses
• Transition program that allows inmates to move from
prison to the community in steps
• First houses in the United States were opened in mid1800s, but the use did not become commonplace until
1950s
• Today, most are nonprofit foundations¹
• Typical program requirements and components
• Programs have full-time staff members who provide for
custody and treatment of offenders
• Are excellent resources for inmates seeking parole who
have no support in the community when they leave
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Day Reporting Centers
• Intermediate sanction to provide a gradual adjustment to
reentry under closely supervised conditions
• Inmates report to transitory centers on a daily basis
• Inmates may be sentenced to them rather than prison or
may be released from prison to them during the last
months of their sentence
• Typical program requirements and components
• Purpose of day reporting centers
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Reentry Programs for Drug
Offenders
• Drug offenders consume considerable resources of the
criminal justice system
• In response to increased frequency of drug crimes,
criminal justice system has enhanced drug law
enforcement efforts and has adopted “get tough”
sentencing policy for drug offenders
• However, enhanced enforcement and tough sentencing
policies have failed to stem the number of drug offenders
• New strategy to break cycle of drug use and crime that
has led to revolving door syndrome for drug offenders has
been drug court
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Adult Drug Courts
• Approach that provides drug offenders opportunity for
intermediate sanctions, community treatment, and
intensive probation supervision instead of prison time
• The main purpose of drug court is:
– To get offenders clean and sober
– To compel offenders to participate in a comprehensive
treatment program while being monitored under strict
conditions for drug use
• Participant requirements
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Adult Drug Courts: Effectiveness
• By eliminating revolving door syndrome (repeated arrest
and incarceration), drug court programs not only save on
the cost of incarcerating repeat offenders, but also save
police, prosecutors, and courts the additional costs of
processing the offenders through the system
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Tribal Drug Courts (1 of 2)
• Unique problems of crime on Native American
reservations include a disproportionately high rate
compared to general crime statistics
• Tribal drug courts generally are called Tribal Healing to
Wellness Courts
– May use traditional treatment processes involving
tribal elders, traditional healing ceremonies, talking
circles, peacemaking, sweats and sweat lodge visits
with a medicine man or woman, the sun dance, and a
vision quest
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Tribal Drug Courts (2 of 2)
• Tribal courts have challenges including jurisdictional
barriers, unique cultural needs of each tribe, high volume
of alcohol abuse cases, lack of resources, and isolated
rural locations
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TASC and RSAT
• Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC)
– A federal assistance program that helps states break
the addiction crime cycle
• Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT)
– A federal assistance program that helps states provide
treatment instead of prison for substance abusers
• Major premise of programs
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Conclusion: Try, Try Again
• Criminal justice system involves dynamic process
undergoing constant change, including the corrections
component
• Many programs, philosophies, and challenges are new
and evolving
• Probation and parole are being already transformed by
IPS and electronic monitoring
• Ways of looking at corrections are changing as new
experiments in control and treatment are being tried
• Perfect methods have not been found, but the system
continues to look for new and better ways
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CJ 2019
First Edition
Chapter 13
The Juvenile Justice System
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A Changing View of Young Offenders
• Premise behind juvenile justice system
• Separation of juveniles and adults in the criminal justice
system is relatively new practice
– Dating back only to 1899
• Children today may not be as secure in relying on
protection of the juvenile justice system
– Recent events have caused some to give considerable
thought to its function
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Development of the Juvenile Justice
System: Before There Was a Juvenile
Justice System (1 of 2)
• Juvenile cases were fairly rare in the founding years of the
United States
• However, as industrialism and immigration gave rise to
swelling populations in cities such as New York and
Philadelphia, public began to see a problem with
“disorderly conduct” of children that was not being
contained by parents
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Development of the Juvenile Justice
System: Before There Was a Juvenile
Justice System (2 of 2)
• In a society that had no social safety net to provide for
people in need, institutions of confinement often housed
all “offenders” together without regard for offense, age, or
gender
• The foundation of the various reform movements was
society’s acceptance of premise that there are significant
and fundamental differences between adults and juveniles
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Foundations of the Juvenile Justice
System: The New York House of
Refuge (1 of 2)
• In early 1800s, various private reform groups provided
services to divert young offenders and remove juveniles in
need from the criminal justice system
• New York House of Refuge was the first privately
managed and funded home but was endorsed and
financially supported by the state of New York
• Children were separated by gender and the main focus
was on education, labor, and discipline to reform them
• Had authority to place those under its charge in private
industry through indenture agreements
