CRIMINAL JUSTICE AN INTRODUCTION 14TH EDITION BY FRANK SCHMALLEGER SOLUTIONS MANUAL by QuentinAxel

SOLUTIONS MANUAL

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AN INTRODUCTION 14TH EDITION BY FRANK SCHMALLEGER SOLUTIONS MANUAL Table of Contents

To the Instructor Syllabi (10 weeks) (16 weeks)

iv v ix

Chapter 1: What Is Criminal Justice? Chapter 2: The Crime Picture Chapter 3: Criminal Law Chapter 4: Policing: Agencies and Structure Chapter 5: Policing: Purpose and Organization Chapter 6: Policing: Legal Aspects Chapter 7: Policing: Issues and Challenges Chapter 8: The Courts: Structure and Participants Chapter 9: Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial Chapter 10: Sentencing Chapter 11: Probation, Parole, and Reentry Chapter 12: Prisons and Jails Chapter 13: Prison Life Chapter 14: Justice-Involved Youth

1 13 24 35 43 49 62 74 86 95 110 119 125 136

To the Instructor This Instructor’s Manual (IM) with Test Bank is designed to accompany and complement the fourteenth edition of Criminal Justice: An Introduction by Frank Schmalleger. It will hopefully make your job more manageable and your teaching more effective. It provides you with a comprehensive summary of the information in the textbook and serves as an easy-access reference to the issues presented in the textbook and to complementary materials. The chapters of the IM correspond directly to the chapters in the textbook. Each chapter contains the following sections: i

Chapter Overview: A summary of the chapter Chapter Objectives: A list of the learning objectives that are identified in the textbook Lecture Outline: An outline of the main topics covered in the chapter and a list of teaching suggestions.

List of Changes/Transition Guide: A list of the main changes that have been made to the text since the previous (thirteenth) edition. This makes it easy to update lesson plans, assignments, and other course materials to reflect the new edition. Additional Assignments and Class Activities: Ideas for activities that may be used in class or assigned to students as outside activities. Suggested Answers to End-of-Chapter Assignments: The textbook contains a number of Questions for Review at the end of each chapter. Although students’ personal opinions may play a role in their answers to these questions, most responses can be assessed in terms of basic information and common themes found throughout the textbook. Sample suggested answers to the questions are provided. In addition, several sample syllabi are provided for courses using the fourteenth edition of Criminal Justice: An Introduction. Both 10-week and 16-week samples are included.

iii

Sample Course Syllabus (10-week course) Course Title: Introduction to Criminal Justice COURSE INFORMATION Course Number: Class Meeting Times: Class Meeting Location:

INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION Instructor Name: Office Location: Office Hours: Telephone Number: E-mail Address:

COURSE DESCRIPTION This course provides an introduction to criminal justice in America. The primary goal of this course is to develop a general understanding of the criminal justice system and its response to crime in society today. Students will consider crime in the U.S., explore the key elements of the criminal justice system (policing, courts, and corrections), and examine a number of special issues relevant to criminal justice today. REQUIRED TEXTBOOK Criminal Justice: An Introduction, 14th edition by Frank Schmalleger. COURSE ASSIGNMENTS Examinations: There will be four non-cumulative examinations, including both multiple choice and true/false questions. Each examination will contain 50 questions and be worth 50 points. Examinations will cover materials presented in lectures and the textbook. Paper: Students will write a research paper about a criminal justice topic that is of interest to them. The topic must be approved by the instructor. The paper must be in APA format and contain an introduction, the body of the research, and a conclusion. The paper must contain intext citations from at least five sources, including the textbook. The paper will be worth 100 points. Class Participation: Participation in class is worth 50 points. Read and study the textbook before each class and be prepared to ask and answer questions. Assignments Four noncumulative examinations

Points 200 points iv

Paper Class participation

100 points 50 points TOTAL 350 points

GRADING SCALE The following grading scale will be used to determine course grades: GRADE A AB+ B BC+

PERCENT 93-100% 90-92% 88-89% 83-87% 80-82% 78-79%

POINTS 325-350 315-324 308-314 290-307 280-289 273-279

GRADE C CD+ D DF

PERCENT 73-77% 70-72% 68-69% 63-67% 60-62% Below 60%

POINTS 255-272 245-254 238-244 220-237 210-219 0-209

Note to instructors: It is important to clearly describe the method you will use to assign grades that you describe clearly the method you will use to assign grades. If you use a percentage scale (as in the table above), be sure to include the minimum and maximum points required for each grade. If you use a curve to assign examination or final grades, include information on this as well. If you provide opportunities for extra credit, these should be clearly stated in the syllabus. POLICIES AND PROCEDURES Include university policies on issues such as academic integrity and sexual harassment Include your policies on issues such as:  Attendance  Make-up examinations  Missed/late assignments  Plagiarism  Classroom behavior  Use of laptops, cell phones, etc. COURSE SCHEDULE WEEK 1 2

TOPIC(S)

CHAPTER ASSIGNMENT Chapter 1 Chapters 2-3

What Is Criminal Justice? The Crime Picture Criminal Law v

4 5

6 7 8 9 10

EXAM 1 Policing: Agencies and Structure Policing: Purpose and Organization Policing: Legal Aspects Policing: Issues and Challenges EXAM 2 The Courts: Structure and Participants Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial, cont. Sentencing EXAM 3 Probation, Parole, and Reentry Prisons and Jails Prison Life Justice-Involved Youth EXAM 4

Chapters 4-5 Chapters 6-7 Chapters 8-9

Chapters 9-10

Chapter 11 Chapters 12-13 Chapter 14

GRADING RUBRIC FOR PAPER Content and Development 70 Points All key elements of the assignment are covered in a substantive way.  Students chose a relevant topic.  The body of the paper is at least in length The content is comprehensive, accurate, and persuasive. Major points are stated clearly; are supported by specific details, examples, or analysis; and are organized logically. The introduction provides sufficient background on the topic and previews major points.

