Vocabulary Chapters 1-4 Flashcards
Criminal Justice System
A set of government institutions (i.e., police, courts, corrections) that are responsible for arresting, convicting, and punishing individuals who break the criminal law.
Criminology
The study of the causes and effects of crime.
Criminal Justice
The study of law enforcement (i.e., policing), corrections (including probation and parole), courts, and juvenile justice.
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.
Special Interest Group
An organization, typically of dues paying members that work on behalf of the collective membership to achieve an objective. This includes unions, associations, and political organizations other than political parties.
Assembly Line Justice
Characterizes the crime control model operates much like an assembly line.
Burden of Proof
Legal threshold (of evidence) presented that prosecutor/state has to pass in order to charge an individual with a crime, and/or to prove his/her case against a defendant in order to secure a conviction.
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 (e.g., marriages, divorces, child custody).
Code of Hammurabi
Babylonian code established in 1776 BC that included numerous laws and sanctions for violating those laws.
Common Law
Originating through English traditions, this body of law evolves through the decisions of judges in courts and other tribunals. Common law is now supplanted by Statutes, which passed during legislative process or regulations involving the executive branch (managed by governor/president). Influenced b 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.
Crimes of Commission
Intentional crimes.
Crimes of Omission
Failure to adhere to rule of law or comply with a legal obligation.
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.
Faces of Power
(i.e., explanations concerning the role of the government and its purpose in society).
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
Political ideology that advocates greater redistribution of wealth and government intervention into the lives of its citizens. Advocates government funded social programs like education, health, and 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 such as murder, sexual assault, robbery.)
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 in a democratic process.
Herbert Packer
Scholar that outlined the differences between the due process versus crime control model of the criminal justice system.
Pluralism
An explanation for how policies, practices and laws are made and passed. Suggests that everyone has a likely chance of having their voice (i.e., political preferences) heard in the political process and their preferences enacted into policies, practices and laws. (Also known as consensus theory).
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.
State Theoretical Model
An explanation that argues that the government bureaucracy (i.e., the administration) has the ultimate power in all matters of political decision-making (to enact policies, laws and practices).
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 Window 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.
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, storefront policing, and problem-oriented policing.
CompStat
A relatively new management technique that includes weekly (or otherwise regular) 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.
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), 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 an universities for the creation or enhancement of programs in criminology and criminal justice.
Substantive Law
Certain behaviors must be present for the criminal justice system to get involved (i.e., stop, question, arrest, conviction)
Modern Policing
Perod beginning with the establisment 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 marshall.
Problem (Oriented) Policing
Technique used by police and the department to better understand the crime problems they respond to including 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. Forces police officers and departments to think more creatively to crime problems.
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, and the presence of homeless people.
Progressives
Middle-and-Upper Class educated Protestants in the US who were influential during the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Theories on the Development of Police Agencies
Competing explanations underlying the reasons for the formation of municipal police agencies in the US.
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 the officer.
Civilian Review Board
Internal or external body that reviews complaints of police misconduct.
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.
Death in Police Custody
When a suspect dies while under the supervision of the police.
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.
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
Implemented before the act to be controlled. aka…Proactive Controls
Public Police Violence
Police Violence hat takes places wher there are witnesses or it takes place or information about it is revealed in a public setting (e.g., court room).
Reactive Controls
Takes place after the action that will be cotrolled occurs.
Shoot Team
A small group of police officers typically from the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) who respond after an officer involved shooting to determine if the shoot is clean (e.g., it conforms to existing organizational 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
Unusual or abnormal controls 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.