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Foundations of the Juvenile Justice
System: The New York House of
Refuge (2 of 2)
• Other states quickly followed the New York model for
juvenile offenders
• By the mid-1800s, private institutions had proliferated in
all large cities but still did not have enough services to
provide alternative incarceration for children
• By the end of nineteenth century, there was a crisis in the
criminal justice system as to how to handle children in the
system
• States began to see necessity of providing dedicated
court agencies to deal with problem of young offenders
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The Jurisdiction of the Juvenile
Justice System (1 of 3)
• Toward the end of nineteenth century, concept of parens
patriae, or “state as parent and guardian,” began to
become predominant theme in structuring state agencies
responsible for juveniles
• Illinois was first state to use concept of original jurisdiction
– Concept that because juvenile court is the only court
that has authority over juveniles, they cannot be tried
(for any offense) by a criminal court unless juvenile
court grants permission for an accused juvenile to be
waived to criminal court
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The Jurisdiction of the Juvenile
Justice System (2 of 3)
• Waiving is granting permission for an accused juvenile to
be moved from juvenile court to criminal court
• Juvenile court was self-contained and had its own
probation and parole system and own correctional system
• By 1910, 32 states had established juvenile courts and/or
probation services
• Juvenile court removed the child from authority of criminal
court, but also assumed greater authority over the child
than the criminal court had over accused adults
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The Jurisdiction of the Juvenile
Justice System (3 of 3)
• The juvenile court assumed authority over children in
three situations:
– When the welfare of the child was threatened
– When the child was a status offender
– When the child was a delinquent
• Juveniles who committed offenses were classified as
status offenders or delinquents
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Classification of Juvenile Offenders:
Status Offenders
• Children who have committed an act or failed to fulfill a
responsibility for which, if they were adults, the court
would not have any authority over them
• Offenses include running away, smoking, drinking alcohol
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Classification of Juvenile Offenders:
Delinquents
• Accused of committing an act that is criminal for both
adults and juveniles
• Crimes are not divided between felony and misdemeanors
• Juvenile superpredator
– Term used by Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention to identify juvenile delinquents
who engage in serious violent crime
– Not a legal term recognized by the court
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Due Process for Juveniles (1 of 3)
• In beginning, unlike criminal justice system, neither state
supreme courts nor U.S. Supreme Court provided
significant review and oversight of juvenile justice courts
– From beginning, some were critical of lack of due
process based on assumption of benevolent nature of
juvenile court
• Although there were some abuses of due process, many
juvenile courts did operate with intent to promote best
interests of the child
• During 1960s, Court abandoned hands-off doctrine and
began to examine need for juvenile due process rights
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Due Process for Juveniles (2 of 3)
• Kent v. United States (1966)
– Marked departure of Supreme Court from acceptance
of denial of due process rights to juveniles
• In re Gault (1967)
– Supreme Court provided due process rights to
juveniles, including notice of charges, counsel, right to
examine witnesses, and right to remain silent
• In re Winship (1970)
– Supreme Court ruled that reasonable doubt standard,
same used in criminal trials, should be required in all
delinquency adjudications
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Due Process for Juveniles (3 of 3)
• McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971)
– Supreme Court denied juveniles right to a trial by jury
• Breed v. Jones (1975)
– Supreme Court ruled that once a juvenile has been
adjudicated by a juvenile court, he or she cannot be
waived to criminal court to be tried for same charges
• Schall v. Martin (1970)
– Supreme Court upheld right of juvenile courts to deny
bail to adjudicated juveniles
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The Juvenile Court
• Oklahoma Publishing company v. District Court in and for
Oklahoma City (1977) and Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing
Company (1979)
– Supreme Court granted news media the right to
publish the names of juveniles involved in court
proceedings under certain circumstances
– In both cases, Court ruled that First Amendment
interests in free press take precedence over interests
in preserving anonymity of juvenile defendants
– Court’s ruling was narrow in what it permitted
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Separation of Juveniles and Adults
(1 of 2)
• Due process rights for juveniles are extensively influenced
by federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act of 1974 (JJDPA), amended in 2001
– Act provides major source of federal funding to states
for improvement of their juvenile justice systems,
services, and facilities
– Provisions of JJDPA provide that juveniles may not
be detained in adult jails and lockups except for limited
times before or after a court hearing
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Separation of Juveniles and Adults
(2 of 2)
• When children are placed in an adult jail or lockup, except
as provided by exceptions in the JJDPA
– “Sight and sound” separation is required between
adults and juveniles to keep children safe from verbal
or psychological abuse that could occur from being
within sight or sound of adult inmates
• Provisions of the JJDPA do not have same force as U.S.
