MID-TERM Flashcards
definitions
Conduct in violation of the criminal laws of a state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction, for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse.
Crime
The process by which procedures that feel fair to those involved are made.
Procedural fairness
The rights guaranteed to all members of American society by the U.S. Constitution (especially those rights found in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights). These rights are particularly important to criminal defendants facing formal processing by the criminal justice system.
Individual rights
One who seeks to protect personal freedoms within the process of criminal justice.
Individual rights advocate
The condition of a society characterized by social integration, consensus, smooth functioning, and lack of interpersonal and institutional conflict. Also, a lack of social disorganization.
Social order
One who believes that under certain circumstances involving a criminal threat to public safety, the interests of society should take precedence over individual rights.
Public order advocate
The principle of fairness; the ideal of moral equity.
Justice
An ideal that embraces all aspects of civilized life and that is linked to fundamental notions of fairness and to cultural beliefs about right and wrong.
Social justice
The civil law, the law of civil procedure, and the array of procedures and activities having to do with private rights and remedies sought by civil action. This cannot be separated from social justice because it reflects basic American understandings of right and wrong.
Civil justice
In the strictest sense, the criminal (penal) law, the law of criminal procedure, and the array of procedures and activities having to do with the enforcement of this body of law. This cannot be separated from social justice because it reflects basic American understandings of right and wrong.
Criminal justice
The aggregate of all operating and administrative or technical support agencies that perform criminal justice functions. The basic divisions of the operational aspects of criminal justice are law enforcement, courts, and corrections.
Criminal justice system
A criminal justice perspective that assumes that the system’s components work together harmoniously to achieve the social product we call justice.
Consensus model
American criminal justice process.
investigation -> arrest warrant -> arrest -> booking -> first appearance -> preliminary hearing -> information/indictment -> arraignment -> adjudication -> sentencing -> corrections -> reentry (probation or parole)
A criminal justice perspective that assumes that the system’s components function primarily to serve their own interests. According to this theoretical framework, justice is more a product of conflicts among agencies within the system than it is the result of cooperation among component agencies.
Conflict model
A right guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and generally understood, in legal contexts, to mean the due course of legal proceedings according to the rules and forms established for the protection of individual rights. In criminal proceedings, this is generally understood to include the following basic elements: a law creating and defining the offense, an impartial tribunal having jurisdictional authority over the case, accusation in proper form, notice and opportunity to defend, trial according to established procedure, and discharge from all restraints or obligations unless convicted.
- simple def.: procedural fairness
Due process
A criminal justice perspective that emphasizes the efficient arrest and conviction of criminal offenders.
Crime-control model
The use of sanctions and rewards within a group to influence and shape the behavior of individual members of that group. Involves primary concern of social groups and communities, and it is their interest in the exercise of social control that leads to the creation of both criminal and civil statutes.
Social control
Crime-fighting strategies that have been scientifically tested and are based on social science research.
Evidence-based practice
The existence within one society of diverse groups that maintain unique cultural identities while frequently accepting and participating in the larger society’s legal and political systems.
- often used in conjunction with the term diversity to identify many distinctions of social significance
Multiculturalism
A statistical reporting program run by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) division. It publishes Crime in the United States, which provides an annual summation of the incidence and rate of reported crimes throughout the US.
Uniform crime reporting (UCR/NIBRS) program
- NIBRS NIBRS data are replacing data summary traditionally provided by the UCR
An annual survey of selected American
households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to determine the extent of criminal victimization—especially unreported victimization—in the US.
National crime victimization survey (NCVS)
A UCR/NIBRS summary offense category that includes murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
Violent crime, aka personal crime
A UCR/NIBRS summary offense category that includes burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
Property crime
A measure of investigative effectiveness that compares the number of crimes reported or discovered to the number of crimes solved through arrest or other means (such as the death of the suspect).
Clearance rate
Part I offenses. (also 7 major offenses that summed up the crime index)
study slides
- Murder- unlawful killing of a human being (includes first- and second- degree murder, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, and other similar offenses)
- Forcible rape
- Robbery- unlawful taking or attempted taking of property that is in the immediate possession of another by force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear
- Assault- simple/battery (pushing/shoving; misdemeanor) and aggravated (use of weapon or victim requires medical assistance)
- Burglary- unlawful entry of a structure to
commit a felony or a theft - Larceny theft (included identity theft)
- Motor-vehicle theft
- Arson
The act, which passed the Senate by only one vote, made it a separate federal crime to “kill or attempt to kill” a fetus “at any stage of development” during an assault on a pregnant woman.