Points Earned /70

The conclusion is logical, flows from the body of the paper, and reviews the major points. Readability and Style 15 Points Paragraph transitions are present, logical, and maintain the flow throughout the paper. The tone is appropriate to the content and assignment. Sentences are complete, clear, and concise. Sentences are well constructed, with consistently

Points Earned /15

strong, varied sentences. Sentence transitions are present and maintain the flow of thought. Mechanics 15 Points The paper, including the title page and reference page follows APA formatting guidelines. Citations of original works within the body of the paper follow APA guidelines. The paper is laid out with effective use of headings, font styles, and white space. Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed. Spelling is correct. Total 100 Points Overall Comments:

Points Earned /15

Points Earned /100

vii

Sample Course Syllabus (16-week course) Course Title: Introduction to Criminal Justice COURSE INFORMATION Course Number: Class Meeting Times: Class Meeting Location:

INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION Instructor Name: Office Location: Office Hours: Telephone Number: E-mail Address:

COURSE DESCRIPTION This course provides an introduction to criminal justice in America. The primary goal of this course is to develop a general understanding of the criminal justice system and its response to crime in society today. Students will consider crime in the U.S., explore the key elements of the criminal justice system (policing, courts, and corrections), and examine a number of special issues relevant to criminal justice today. REQUIRED TEXTBOOK Criminal Justice: An Introduction, 14th edition by Frank Schmalleger. COURSE ASSIGNMENTS Examinations: There will be four non-cumulative examinations, including both multiple choice and true/false questions. Each examination will contain 50 questions and be worth 50 points. Examinations will cover materials presented in lectures and the textbook. Paper: Students will write a research paper about a criminal justice topic that is of interest to them. The topic must be approved by the instructor. The paper must be in APA format and contain an introduction, the body of the research, and a conclusion. The paper must contain intext citations from at least five sources, one of which must be the textbook. The paper will be worth 100 points. Class Participation: Participation in class is worth 50 points. Read and study the textbook before each class and be prepared to ask and answer questions. Assignments Four noncumulative examinations

Points 200 points viii

Paper Class participation

100 points 50 points TOTAL 350 points

GRADING SCALE The following grading scale will be used to determine course grades: GRADE A AB+ B BC+

PERCENT 93-100% 90-92% 88-89% 83-87% 80-82% 78-79%

POINTS 325-350 315-324 308-314 290-307 280-289 273-279

GRADE C CD+ D DF

PERCENT 73-77% 70-72% 68-69% 63-67% 60-62% Below 60%

POINTS 255-272 245-254 238-244 220-237 210-219 0-209

Attendance Make-up examinations Missed/late assignments Plagiarism Classroom behavior Use of laptops, cell phones, etc.

COURSE SCHEDULE WEEK 1

TOPIC(S)

CHAPTER ASSIGNMENT Chapter 1

What Is Criminal Justice? ix

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

The Crime Picture Criminal Law EXAM 1 Policing: Agencies and Structure Policing: Purpose and Organization Policing: Legal Aspects Policing: Issues and Challenges EXAM 2 The Courts: Structure and Participants Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial Sentencing EXAM 3 Probation, Parole, and Reentry Prisons and Jails Prison Life Justice-Involved Youth EXAM 4

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

Points Earned /70

Points Earned /15

Sentences are complete, clear, and concise. Sentences are well constructed, with consistently strong, varied sentences. Sentence transitions are present and maintain the flow of thought. Mechanics 15 Points The paper, including the title page and reference page follows APA formatting guidelines. Citations of original works within the body of the paper follow APA guidelines. The paper is laid out with effective use of headings, font styles, and white space. Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed. Spelling is correct. Total 100 Points Overall Comments:

Points Earned /15

Points Earned /100

CHAPTER 1 What Is Criminal Justice? CHAPTER OVERVIEW The American experience with crime during the last half century has been especially influential in shaping the criminal justice system of today. Although crime waves have come and gone, some events during the past century stand out as especially significant, including a spurt of widespread organized criminal activity associated with the Prohibition years of the early twentieth century, the substantial increase in “traditional” crimes during the 1960s and 1970s, the threat to the American way of life represented by illicit drugs around the same time, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the ongoing threat from radical Islam. The theme of this book is individual rights versus public order. As this chapter points out, the personal freedoms guaranteed to law-abiding citizens as well as to criminal suspects by the Constitution must be closely guarded. At the same time, the urgent social needs of communities for controlling unacceptable behavior and protecting law-abiding citizens from harm must be recognized. This theme is represented by two opposing groups: individual rights advocates and public-order advocates. The fundamental challenge facing the practice of American criminal justice is in achieving efficient and cost-effective enforcement of the laws while simultaneously recognizing and supporting the legal rights of suspects and the legitimate personal differences and prerogatives of individuals. Even though justice may be an elusive concept, it is important to recognize that criminal justice is tied closely to notions of social justice, including personal and cultural beliefs about equity and fairness. As a goal to be achieved, criminal justice refers to those aspects of social justice that concern violations of the criminal law. Although community interests in the administration of criminal justice demand the apprehension and punishment of law violators, criminal justice ideals extend to the protection of the innocent, the fair treatment of offenders, and fair play by justice administration agencies. This chapter briefly describes the process of American criminal justice as a system with three major components—police, courts, and corrections—all of which can be described as working together toward a common goal. However, a cooperative systems viewpoint is useful primarily for the simplification that it provides. A more realistic approach to understanding criminal justice may be the nonsystem approach. As a nonsystem, the criminal justice process is depicted as a fragmented activity in which individuals and agencies within the process have interests and goals that at times coincide but often conflict. 1

The stages of criminal case processing include investigation and arrest, booking, first appearance in court, the defendant’s preliminary hearing, the return of an indictment by the grand jury or the filing of an information by the prosecutor, arraignment of the defendant before the court, adjudication or trial, sentencing, and corrections. As a field of study, corrections includes jails, probation, imprisonment, and parole. The principle of due process, which underlies the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is central to American criminal justice. Due process means procedural fairness and requires that criminal case processing be conducted with fairness and equity. The ultimate goal of the criminal justice system in America is achieving crime control through due process. Due process and crime control have recently been supplemented by a public health model which sees crime and violence through an epidemiological lens, and which seeks to involve multiple stakeholders in crime prevention. Scientific research has become a major element in the increasing professionalization of criminal justice, and there is a strong call today for the application of evidence-based practices in the justice field. Evidence-based practices are crime-fighting strategies that have been scientifically tested and that are based on social science research. American society today is a multicultural society, composed of a wide variety of racial and ethnic heritages, diverse religions, incongruous values, disparate traditions, and distinct languages. Multiculturalism complicates the practice of American criminal justice because there is rarely universal agreement in our society about what is right or wrong or about what constitutes “justice.” As such, multiculturalism presents both challenges and opportunities for today’s justice practitioners. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Summarize the history of crime in America and corresponding changes in the American criminal justice system. 2. Describe the public-order (crime-control) and individual-rights (due-process) perspectives of criminal justice, concluding with how the criminal justice system balances the two perspectives. 3. Explain the relationship of criminal justice to general concepts of equity and fairness. 4. Describe the American criminal justice system in terms of its three major components and the consensus and conflict models. 5. Describe the process of American criminal justice, including the stages of criminal case 2

processing. 6. Define due process of law, including how the American legal system guarantees due process. 7. Describe the role of evidence-based practice in contemporary criminal justice. 8. Explain how multiculturalism and diversity present challenges to and opportunities for the American people LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction 