Constitution or U.S. Supreme Court decisions, but
compliance is influenced by the “purse strings”
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Community-Based Facilities
• JJDPA provides that juvenile status offenders should not
be housed in secure facilities while waiting for juvenile
court hearing or review of their case by an intake officer
– Status offenders are to be placed in community-based
facilities or other age-appropriate nonsecure facilities
• JJDP does allow juvenile status offenders to be held up to
24 hours in secure detention or confinement under some
circumstances
– Should receive appropriate support while they are in
state custody
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Treatment of Minority Juveniles
• Broad mission of JJDPA is to address problem of
disproportionate confinement of minorities
• Minority children make up approximately one-third of the
youth population but two-thirds of children in confinement
• JJDPA requires states to assess their treatment of
minority juveniles to ensure they are being treated fairly
and equitably by the juvenile justice system
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Judicial Waiver: Abandoning the
Great Experiment (1 of 2)
• U.S. Supreme Court has declared that rights in Fifth,
Sixth, and Seventh Amendments are not restricted by age
or professed intent of court to “help” the child
• Juvenile offending peaked in the mid-1990s with about 2.9
million arrests of teenagers younger than 18
• Public perception of threat from juvenile crime has
continued to exert pressure on juvenile justice system to
change its focus from rehabilitation to punishment
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Judicial Waiver: Abandoning the
Great Experiment (2 of 2)
• Spurred by public concern over violent juvenile crimes,
states have abandoned the “great experiment” that
juveniles were not responsible for the crimes they commit
and have changed provisions for transferring juveniles to
criminal court
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Mens Rea and Youthful Violent
Offenders
• One of the problems is whether juvenile offenders have
sufficient mens rea to appreciate criminality of their
actions
• Many researchers argue that youthful offenders:
– Are not fully responsible for their criminal actions
– Because of their immaturity, do not have same mens
rea as do adults
• Public, however, has exerted pressure on state
legislatures to remove violent juvenile offenders from
protection of the juvenile court
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Mens Rea and Youthful Violent
Offenders: Waiver to Criminal
Court—Age of Accountability
• Age at which a juvenile has necessary maturity to form criminal
intent and be fully accountable for his or her crime has not been
resolved by researchers or state law
– Minimum age for criminal liability varies from state to state
• Each state has own name for process of moving juvenile from
authority of juvenile court to adult criminal justice system
• Common terms for the process include judicial waiver,
certification, remand, bind over for criminal prosecution,
transfer, and decline (when waiver is denied)
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Mens Rea and Youthful Violent
Offenders: Seriousness of the
Offense
• Some states have established waiver criteria based on offense
independent of age of the accused offender
• Statutory Exclusion
– Provision that allows juveniles to be transferred to criminal
court without review by and approval of juvenile court
• Blended Sentencing Option
– Allows juvenile or criminal court to impose a sentence that
can include confinement in juvenile facility and/or in adult
prison after offender is beyond age of juvenile court’s
jurisdiction
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Adjudication for the Juvenile
Offender
• Although U.S. Supreme Court decisions have provided
more commonality in due process rights of juveniles, the
actual processing, agencies, and personnel involved in
moving a juvenile from intake to rehabilitation differs from
state to state
• In a sense, there is no single juvenile justice system, but a
collection of juvenile justice systems
• How juveniles are processed through system depends on
the state and sometimes geographical region of the state
in which the juvenile court is located
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Classification of Processing (1 of 2)
• States can be divided into three general models of
juvenile justice processing
– Centralized
▪ Characterized by state executive agency having
across-the-board state control of delinquency
services, including state-run juvenile probation
services, institutional commitments, and aftercare
– Decentralized
▪ Characterized by local control of various juvenile
services, such as juvenile courts, child welfare
agencies, and aftercare services
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Classification of Processing (2 of 2)
– Combination
▪ The organization of the juvenile system is a mixture
of state-controlled and locally operated juvenile
services
• Unique nature of juvenile justice system for each state
provides some difficulty in generalizing case flow though
system
– Case flow differs for each state
– There is no real consistency between them
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Intake
• Process whereby the juvenile enters the system and is
processed
• About 85% of juvenile intakes are initiated by the police
– The other 15% can enter system through referral
• Juveniles are not booked and generally are not placed in
a lockup facility
• Juveniles may enter system as status offenders or
delinquents for protective custody
• Police may simply gather information concerning alleged
incident and return child to custody of parent or guardian
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Deciding Between Juvenile and Adult
Jurisdiction
• There are number of offenses and circumstances for
which prosecutor or criminal justice system may have
concurrent jurisdiction over the juvenile offender
– In some cases, they may have original jurisdiction
• In some states, prosecutor has authority to request
transfer without consent of the juvenile court
• Some states do not set minimum age for waiver
• Juvenile is entitled to hearing before being waived and is
guaranteed due process rights
• If juvenile is waived, prosecutor assumes responsibility for
the case
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The Juvenile Intake Officer:
Gatekeeper and Counselor (1 of 2)
• Intake officer will take life history of the juvenile and his or
her past behavior, living conditions, parents/guardians,
and school behavior
• If possible, in lieu of further processing, juvenile intake
officer will refer juvenile and/or parent(s) or guardian to
mental health care, a welfare agency, a diversion
program, a counseling program, a school program, or a
similar alternative
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The Juvenile Intake Officer:
Gatekeeper and Counselor (2 of 2)
• If intake officer handles case informally, they place
conditions on juvenile and officer will commit these
conditions to writing, specify time frame, and obtain
agreement of child and/or parent(s) or guardian
– These conditions are generally called a consent
decree
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Formal Processing (1 of 2)
• Once case is referred to juvenile court for formal
processing, known as a juvenile adjudication hearing, the
juvenile judge becomes the central figure in determining
how the case is to be processed
• If juvenile intake officer deems formal hearing appropriate,
a delinquency petition or waiver petition is forwarded to
the juvenile court judge
• Unli
