Part I: Research Question
To what extent are gang members impacted by deterrability than other juvenile offenders?
Part II: Topic
In the United States, there is no universally accepted definition of gangs, and remains to be ambiguous with the flexible interchangeability of the term in academic, legal and media contexts. Based on the California definition provided by the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (1989) a criminal street gang is defined by ___. Average estimates on the number of gangs are 27,000 with a high concentration in larger urban cities (National Gang Center). The number of individual gang members is 800,000 (National Gang Center). Of all homicides that occur in what are known as ‘gang capitals of the world’ like …show more content…
A strong argument considering more than two-thirds of gang members are of either Hispanic or African-American descent (National Gang Center). Over the last three decades, the federal government and individual states have passed several pieces of legislation to suppress and deter gang activity instead of implementing intervention and prevention methods (Decker, 2003; Green & Pranis, 2007; Klein & Maxson, 2006). Examples include gang sentencing enhancements that adhere a mandatory prison time, increased policing in gang neighborhoods, specialized units, education programs to youth to bring awareness of the dangers of gang membership, and civil injunctions to prohibit certain gang members from certain behavior (Green & Pranis, 2007; Maxson, Hennigan, & Sloane, …show more content…
Another obvious purpose Beccaria proposed swiftness of punishment goes hand-in-hand with the previous motive was because he wanted more people to be able to associate the punishment with the criminal act. The second element was certainty of punishment, meaning even the perception of or risk of punishment should always be present to ensure crime goes unpunished no matter how moderate. In his book, he highlighted this element as the most significant of all others because of the fact that guaranteed threat of retribution will take place if a crime is committed, which was sure to fright any party (Beccaria, 1963). Severity, the third element of his deterrence theory, has to do with a simple equivalent or outweigh of a cost/benefit analysis. In other words, the sanction must always be greater than or equal to the possible benefits consequential of the crime. However, it is not enough for punishment to outweigh benefits because if you tip over the scale too much or too little than it would surely lead to more crime. There needed to be the Goldilocks type of balance where it was just right, which was a lot harder to
To what extent are gang members impacted by deterrability than other juvenile offenders?
Part II: Topic
In the United States, there is no universally accepted definition of gangs, and remains to be ambiguous with the flexible interchangeability of the term in academic, legal and media contexts. Based on the California definition provided by the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (1989) a criminal street gang is defined by ___. Average estimates on the number of gangs are 27,000 with a high concentration in larger urban cities (National Gang Center). The number of individual gang members is 800,000 (National Gang Center). Of all homicides that occur in what are known as ‘gang capitals of the world’ like …show more content…
A strong argument considering more than two-thirds of gang members are of either Hispanic or African-American descent (National Gang Center). Over the last three decades, the federal government and individual states have passed several pieces of legislation to suppress and deter gang activity instead of implementing intervention and prevention methods (Decker, 2003; Green & Pranis, 2007; Klein & Maxson, 2006). Examples include gang sentencing enhancements that adhere a mandatory prison time, increased policing in gang neighborhoods, specialized units, education programs to youth to bring awareness of the dangers of gang membership, and civil injunctions to prohibit certain gang members from certain behavior (Green & Pranis, 2007; Maxson, Hennigan, & Sloane, …show more content…
Another obvious purpose Beccaria proposed swiftness of punishment goes hand-in-hand with the previous motive was because he wanted more people to be able to associate the punishment with the criminal act. The second element was certainty of punishment, meaning even the perception of or risk of punishment should always be present to ensure crime goes unpunished no matter how moderate. In his book, he highlighted this element as the most significant of all others because of the fact that guaranteed threat of retribution will take place if a crime is committed, which was sure to fright any party (Beccaria, 1963). Severity, the third element of his deterrence theory, has to do with a simple equivalent or outweigh of a cost/benefit analysis. In other words, the sanction must always be greater than or equal to the possible benefits consequential of the crime. However, it is not enough for punishment to outweigh benefits because if you tip over the scale too much or too little than it would surely lead to more crime. There needed to be the Goldilocks type of balance where it was just right, which was a lot harder to