Teaching note: Discuss current events that have affected public attitudes toward the American criminal justice system. Explain the concept of procedural fairness and discuss its importance in the American justice system.



Teaching note: Ask students to discuss how recent events, including both acts of violence by police and assaults on police, have affected their view of the criminal justice system?



Teaching note: Present the definition of crime that will be used during the course and ask students if they can think of additional ways in which it might be defined.

II.

A Brief History of Crime in America 

 

III.

Teaching note: Provide students with a historical perspective of crime in the last half century. An effective way to highlight the changes is to simply provide a timeline of critical events (those discussed in this section and those listed in Figure 1-1). Discuss the importance of these high-profile cases and how they influence public understanding of criminal justice. Ask students what other high-profile crimes they remember. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss why the increased emphasis on individual rights beginning in the 1960s was associated with an increase in reported crime. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss whether they consider crimes committed via cyberspace to be more or less serious than similar crimes that are not Internet-based. The Theme of This Book



Teaching note: Highlight the key differences between the individual-rights and publicorder perspectives.



Teaching note: Ask students whether they see a trend in our society in favor of individual-rights or public-order interests, Encourage them to present examples to support their opinions. 3



Teaching note: Ask students to discuss the relative merits of the individual-rights and public-order perspectives. Discuss how the goals of both perspectives might be balanced in contemporary society.



Teaching note: A good method to help students understand the complexities in balancing the concerns of individual-rights advocates and public-order advocates is to hold a debate in class. Divide the class in half and assign one half to be individual-rights advocates and the other half to be public-order advocates. One issue students may examine is the profiling of airline passengers. Explain to students how the criminal justice system’s response to the events of September 11, 2001 has significantly changed airport screening procedures. Ask the students representing the public-order advocates to prepare a list of personal characteristics (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, age, clothing) that they would seek to use in screening potentially dangerous passengers in an airport terminal. Ask the students viewing this issue as individual-rights advocates to provide a list of stereotypes or situations regarding passengers in a terminal that might indicate an unreasonable search or seizure by the criminal justice system. After placing both lists on the board for everyone to see, have the two groups debate the topic.

IV.

Criminal Justice and Social Justice 

Teaching note: Explain the differences between criminal justice and social justice. Contrast the focus of criminal justice (violations of the criminal law) and civil justice (fairness in relationships among citizens, government agencies, and businesses in private matters).



Teaching note: Discuss the concept of justice and ask students what justice means to them. Ask if they can think of other ways of achieving justice, other than through the formal criminal justice process.



Teaching note: Explain the relationship of criminal justice to fundamental notion of fairness and to the wider notions of equity and morality.



Teaching note: Explain that the word “justice” in “criminal justice” implies a sense of basic fairness, and that no criminal justice system will seem fair to the citizens it serves unless it rings true to the basic sense of fairness to which those citizens hold.

American Criminal Justice: Conflict and Consensus A. 

The Consensus Model

Teaching note: Explain that the consensus model of criminal justice envisions the components of the criminal justice system as functioning together to achieve the goal of justice. 4

B. 



VI.

The Conflict Model

Teaching note: Explain that the conflict model of criminal justice envisions the components of the criminal justice system as serving their own interests and competing with one another over scarce resources, public recognition, and various other forms of accomplishment. Teaching note: Compare and contrast the consensus and conflict models of criminal justice and discuss the importance of both models in the study of the criminal justice system. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss which model (consensus or conflict) best describes the American system of criminal justice and to explain why they hold that view. Teaching note: One way to teach students about the consensus and conflict models is to discuss the limitations that tax-supported funding can place on criminal justice agencies. Explain that the consensus model is most likely to be present in areas where the state and local tax bases can provide for adequate staffing of police, criminal courts, and correctional agencies; because each agency can afford more services, this leads to greater cooperation between agencies. Then explain how budget cuts that occur in times of limited tax revenues may result in increased workloads for the various components of the system. Operating within the constraints of a fixed budget can create fragmented efforts, as each subcomponent must make more of an individual effort to deliver services in an environment that does not always encourage maximum cooperation between agencies. American Criminal Justice: The Process

 

VII.  

Teaching note: Explain the criminal justice system in terms of its main components: the police, the courts, and corrections. Teaching note: Use Figure 1-4 to provide students with a brief overview or “road map” of the criminal justice process and explain that each stage in the process will be covered in more detail throughout the text Due Process and Individual Rights Teaching note: Discuss the concept of due process and explain why it is such a central notion in American criminal justice. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss what our justice system would be like without due process. Ask if they would want to live in a society that did not guarantee due process rights. Why or why not? A.



The Role of the Courts in Defining Rights

Teaching note: Discuss the implications of allowing Supreme Court decisions to carry as 5

much weight as legislative actions

B.  

Teaching note: Explain the crime control and due process models of criminal justice and emphasize that their goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Teaching note: One way to illustrate the concerns of due process model is by discussing a case in which a defendant was wrongfully convicted. Explain that DNA technology has both assisted law enforcement and also helped free innocent people who were wronglyconvicted. Relevant cases that could be discussed include: o Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (the subject of the movie The Hurricane) o Randall Dale Adams (the movie The Thin Blue Line was based on his case) o The Kern County child abuse cases (the subject of the documentary Witch Hunt) o Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz (the basis for John Grisham’s book The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town) o Cameron Todd Willingham (the subject of the documentary film Incendiary: The Willingham Case) C.



VIII.   



IX.