Unborn victims of violence act
Crime that is not reported to the police and remains unknown to officials.
Dark crime
A classification of crimes along a particular dimension, such as legal category, offender motivation, victim behavior, or characteristics of individual offenders.
Crime typology
A rule of conduct, generally found enacted in the form of a statute, that proscribes or mandates certain forms of behavior
Law
The written, organized, and compiled
form of the criminal laws of a jurisdiction
Penal code
The body of judicial precedent, historically built on legal reasoning and past interpretations of statutory laws, that serve as a guide to decision making, especially in the courts
Case law
The body of law originating from usage
and custom rather than from written
statutes
Common law
The maxim that an orderly society must be governed by established principles and known codes that are applied uniformly and fairly to all of its
members
Rule of law
other names:
-supremacy of law
- greatest political achievement of our culture
- the foundation of liberties in the Western world
Three elements of the rule of law.
- Freedom from private lawlessness
- A relatively high degree of objectivity in the formulation of legal norms
- Substantive and procedural limitations on governmental power
The part of the law that defines crimes
and specifies punishments
Substantive law
The body of rules and regulations that define and specify the nature of and
punishments for offenses of a public nature or for wrongs committed against the state or society
Criminal law (penal law)
A wrongful act, damage, or injury not
involving a breach of contract
Tort (not a crime)
- private or civil wrong or injury
A legal principle that ensures that
previous judicial decisions are
authoritatively considered and
incorporated into future cases
Precedent
A criminal offense punishable by death
or by incarceration in a prison facility for at least one year
Felony
An offense punishable by incarceration, usually in a local confinement facility, for a period whose upper limit is prescribed by statute in a given jurisdiction, typically one year or less
Misdemeanor
Refers to minor violations of the law
that are less serious than misdemeanors
Offenses (infraction)
A US citizen’s actions to help a foreign
government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the US
Treason
Levels of Mens Rea.
- Purposeful
- Knowingly
- Reckless
- Negligent
* motive is a person’s reason for committing a crime, not an essential feature of crime (not Mens Rea)*
A behavior in which a person fails to
reasonably perceive substantial and
unjustifiable risks of dangerous
consequences
Criminal negligence
Highlights the fact that a behavior
cannot be criminal if no law exists that
defines it as such
Leaglity
Ex Post Facto Laws
Laws are binding only from the date of
their creation
Corpus delicti
“body of the crime”
- certain result was produced
- person is criminally responsible for production
Duress (sometimes also called
coercion), Age, Mistake, Involuntary
intoxication, Unconsciousness, Provocation, Insanity
Excuses
Admits to committing the act but claims that it was necessary to avoid some greater evil
Justification
A rule for determining insanity that asks whether the defendant knew what he or she was doing, and whether the defendant knew that what he or she was doing was wrong
M’Naghten Rule
Claim that the defendant was in some manner discriminated against in the justice process
Procedural defense
An improper or illegal inducement to
crime by agents of law enforcement
Entrapment
A common law and constitutional
prohibition against a second trial for the same offense
Double jeopardy
Police mission.
enforcing the law, apprehend offenders, preventing crime, predicting crime (CompStat), preserve peace
Law enforcement officers authorized to:
* Conduct criminal investigations
* Execute search warrants
* Make arrests
Federal agencies
The unbroken line of authority that
extends through all levels of an
organization, from the highest to the
lowest
chain of command
Every individual officer has only one
supervisor
unity of command
The number of police personnel or the
number of units supervised by a
particular officer
span of control
Designed to protect citizens against
abuses of police power
Constitution
Due process requirements.
- evidence and investigation (search and seizure)
- arrest
- interrogation
The exercise of choice by law enforcement officers in the decision to investigate or apprehend, the disposition of suspects, the carrying out of official duties, and the application of sanctions.
Police discretion
Different levels of police.
Local, county, state, and federal
Police can temporarily stop you to
either confirm or dispel their suspicion that a crime is about to happen, is happening or just happened. The police only need reasonable suspicion to stop the person.
Terry Stop
- based on Terry v. Ohio
