Unit 1-5 Flashcards
Criminal Justice System
A set of government institutions (i.e., police, courts, corrections, and juvenile justice) that are responsible for arresting, convicting, and punishing individuals who break the criminal law.
Peer Review Research
Research that is submitted to a respectable and/or recognized peer-reviewed scholarly journal. If the paper holds merit, the editor then sends it out to three or more subject matter expert reviewers. The writer’s identity is concealed, as is the identity of the reviewers (also known as referees). This process of quality control, called “blind review,” is meant to guard against bias. Reviewers try to determine the merit of the research. Referees generally make one of three recommendations: accept, reject, or revise and resubmit). Peer-reviewed research is more credible than non-peer-reviewed research.
Assembly line Justice
characterizes the crime control model operates much like and assembly line
Burden of Proof
prosecutor has to make his/her case against a defendant with certain prerequisites involved.
Code of Hammurabi
was a comprehensive set of laws, considered by many scholars to be the oldest laws established; they were handed down four thousand years ago by King Hammurabi of Babylon. Although the Code of Hammurabi was essentially humanitarian in its intent and orientation, it contained the “eye for an eye” theory of punishment, which is a barbarian application of the concept of making the punishment fit the crime. The Code of Hammurabi recognized such modern concepts as that of corporate personality.
Common Law
Law that has been supplanted by statutes. Influenced by English traditions.
Conservative
Political ideology that stresses individual rights, small government, and minimal government intervention into the daily lives of its citizens.
Courtroom work group
Consists of the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney.
Crime Control Model
Emphasizes the suppression of crime in society. View that protecting the welfare of the majority of citizens is more important than protecting the rights or liberties of any single individual.
Civil law
relates to a person’s property interests and to relationships between or among private parties; it includes such mechanisms as contracts (verbal and written), business transactions, and family relations (marriages, divorces, child custody).
Criminal law
deals with behaviors that are perceived to be harmful to society as a whole, such as homicide, robbery, or sexual assault
Dichotomy
A two edged sword or contradiction.
Disproportionate Minority Contact
The realization that the criminal justice system primarily processes people from minority groups such as African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians.
Due Process Model
Protects individuals accused of crime, by insuring that the constitution of the U.S, those of the states, and federal and state statuses are abided by.
Ideology
A way of thinking/a deeply held belief.
Interest Articulation
Process by which individuals and groups make their political preferences known to the political leadership of a country.
Liberal
Advocates greater redistribution of wealth and government intervention into the lives of its citizens in terms of education, health, welfare
Mala Prohibita Crime
An act that is criminal because the criminal justice system has identified it as criminal
Mala in Se Crime
Crime considered wrong in and of itself (i.e., morally wrong) i.e., murder sexual assault.
Marxism/neomarxism/ Elite Theory
A belief that power is concentrated in the hands of the wealthy or elite sectors of society and that they are able to get their preferences enacted into policies, practices and legislation.
Mobilization of Bias
Process by which powerful interests are able to exert their will by maintaining the illusion of transparency and inclusivity.
Packer, Herbert
Scholar that outlined the differences between the due process versus crime control model of the criminal justice system.
Pluralism
A system of representation where everyone has a likely chance of having their voice heard in the political process. .
Presumption of Guilt
As an individual proceeds through the criminal justice system, there is an increased tendency for actors (i.e., judges, juries and prosecutors) to believe that the individual was guilty of the crime.
Presumption of Innocence
Method by which most advanced industrialized criminal justice systems operate. Individuals to be innocent until proven guilty.
Procedural Law
outlines the steps that the government (i.e., criminal justice system) must go about applying the law.
Substantive Law
Certain behaviors must be present for the criminal justice system to get involved (i.e., stop, question, arrest, conviction)
State Theoretical Model
Model that places the power of political decision-making in the hands of the government bureaucracy.
Accreditation
A method to determine if a criminal justice agency meets standards established by a respected accrediting body (e.g., American Correctional Association, Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies).
Broken windows theory
Developed by George Kelling and James Q. Wilson, who argued that small-scale deviance and neighborhood disorder (e.g., houses boarded up and in disrepair, lawns not cut, and graffiti) can have a big effect on neighborhood deterioration and thus crime.
CompStat
A relatively new management technique that includes weekly meetings of senior police personnel (especially the chief/commissioner and district commanders) to review crime that has occurred in their sector/district/borough to monitor responses to reduce crime in those areas. This concept usually involves crime mapping and was pioneered in New York City during the early 1990s.
Community (oriented) policing:
A cooperative effort between police and the communities they serve where both work together to solve crime and crime-related problems. Includes a number of strategies that bring the police closer to the community to reduce and solve crime and crime-related problems. It is often defined by the programs it subsumes, including bike patrol, store-front policing, and problem-oriented policing.
Day watch system
System of policing that predated modern policing whereby citizens were obligated to take turns patrolling the community during the day.