The Ultimate Goal: Crime Control through Due Process

The Public Health Model of Crime Control

Teaching note: Compare the newer public health model to the crime control and due process models of criminal justice. Explain how the focus of this model differs and how it incorporates input from agencies and individuals outside the justice system. Evidence-Based Practice in Criminal Justice Teaching note: Explain evidence-based practice and describe the role of evidence-based research in contemporary criminal justice. Teaching note: Stress the difference between “evidence-based practices” and “criminal evidence” Teaching note: Describe the work of the Campbell Collaboration’s Crime and Justice Coordinating Group and explain why systematic reviews of research are so important today. Teaching note: Encourage students to visit the CrimeSolutions.gov website and explore the various programs and practices and how they are graded.

Multiculturalism and Social Diversity in Criminal Justice

  



Teaching note: Explain how multiculturalism and diversity present special challenges to, and opportunities for, the American system of criminal justice. Teaching note: Expand upon the concept of social diversity and review other types of diversity in addition to multiculturalism. Teaching note: A good way for students to appreciate the complex role that the criminal justice system faces in a multicultural society is to identify distinct languages used in America. Have students identify cities in the U.S. in which multiple languages (other than English) are spoken. Have students discuss whether the criminal justice system should pay a higher salary to employees who have bilingual skills. Teaching note: Discuss the importance of cultural competence within the criminal justice system.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE  

 

The new era of criminal justice is described, including calls to defund the police and the growth of the carceral state. The saga of George Floyd, BLM, defund the police, institutionalized racism, and other social justice themes are mentioned and defined, setting the stage for their discussion throughout the text. The significance of gun crime in the United States is reemphasized. A public health model—one that analyzes crime like an infectious disease—is introduced, and the term “public health model” is defined.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Have students collect clippings and stories from newspapers, magazines, and the Web to do a short report or presentation noting which criminal justice–related topics (such as individual rights, social control, policing, terrorism, and violent crime) receive the most coverage. “The Crime Report: Your Criminal Justice Network” is a useful website for criminal justice–specific current events.



Consider holding a debate in class to help students understand the dichotomy of individual-rights advocates and public-order advocates is to hold a debate in class. Divide the class in half and assign one half to be individual-rights advocates and the other to be public-order advocates. A good issue for them to take a position on is drunk driving. Explain to students how the criminal justice system’s response to drunk driving has evolved significantly during the last 30 years. Emphasize that drunk driving was virtually ignored in the 1970s; when an incident came to the attention of the criminal justice system, it would either be ignored, or the drunk driver would receive a short sentence. Today drunk driving is considered a serious crime and is given high priority in many 7

cities. Ask the half of the class that represents the individual-rights advocates to argue that the new emphasis on drunk driving is excessive. Ask the half of the class viewing the issue as public-order advocates to provide reasons that strict enforcement of drunkdriving laws is a reasonable criminal justice response. 

Ask students to write a short essay on which perspective they identify with more closely – individual rights or public order. Have them discuss the relative merits of each perspective and how the goals of both may be balanced in contemporary society. They may also present personal experiences that help explain their affinity for their chosen perspective.



Ask students to write a short essay discussing which model, consensus or conflict, best describes the American system of justice today and why.



Provide students with a list of criminal justice issues, such as habitual offender statutes (three-strikes laws, etc.), the Miranda warnings, the exclusionary rule, mandatory domestic violence arrests, speedy trials, police crackdowns, drunk-driving roadblocks, and providing attorneys to indigents. Have students discuss whether each issue is more consistent with the due process model or the crime-control model.



Have students review the list of individual rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights that is presented in Table 1-1. Have students discuss what additional rights they believe should be included.



Create a criminal justice e-newsletter to which members of the class can contribute throughout the term. Students should serve as researchers, reporters, and editors and should cover criminal justice topics that might be of interest to the campus community, such as date rape, drug abuse, and vandalism. Have students arrange for all aspects of the newsletter’s production. You might consider posting the newsletter on the Web.



Create a class blog to which members of the class can contribute throughout the term. Students could post their thoughts on topics under class discussion, showcase their opinions about critical criminal justice matters, and let others know what the study of criminal justice entails.



Create a Web site for your class. Post news of student activities in the criminal justice area, build a discussion area for current criminal justice topics, list links to other criminal justice Web sites, and perhaps post a brief biography of each student in the class (do not post personal information such as addresses or telephone numbers).



Ask representatives from community criminal justice agencies to visit your class throughout the semester, either in person or virtually through computer conferencing. Create a master schedule for speakers, linking it to the topics covered in the class syllabus and in the textbook.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. Describe the American experience with crime during the last half century. What noteworthy criminal incidents or activities can you identify during that time, and what social and economic conditions might have produced them? In the 1960s and 1970s, during the civil rights era, there was a strong emphasis on individual rights. The civil rights movement emphasized equality of opportunity and respect for individuals regardless of race, color, creed, gender or personal attributes. This period also saw a dramatic increase in reported crime and the development of many theories to explain this leap in observed criminality. Some analysts suggested that the combination of newfound freedoms and long-pent-up hostilities of the socially and economically deprived worked to produce social disorganization, which in turn increased criminality. In the mid1980s, a dramatic increase in the sale and use of illicit drugs also contributed to increased crime and led to the “war on drugs.” This led to dramatic declines in property values in some cities, as well as an eroding quality of life, and contributed to the “war on drugs”. By the 1990s, there was a growing emphasis on individual accountability and a “get tough on crime” attitude. The events of September 11, 2001 led to a more proactive posture and more global approach in the fight against terrorism. Corporate and white-collar crime became seen as a serious threat to the American way of life and contributed to an increased emphsis on holding business executives accountable for their actions. The current era is characterized by concern over crime in many parts of the country but some cities are experiencing alarming rates of gun-related crimes, carjackings, robberies, home invasions, and predatory street crime. Many other types of crimes today are Internet-based or involve other forms of high technology 2. What is the theme of this book? According to that theme, what are the differences between the individual-rights perspective and the public-order perspective? The main theme of this book is that of individual rights versus public order. The theme stresses the need to balance the protection of each individual’s constitutional rights with the protection of society as a whole. Ensuring that the basic rights of individuals are not infringed upon while society is protected through the maintenance of public order requires a delicate balancing act. The individual-rights perspective stresses the protection of personal freedoms and is concerned about unnecessarily restrictive government actions 9

