Mandatory sentencing

parent behind bars. In the increasingly high statistic of mass incarceration, specifically targeting people of color, it is no wonder those 5 million children come from minority households. The numbers continue to swell due to the toughening of mandatory sentencing and drug laws. Parents may commit and be guilty of certain crimes and be worthy of the consequences, but must children pay for the crimes as well? In 11 states within the United States, the option of a prison nursery program is…

In August of this year, a coalition of over 50 black-led organizations joined together to create a platform and an agenda, that summarized the tactics and collective needs to end the war on black people. Not only do the platform of The Movement for Black Lives (MFBL) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) promote intersectionality and inclusion, it also addresses the issues of categorized citizenship in regards to hegemonic power, without adopting dominant structures in their appeals. Intersectional…

Criminal Justice research is to gain an understanding of human behavior. The criminal justice system is all about people and how they interact with situations and things. Social norms define behavior that is acceptable and expected by society. However, acceptance of an attitude or behavior by the individuals in society is not always universal. The cause of social problems today and the effect of social problems today on society generally manifest themselves through involvement of the criminal…

low-income neighborhoods.” (Addiction and Substance Abuse) Marijuana legalization would reduce drug crimes. In turn allowing the police the opportunity to focus more harmful, addictive drugs out of the U.S., instead of sentencing people who were caught with 1 gram of marijuana to a mandatory minimum sentence in federal prison. Most often marijuana violations are minor but have major consequences,“roughly 600,000, or 87 percent of marijuana arrest are for nothing more than possession of small…

Prison systems across the country are attempting to deal with an issue never dealt with in the U.S.’s history. Overcrowding of prison systems is a trend which began in the 1970’s when the country decided the criminal justice system was too soft on crime. Crime rates were souring yet incarceration rates remained relatively stable. Thus, began the current crime control era leading to 2008 incarceration rates of 506 per 100,000 compared to only 96 per 100,000 in 1973. There are several…

First, is the automatic transfer law. The automatic transfer is a mandatory transfer to the adult system if certain criteria are met: age, violent felony, and previous criminal record. The second law is referred to as Judicial-discretion, which allows the juvenile judge to make the decision on whether to keep the case in…

system of law which is unable to enforce consent to cooperate with treaties and charters. Unlike domestic law, which embodies an enforceable judiciary, legislature and executive, International law has no agency or organisation capable of mandatorily sentencing States for unlawful conduct. What it does have is the United Nations Charter – a set of rules and provisions with the primary intention to “regulate the relations” between independent States. Nevertheless, as indicated in Oppenheim’s…

about using discretion within the criminal justice system. Judges and police all use the power of discretion when it comes to crimes (J. Harel, SSCI 1000, September 16, 2015). A main concern is specifically that “judges have too much discretion in sentencing” (J. Harel, SSCI 1000, September 23, 2015). In Vancouver, Canada’s dangerous offender law was struck down because it was seen as unconstitutional (Crawford, 2015). The man that raised the challenge was in fact a dangerous individual himself,…

Death penalty The death penalty is a thing that in the United States should abolish. The death in the United States should be abolished. The dictionary defines, “death penalty as the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime”. (Oxford Dictionaries n. pag).The death penalty should be abolished in the United States and the reasons are first the death penalty violates human rights of people .meaning that the rights of humans like the 8th amendment which…

Eyewitness testimony is being able to choose the suspect out of a lineup or an array of photos. Sometimes the witnesses' testimony is not always accurate. When a witness falsely testifies they can send an innocent person to prison. An example of a case where the eyewitness testimony was incorrect was in the murder of 78-year-old Jack Sasson. The man who was convicted of the murder of Mr. Sasson was 18-year-old Kash Register. On April 6, 1979 in the middle of the afternoon, a 78-year-old…