Due process revolution
A period of American legal history during which important supreme court cases [e.g., Mapp v. Ohio (1961), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), Terry v. Ohio (1968)] reinforced the constitutional rights of suspects in cases of arrest, search, self-incrimination, freedom of speech, due process, and right to counsel.
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA)
Formed during the late 1960s as one of the major recommendations that came out of the national riot commission. Established in the Department of Justice to provide grants and loans for police officers to improve their post-secondary education, extend research grants to criminologists, and offer funds to colleges and universities for the creation or enhancement of programs in criminology and criminal justice.
Modern policing
Period beginning with the establishment of the first police department in London (1812) to present day.
Night watch system
System of policing that predated modern policing whereby citizens were obligated to take turns patrolling the community during the night.
Posse Commitatus
Federal law that permitted local residents to assume temporary police powers and come to the assistance of the sheriff or marshal.
Problem-oriented policing
Getting police officers and departments to think creatively, recognizing connections across similar incidents that they may not have been able to see when they otherwise are responding to random incidents or reactively responding to calls for service.
Quality of life issues/indicators
Building upon Kelling and Wilson’s broken window identifying a number of visible cues in a neighborhood that would indicate the neighborhood was declining, including the number of abandoned homes, presence of homeless people, and vagrancy.
Progressives
Middle- and upper-class educated Protestants in the United States who were influential during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Theories on the development of police agencies.
Competing explanations underlying the reasons for the formation of municipal police agencies in the United States
Zero-tolerance policing
The aggressive enforcement of one or more criminal laws in a particular jurisdiction and/or during a specific period; no discretion is allowed on the part of officer.
Civilian Review Board
Internal or external body that reviews complaints of police misconduct. Depending on the laws governing their operations, they may or may not have the power to institute sanctions against police officers, and they may or may not be fully composed of civilians. In other words, they may need to have a requisite number of officers from the police department as employees or investigators.
Control
methods that either prevent or react to undesirable police behavior in order to minimize its occurrence.
Conventional controls
ones that are normally used by the police, public or political actors
Deadly force
the act of killing a person by a criminal justice system employee. Typically, this is by gun, but can include baton, other blunt force instrument, choke holds etc.
Death in police custody
when a suspect dies while under the supervision of the police. Can include in cruiser, in holding cell, etc. Can be the result of police violence/excessive force, substandard care, inadequate care, improper security
Early Warning Indicator System
“a data-based police management tool designed to identify officers whose behavior is problematic and provide a form of intervention to correct that performance. As an early response, a department intervenes before such an officer is in a situation that warrants formal disciplinary action. The system alerts the department to these individuals and warns the officers while providing counseling or training to help them change their problematic behaviour. (Swanson et al., 2008, p. 434)
External controls
controls that exist outside of the police department
Internal controls
controls that originate inside the police department
Police Riot
rampaging of police and use of excessive force against protesters during public demonstrations/protests.
Police torture.
an act inflicting severe mental or physical pain by police officers to obtain a confession or as punishment for real or perceived transgressions
Premonitory
controls that are done before the act to be controlled. These would also be known as proactive controls
Public police violence
police violence that takes places where there are witnesses or it takes place or information about it is revealed in a public setting (e.g., court room).
Reactive controls
these take place after the action that will be controlled occurs
Shoot Team
A small group of police officers typically from the Criminal Investigation Division who respond after an officer involved shooting to determine if the shoot is clean (e.g., it conforms to policies and practices and the law).
Tennessee v. Garner
Landmark Supreme Court case during the 1980s that set the precedent that allows civilians to sue police departments for denial of their civil rights. In particular, when officers use deadly force against an unarmed real or suspected fleeing felon.
Unconventional controls
ones that are unusual or abnormal, that are rarely utilized
Use of force continuum
policy and practice whereby officer shall not use more force than is necessary to control or apprehend a suspect.
Assault Weapon
Semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns that are similar in appearance to military weapons. They can only fire one shot at a time.
Boston Gun Project
Also known as Operation Ceasefire. Originally started in Boston.
Brady Bill
Formerly known as the Handgun Control and Violence Protection Act was enacted to make it more difficult to purchase firearms from licensed dealers.
Child Access Prevention Laws
A strategy for firearms control that restricts how firearms may be used. To promote these policies many police departments give away gun safety devices such as trigger locks.
Demand-Side Interventions
An attempt to increase the cost of using illegally obtained guns typically through street enforcement.
Gray Market
Secondary firearms market (i.e., gun shows, private sales, etc.)
Harm Reduction
Recommendations for reducing firearms violence using supply side strategies making it more difficult to obtain firearms and reducing the number of firearms in circulation.
Operation Ceasefire
A federal initiative that attempts to reduce gun violence by youths and gangs. Originally started in Boston
Project Exile
Shifted the prosecution of illegal technical gun possession offenses from state to federal court, where they carried a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison
Project Safe Neighborhoods
Federal program designed to reduce gun violence. Involve prosecutors working closely with local law enforcement.
Aging out
Due to a variety of factors, as criminals age they commit less crime, “and presumably establish more positive bonds with the community” (Mays and Ruddell, p. 124).