that limit or eliminate these freedoms. The public-order perspective believes that the interests of society should take precedence over individual rights. These perspectives frequently are in conflict. The individual-rights perspective is willing to sacrifice public safety in order to protect important personal freedoms while the public-order perspective is willing to limit or eliminate rights to increase public safety. 3. What is justice? What aspects of justice does this chapter discuss? How does criminal justice relate to other, wider notions of equity and fairness? Justice focuses on the principle of fairness and the ideal of moral equity. The chapter focuses on three aspects of justice: social justice, criminal justice, and civil justice. Social justice embraces all aspects of civilized life and is linked to broader notions of fairness and right and wrong. Civil and criminal justice are aspects of the wider form of social justice and cannot be separated from it because the justice enacted in civil and criminal courts reflects basic American understandings of right and wrong. Criminal justice is an important mechanism by which justice can be achieved. Not only do victims, defendants and others seek and expect fairness from the criminal justice system, but the activities and actions of the criminal justice system often spark society to consider what is considered equal justice. 4. What are the main components of the criminal justice system? How do they work together? How might they conflict? The criminal justice system includes three main components: police, courts, and corrections. According to the systems perspective on criminal justice, these components work together to achieve a wider purpose, that of justice. However, the goals of the various agencies often conflict and may fragment the efforts of the system as a whole. Additionally, the size of the criminal justice undertaking makes effective cooperation between component agencies difficult. 5. List the stages of case processing that characterize the American system of criminal justice. 

Investigation: After a crime has been discovered, evidence is gathered, and follow-up investigations attempt to reconstruct the sequence of activities leading up to and including the criminal event. Efforts to identify suspects are initiated



Warrant: An arrest warrant issued by a judge provides the legal basis for the police to take a person into custody.



Arrest: In an arrest, a person is taken into custody, limiting the arrestee’s freedom. Arrest is a serious step in the process of justice. During arrest and before questioning, defendants are usually advised of their constitutional rights, or Miranda rights.



Booking: Following arrest, suspects are booked. Booking is an administrative procedure where pictures, fingerprints, and personal information are obtained. A record of the events leading up to and including the arrest is created. In some jurisdictions, DNA evidence may be collected from arrestees.



First appearance: Within hours of arrest, suspects must be brought before a magistrate (judicial officer) for an initial appearance. The judge will tell them of the charges against them, advise them of their rights, and may provide the opportunity for bail.



Preliminary hearing: The purpose of a preliminary hearing is to determine whether or not there is sufficient evidence to continue the criminal justice process. At the preliminary hearing, the hearing judge will seek to determine whether there is probable cause. The process provides the prosecutor with an opportunity to test the strength of the evidence.



Information or indictment: In some states, the prosecutor may seek to continue the case by filing an information with the court. Other states require an indictment be returned by a grand jury. The grand jury hears evidence presented by the prosecutor and decides whether the case should go to trial.



Arraignment: At arraignment, the accused stands before a judge and hears the information or indictment against him. Defendants are again notified of their rights and asked to enter a plea. Pleas include not guilty, guilty, and no contest. No contest may result in a conviction but cannot be used in trial as an admission of guilt.



Adjudication: A criminal trial may be held or the defendant may decide to enter a guilty plea. A criminal trial involves an adversarial process that pits the prosecution against the defense. In most trials, a jury hears the evidence and decides issues of guilt or innocence, while the judge ensures the fairness of the proceedings.



Sentencing: After the person has been convicted, it is up to the judge to determine the punishment. Prior to sentencing, a sentencing hearing is sometimes held in which attorneys for both sides can present information to influence the judge’s decision.



Corrections: The corrections period begins following sentencing and involves a variety of sentences that can be imposed on a defendant.



Reentry: Not everyone who has been convicted of a crime goes to prison. Probation imposes requirements or restrictions upon offenders. Offenders are required to check in with a probation officer on a regular basis. Similarly, after a defendant has served a 11

portion of his prison term he may be freed on parole. Like probation, parole may come with obligations and requires the offender to check in with a parole officer. 6. What is meant by the term due process of law? Where in the American legal system are guarantees of due process found? Due process means procedural fairness and recognizes the individual rights of criminal defendants facing prosecution by a state or federal government. Due process underlies the first ten Amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights) and is specifically guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. 7. What is the role of research in criminal justice? What is evidence-based practice? How can research influence crime control policy? Research has become a major factor in criminal justice practice and policy Evidence-based practice refers to crime-fighting strategies that have been scientifically tested and are based on social science research. Criminal justice research can influence policy by providing sound research on which policy can be based. There is a strong call today for the application of evidence-based practices in the field of criminal justice. 8. What is multiculturalism? What is social diversity? What impact do multiculturalism and diversity have on the practice of criminal justice in contemporary American society? Multiculturalism is defined as 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. Diversity is simply the condition of being different, and multiculturalism is only one form of diversity. The diversity within American society makes the United States a truly multicultural society, composed of a wide variety of racial and ethnic heritages, diverse religions, incongruous values, disparate traditions, and distinct languages. The diverse values, perspectives, and behaviors characteristic of various groups within society have a significant impact on the justice system and present special challenges to and opportunities for the practice of criminal justice in America. The demands and expectations placed on the agencies of criminal justice in our multicultural society involve a dilemma that relates back to the textbook theme: how to protect individual rights of self-expression while ensuring social control and public safety and security.

CHAPTER 2 The Crime Picture CHAPTER OVERVIEW The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program began in the 1930s when Congress authorized the U.S. attorney general to survey crime in America. Today’s UCR/NIBRS Program provides annual data on the number of reported major crimes, as well as information about arrests that have been made for less-serious offenses. Serious offenses include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The lessserious offense category covers many more crimes, including drug offenses, driving under the influence, and simple assault. Modifications to the UCR Program, which has traditionally provided only summary crime data, occurred with the implementation of the National IncidentBased Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS, which represents a significant redesign of the original UCR Program, gathers many details about each criminal incident, such as place of occurrence, weapon used, type and value of property damaged or stolen, the personal characteristics of the offender and the victim, the nature of any relationship between the two, and the disposition of the complaint. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the second major source of statistical data about crime in the United States. The NCVS, which was first conducted in 1972, is based on victim self-reports rather than on police reports. The NCVS originally built on efforts by both the National Opinion Research Center and the 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice to uncover what some had been calling the dark figure of crime—that is, those crimes that are not reported to the police and that are relatively hidden from justice system officials. An analysis of victim self-report data led to the realization that crimes of all types were more prevalent than UCR statistics had previously indicated. Significant differences exist between the UCR/NIBRS and the NCVS. For example, UCR/NIBRS data are primarily based on citizens’ reports of crime to the police, whereas NCVS data are gathered by field researchers who interview randomly selected households throughout the country. These and other differences lead to significant variation in the crime rates reported under both programs. It is important to recognize that UCR/NIBRS and NCVS data do not necessarily provide a complete picture of crime in America, not only because they fail to capture all instances of crime, but also because the traditional reporting categories that they employ do not always encompass more innovative forms of crime such as those committed through the use of high technology or certain forms of white-collar crime.

