100 Final Flashcards
What does the 8th amendment protect against?
Cruel and unusual punishment
Define cruel and unusual punishment
A sentence or conditions of confinement that in the time period of sentencing or confinement goes beyond what is acceptable to society
* cruel AND unusual, not or
Why is the Supreme Court hesitant to consider 8th amendment violations cruel and unusual?
They make something unusual by declaring it unconstitutional, and it will then never be usual again
* if they make death penalty unconstitutional, it can never come back
What does habeas corpus protect against?
Illegal detainment
What is a writ of habeas corpus?
A written judicial order requiring that a prisoner’s case be reviewed in court to determine if the prisoner is being held unconstitutionally
What are some limitations in habeas cases?
• Reviews detainment facts only, not trial
• Accused cannot plead innocence or claim procedural errors, only that detainment is unconstitutional
What are presentence investigation reports?
Information supplied to a trial judge for making a sentencing decision
* things to know before sentencing
PIR can contain: (5)
• Personal history of the offender
• Victim impact statement
• Sentencing recommendation
• Personal data on offender
• The state’s and the defendant’s versions of the offense
Goals and Models of sentencing: (4)
• Retribution
• Deterrence
• Incapacitation
• Rehabilitation
Retribution: (3)
• Focused on punishment that matches the crime
• Focused on social order -> if the state doesn’t get retribution, the victims will get it themselves
• Punitive; little focus on likelihood of future criminal behavior
Deterrence: (1)
Focused on preventing future crime from occurring by convincing the offender and others that punishment will be swift, severe, and certain
Incapacitation: (1)
Focused on preventing future offenses by imprisoning offender
Rehabilitation: (1)
Focused on preventing crime by helping the offender change their life
What is the difference between indeterminate and determinate sentences?
Indeterminate - offender is given a range of time they can serve, dependent upon how they behave in prison
Determinate - offender serves a precise period of time
What are the cons of determinate and indeterminate sentences?
Determinate - no incentive to behave well
Indeterminate - people could be released too early, overcrowding, expensive
What is the USSC and what did it do?
U.S. Sentencing Commission, created sentencing guidelines for judges
What are preventive detention laws designed to do?
Prevent particularly dangerous individuals from committing future crimes by imposing lengthy incarceration or placing them in mental health facilities
What do habitual offender statutes do?
Authorize enhanced sentences for recidivists (repeat offenders)
What is California’s “three strikes, you’re out” law?
Habitual offender statute
Mandatory minimum sentence after 3 felonies
What are some cons of habitual offender laws and preventive detention? (3)
Expensive, unsustainable, overcrowding
Define capital crime.
An offense punishable by execution
What percent of convicted murderers in the United States received the death penalty?
Fewer than 3%
What are some examples of suspension of habeas corpus? (2)
Guantanamo bay, Japanese internment camps
What happened to state capital punishment laws in the early 1970s?
The Supreme Court struck down all state capital punishment laws in 1972 due to arbitrary and capricious application
States were allowed to redraft their capital punishment laws to be fair
Describe Furman v. Georgia (1972)
Supreme Court ruled that states must hold bifurcated criminal trials
Describe McCleskey v. Kemp (1987).
Supreme Court ruled that defendant charging racial discrimination must show personal evidence, not overall trends
*discrimination against individual, not race
What is a mitigating factor?
A factor (such as abuse or mental illness) that is shown by a defense attorney as an attempt to reduce the severity of a sentence
Prosecution seeking death penalty must show ____.
Aggravating factors (cruelty or involving torture)
List some controversies surrounding death penalty. (7)
• Violates human rights, cruel and degrading
• Public opinion in US is slowly shifting away, though majority still favor
• Applied unfairly; African Americans disproportionately represented on death row
• Death row inmates later found innocent
• Doesn’t really deter
• Argument that life in prison is worse than death
• Expensive
Define corrections.
Society’s efforts to punish and treat criminals and thereby protect the public
Define corrections.
Society’s efforts to punish and treat criminals and thereby protect the public
Who manages corrections programs, services, and facilities?
Federal, state, and local authorities
- What are institutional corrections?
- What are community corrections?
- Incarceration in jails and prisons
- Post-incarceration programs, including probation and parole
Corrections:
1. What is the punishment philosophy?
2. What is the rehabilitation philosophy?
- Criminals must pay for crimes and serve as deterrent to others
- Offenders can and should be helped to change
What is the problem with punishment being used as a deterrent to crime? (2)
• Most criminals don’t give thought to getting caught or punishment
• Harsher sanctions don’t deter crime or recidivism
Define recidivism.
Habitual relapse into criminal behavior
What were plague towns?
Communities designed to confine individuals, not a physical building
What was galley slavery?
Offenders were used as slave labor on ships for rowing
Workhouses:
1. They held who?
2. What happened to them?
3. What were they forced to do?
4. Where was it popular?
- Jobless vagrants, debtors, sometimes serious criminals
- Stripped of possessions, segregated by gender and age
- Forced to work, sometimes until debts paid off
- Europe, used widely in England
What is transportation?
The export of criminals to other lands (penal colonies)
Hulks:
1. Define.
2. How long did this practice last?
3. Why did it start?
4. Why did it end?
- Abandoned ships reconfigured as enormous holding blocks in which offenders were chained
- About 15 years
- Began after American revolution when transportation was no longer an option
- Ended with resumption of transportation to Australian colony
Who started penitentiaries and what did they believe in?
Quakers in Pennsylvania, rehabilitation model
What did penitentiaries emphasize and why did this fail?
Emphasized solitary confinement
Failed due to overcrowding, caused mental disorders
Auburn System:
1. Define
2. Why is it also called congregate system?
3. 3 key factors
- Based on reformation and reliance on completely separate confinement of inmates
- Allowed prisoners to congregate in silence during day
- Cheaper to run, corporal punishment, forced labor
Reformatory System:
1. Why did it start?
2. What 3 things did it emphasize?
3. What were 3 problems with it?
- Brutal conditions and abuses of Auburn system led to a reform movement based on rehabilitation
- Education, indeterminate sentences with maximum terms, and the opportunity for parole
- Overcrowding, more popular in Europe, expensive
Industrial Prison System:
1. What was the focus of these prisons?
2. In the South, what percent of prison population was Black?
3. When did it end and why?
- Creating a productive work environment (not rehab)
- 75%
- 1930s, unions complained of competitions (restrictions relaxed after 1970s)
Therapeutic Prison:
1. What is the medical model?
2. When did it gain momentum, when did it reach height of popularity?
3. When and why did it end?
- The perspective that if people are not healthy, they’re ill
- 1930s, 1960s
- 1974, report was wrongly interpreted as suggesting that rehab doesn’t work
What is the assumption of the Punishment Model?
The offender is an inherently bad person and deserves to be placed under correctional authority for punishment