This chapter introduces a number of special categories of crime, including crime against women, crime against older people, hate crime, corporate and white-collar crime, organized crime, gun crime, drug crime, high-technology and computer crime, and terrorism. Each of these categories is of special concern in contemporary society. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe the FBI’s UCR/NIBRS Program, including its purpose, history, and what it tells us about crime in the United States today. 2. Describe the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) program, including its purpose, its history, and what it tells us about crime in the United States today. 3. Compare and contrast the UCR/NIBRS and NCVS data collection and reporting programs. 4. Describe how the special categories of crime discussed in this chapter are significant today. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction A. The Collection of Crime Data 



II.

Teaching note: Explain the historical circumstances that led to the development of the NCVS and the UCR/NIBRS, and discuss why new and innovative types of crime, such as some high-technology offenses, might not be fully counted under those programs. Teaching note: Explain the different types of information on crime that may be obtained from the UCR/NIBRS program, the NCVS, and offender self-reports and that the choice of data source may depend on the type of information required. The UCR/NIBRS Program A. Development of the UCR Program

 

Teaching note: Describe the history and nature of the FBI’s UCR/NIBRS Program and explain what it can tell us about crime in the United States today. Teaching note: Explain the criminal justice funnel and discuss how cases fall out as they move through the criminal justice system B.

The National Incident-Based Reporting System



Teaching note: Explain why the FBI believed it was necessary to develop NIBRS. Review the differences between the summary-based UCR system and the incident-driven NIBRS, using Table 2-1 as a reference. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss possible drawbacks to the FBI’s move to a NIBRS-only data format and to consider problems that might be created by a move away from the collection of traditional UCR data. C.



Teaching note: Discuss the three major shifts in crime rates that have occurred since the UCR Program began and review the factors that have affected crime. Ask students to consider what other factors may affect crime in the near future. D.

 



UCR/NIBRS in Transition

Teaching note: Introduce the crime clock and stress that it does not mean crime occurs regularly or “like clockwork.” Teaching note: Ask students to consider why some crimes have much higher clearance rates than others. Explain that personal crimes are cleared far more frequently than most property crimes because victims of violence are often able to identify their attackers. E.



Historical Trends

Major Offenses

Teaching note: Review the eight major crimes and their definitions. Explain how these crimes are defined in your state and discuss any differences. Teaching note: Gather local and state statistics on the eight major offenses as well as current crime trend data. Then compare and contrast the state figures to the national figures. Do the types of crime in your state have patterns similar to those of national crime? This could also be done for multiple different states, or students could be placed into groups and assigned a state. 1.



Murder

Teaching note: Discuss the differences between first- and second-degree murder. Explain that although all murders are felonies, the category of felony murder, in some jurisdictions, refers to the (sometimes unintentional) death of a person during the commission of another crime, such as the bank patron who dies of a heart attack during a bank robbery. Teaching note: Explain the differences between spree killings, mass murder, and serial murder 15



Teaching note: Ask students to discuss reasons why murder consistently has the highest clearance rate of any Part I crime. 2.

 



Teaching note: Explain how the FBI definition of rape was revised and ask students to consider why this change may have been made. Teaching note: Explain that some people see rape as a crime of power rather than one of sex. Discuss how many rapists seek to humiliate their victims and that they enjoy the sense of power that comes from the abuse. Mention, however, that other researchers have found that imprisoned rapists identify “lust,” rather than “power,” as their primary criminal motivation. Teaching note: Explain that criminologists believe that far more rapes occur than are reported. Ask students to consider what reasons survivors might have for failing to report this crime. Reasons they might suggest include embarrassment, fear of insensitive handling by the justice system, and fear of the offender. 3.

  



Aggravated Assault

Teaching note: Discuss the difference between simple and aggravated assault. Explain that some states use the term “assault” to refer to an attempt and “battery” to refer to a completed assault. 5.



Robbery

Teaching note: Explain the hierarchy rule and discuss the implications of this rule on the accuracy of UCR statistics. Teaching note: Define highway robbery as any robbery that occurs outdoors in a public place. Stress that highway robbery does not necessarily occur on the road or in a vehicle. Teaching note: Emphasize that students should not confuse robbery and burglary (expand upon this when covering burglary). 4.



Rape

Burglary

Teaching note: Discuss the three categories of burglary: forcible entry, unlawful entry where no force is used, and attempted forcible entry. Teaching note: Explain that people often confuse the terms robbery and burglary, using them interchangeably. Explain the differences between the two terms and show why they are not the same.



Teaching note: Ask students to suggest reasons why the clearance rate for burglary tends to be so low. 6.

  

Teaching note: Ask students to suggest reasons why, if it is so common, larceny-theft appears to be the most underreported crime category in the UCR. Teaching note: Have students discuss whether the theft of information should be included in larceny statistics, since information is not something that can be possessed physically. Teaching note: Point out that a considerable amount of identity theft is committed without the use of high technology.

7. 

 



Motor Vehicle Theft

Teaching note: Explain that for NIBRS purposes, motor vehicles are defined as selfpropelled vehicles that run on the ground and not on rails. Point out that the theft of other types of vehicles (trains, planes, boats, most farm machinery, etc.) is classified as larcenytheft. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss reasons why motor vehicle theft is not included in the statistics for larceny-theft. Teaching note: Explain that carjacking is considered to be robbery rather than motor vehicle theft. 8.



Larceny-Theft

Arson

Teaching note: Explain that the category of arson was added to the UCR/NIBRS Program in 1979 and stress that many agencies do not submit complete (or any) data on arson. Ask students what effect this may have on the accuracy of the information obtained from the FBI. Teaching note: Have students decide which Part I offense is occurring in each of the following situations: o A college freshman visits a friend’s residence hall and forces her to have sexual intercourse. (rape) o A woman is caught after she puts a gun to an older man’s head and takes his wallet and watch. (robbery) o A man drives his car into a group of teenagers. Six teenagers have to be taken to the hospital for treatment of their injuries. (aggravated assault) o A 16-year-old girl steals a Porsche from a car dealership. (motor vehicle theft) o A 16-year-old boy steals a bulldozer. (larceny) 17

o A man walks through an open door of a home, takes cash and other valuables, and raids the refrigerator. (burglary) o An 18-year-old girl gave birth to a baby boy in her mother’s fourth-floor apartment and tossed the child out the window, and the baby died. (murder) o A woman walks out of a coatroom with a leather jacket that does not belong to her. (larceny) o A man sets his neighbor’s Christmas tree on fire. (arson) o A woman borrows a neighbor’s boat to go fishing without her neighbor’s permission. (larceny) F. 

III.

Teaching note: Explain that in the traditional UCR, data on less-serious offenses, known as Part II offenses, only included information on arrest. The National Crime Victimization Survey



IV.

Teaching note: Define the dark figure of crime and discuss how the NCVS can help uncover information about it. Explain that the NCVS was developed as a way to obtain a more complete picture of crime than the UCR could provide. Teaching note: Ask the class to discuss reasons why the NCVS does not collect data on homicide. Comparisons of the UCR and the NCVS

 



Less-Serious Offenses

Teaching note: Describe the differences between the UCR/NIBRS and the NCVS. Ask students which they expect would report a higher number of crimes and why. Teaching note: Ask students whether the following statistics would be found in the UCR/NIBRS or the NCVS: o In a particular year, 325,802 robberies were reported to the police. (UCR/NIBRS) o Approximately 54% of violent crimes are reported to the police. (NCVS) o Approximately 54% of all reported aggravated assaults are cleared by arrest. (UCR/NIBRS) o The clearance rate for the crime of arson is 18%. (UCR/NIBRS) Teaching note: Ask students to consider which form of data gathering would individualrights advocates be most likely to support? Which form would public-order advocates likely support? Why? Have them discuss how, in a broader sense, the form in which data are gathered can serve political ends? Special Categories of Crime 18

A.  

Teaching note: Ask students to discuss why there is there a special focus crime against women and to consider why there is no parallel discussion of crime against men. Teaching note: Briefly discuss the crime of stalking and explain that it only became a crime in 1990. Define cyberstalking and discuss why is becoming such a serious problem today. B.



 

Hate Crime

Teaching note: Describe hate crimes as those in which there is evidence of prejudice based on various personal characteristics, including race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. Use assaults on Arab Americans following the 2001 terrorist attacks as an example. Teaching note: Point out that the definition of hate crime varies by state, and that some states include categories that are not protected under the federal statute, or omit crimes covered under federal hate crime legislation. Teaching note: Explain that laws continue to expand to include more categories, such as disability, sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity. Ask students to identify other groups which they believe should be protected by the law. Teaching note: Lead a debate as to whether it is appropriate to penalize some crimes more severely based on their motivation. Teaching note: Ask students to discuss why a crime motivated by hate is often more harmful to the victim and the community than the same crime not motivated by hate or bias. D.

 

Crime Against Older People

Teaching note: Ask students to discuss whether the victimization of older people should be a special issue of concern. Have them consider ways in which the effects of crime may be more serious for an older victim. C.



Crime Against Women

Corporate and White-Collar Crime

Teaching note: Explain the difference between corporate and white-collar crime Teaching note: Explain the effect of 2008’s economic downturn, as well as the recent pandemic, on mortgage fraud scams and discuss the various types of mortgage fraud. E.

Organized Crime 19



Teaching Note: Discuss the concept of transnational organized crime and why it is such a key issue in criminal justice today. F.



Teaching Note: Conduct a debate on gun control. Divide students into groups and assign one group to research and argue in favor of gun control and the other group to research and argue in favor of the constitutional right to bear arms. Consider asking students their opinions and then assigning them to argue the opposite view. G.



Cybercrime

Teaching note: Explain that many computer crimes are traditional crimes committed using technology in some way. I.



Drug Crime

Teaching note: Discuss the problem of mass incarceration in the United States today and explain the link between increasingly severe sentences for drug crimes and the continued increase in the prison population. H.



Gun Crime

Terrorism

Teaching note: Point out that the events of September 11, 2001 brought terrorism to the forefront of American consciousness.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE    

The discussion of homicide now includes Black-on-Black violent crime, and questions its foundations in social issues. A new box on “Disproportionality” includes new Key Terms such as disproportionality, discrimination, disparities, systemic discrimination, and Black-on-Black crime. California wildfires are now discussed under the “Arson” heading. The culture of gun violence in the United States is offered as one possible explanation for high levels of mass shootings.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES



Have students research UCR/NIBRS serious crime statistics for their home states (and/or counties and cities) for the past few years. Have them compare crime rates for each geographic area and discuss possible reasons for the variations in rates.



Have students research UCR/NIBRS serious crime statistics for their home states, including trend data, and compare the state figures to national trends. Have them identify the similarities and differences between state and national crime patterns and trends.



Have students select a crime that is included in both the UCR/NIBRS and NCVS. Have them research statistics on this crime from both sources, including trend data, and compare the results. Have them identify similarities and differences in the information on crime patterns and trends obtained from the two sources.



Find the latest national summary of campus crime. (USA Today periodically publishes a detailed report of such statistics, and data may also be available on the Internet). Have students compare crime on your campus with reports of campus crime elsewhere. What might account for the differences observed?



Have students construct and conduct a local community or campus survey of crime. For example, survey a random sampling of resident and nonresident students to determine victimization rates with regard to the theft of textbooks, computers, and personal items from dorm rooms and classrooms in order to provide a picture of crime on campus. (Because of the sensitive and personal nature of certain types of crimes such as rape and the use of controlled substances, it is advisable to limit the survey to property crimes). The survey also could be expanded to faculty and staff. Distance learning programs may invite students to participate in the survey via e-mail or an online questionnaire. Have students report on their findings.



Have students construct and conduct a local community or campus self-report survey that asks respondents about the offenses they have committed. (Because of the sensitive and personal nature of certain types of crimes such as rape and the use of controlled substances, it is advisable to limit the survey to property crimes). The survey could be expanded to faculty and staff. Distance learning programs may invite students to participate in the survey via e-mail or an online questionnaire. Have students report on their findings.



Prior to class, obtain information from the UCR/NIBRS and the NCVS. Present this information in class and discuss key issues, including: o How much information is available from each source? o What does it consist of?

o What are the similarities and the differences in the availability of information between these two sites? o Generally speaking, how do the two sites compare? o Which one do you find more useful? Why? SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. How has the implementation of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) changed the UCR Program? How will data reported under the NIBRS differ from the crime statistics reported under the traditional UCR Program? The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a major redesign of the traditional UCR. It is an incident-based reporting system that collects detailed data on every single crime occurrence, as compared to the summary-based UCR. Under the new enhanced system, law enforcement agencies provide detailed information about crime and arrest activities at the incident level. NIBRS replaces the old Part I and Part II offenses with 22 general offenses and also eliminates the hierarchy rule. NIBRS is not a separate report, but a new methodology underlying the UCR system that uses data in more detail. With the addition of NIBRS-based data, some of the older definitions of criminal activity have changed. 2.Describe the history of the National Crime Victimization Survey Program. What do data from the NCVS tell us about crime in the United States today? The NCVS was first conducted in 1972, building on efforts previously made by the National Opinion Research Center and the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice in the late 1960s. The intent was to uncover the “dark figure of crime,” which refers to crimes that are not reported to the police and remain unknown to officials. Early NCVS data led to the discovery that crimes of all types were more prevalent than UCR statistics indicated. According to recent NCVS statistics, approximately 9% of American households are touched by crime each year and over 16 million victimizations occur each year. According to the NCVS, the rate of both violent and property crime reported by the NCVS has declined since 1993. Many researchers believe that self-reported crime is more accurate than crime reported to police in providing an accurate picture of crime and delinquency. 3.How does the NCVS differ from the UCR/NIBRS? Which program would you regard as more reliable? Why? 22

While the UCR/NIBRS program is based on citizen crime reports to the police while the NCVS is based on victim self-report data. Information on murder, kidnapping, victimless crimes, and crimes against businesses are not included in the NCVS. The NCVS also only includes people 12 years of age and older. The UCR uses a hierarchical counting system, which counts the most serious incident in a series of criminal events against a single person. The UCR/NIBRS program counts reported crimes, whereas NCVS counts both completed and attempted offenses that may or may not have been reported to police. Researchers tend to rely on NCVS data more than UCR/NIBRS because it appears to be a more accurate gauge of criminal incidents than police reports. Answers may vary regarding the student’s view of program reliability 4. What are the special categories of crime discussed in this chapter? Why are they important? This chapter discusses several special categories of crime, including crime against women, crime against older people, hate crime, corporate and white-collar crime, organized crime, gun crime, drug crime, cybercrime, and terrorism. These categories are important because they provide us with additional ways to think about crime and how the criminal justice system responds to crime. The importance of these special categories is also illustrated by thinking of them as crime typologies. Various typologies are used to describe the characteristics of criminal offending. Creating such special categories increases the importance of these types of crime and provides a common ground for scholars and policymakers to discuss them.

CHAPTER 3 Criminal Law CHAPTER OVERVIEW Laws are rules of conduct, usually found enacted in the form of statutes, that regulate relationships between people and also between parties. One of the primary functions of the law is to maintain public order. Laws also serve to regulate human interaction, enforce moral beliefs, define the economic environment of a society, enhance predictability, promote orderly social change, sustain individual rights, identify wrongdoers and redress wrongs, and mandate punishment and retribution. Because laws are made by those in power and are influenced by those with access to power brokers, they tend to reflect and support the interests of society’s most powerful members. The rule of law, which is sometimes referred to as the supremacy of law, encompasses the principle that an orderly society must be governed by established principles and known codes that are applied uniformly and fairly to all of its members. It means that no one is above the law, and it mandates that even those who make or enforce the law must also abide by it. The rule of law is regarded as a vital underpinning in Western democracies, for without it disorder and chaos might prevail. This chapter identifies various types of law, including criminal law, civil law, administrative law, case law, and procedural law. It is concerned primarily with criminal law, which is that form of the law that defines and specifies punishments for offenses of a public nature or for wrongs committed against the state or against society. Violations of the criminal law can be of many different types and can vary in severity. Six categories of violations are discussed in this chapter: (1) felonies, (2) misdemeanors, (3) infractions, (4) treason (5) espionage, and (6) inchoate offenses. From the perspective of Western jurisprudence, all crimes can be said to share certain features. Taken together, these features make up the legal essence of the concept of crime. The essence of crime consists of three conjoined elements: (1) the criminal act, which in legal parlance is termed the actus reus; (2) a culpable mental state, or mens rea; and (3) a concurrence of the two. Hence, the essence of criminal conduct consists of a concurrence of a criminal act with a culpable mental state. Five additional principles, added to these three, allow us to fully appreciate contemporary understandings of crime: (1) causation, (2) resulting harm, (3) legality, (4) punishment, and (5) necessary attendant circumstances. 24

Written laws specify exactly what conditions are required for a person to be charged in a given instance of criminal activity. The elements of a crime are specific legal aspects of the criminal offense that the prosecution must prove in order to obtain a conviction. Guilt can be demonstrated, and criminal offenders convicted, only if all of the statutory elements of the particular crime can be proved in court. Our legal system recognizes four broad categories of defenses to a criminal charge: (1) alibi, (2) justifications, (3) excuses, and (4) procedural defenses. An alibi, if shown to be valid, means that the defendant could not have committed the crime in question because they were not present at the time of the crime. When a defendant offers a justification as a defense, they admit committing the act in question but claim that it was necessary to avoid some greater evil. A defendant who offers an excuse as a defense claims that some personal condition or circumstance at the time of the act was such that they should not be held accountable under the criminal law. Procedural defenses make the claim that the defendant was in some significant way discriminated against in the justice process or that some important aspect of official procedure was not properly followed in the investigation or prosecution of the crime charged. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Summarize the purpose, primary sources, and development of law. Define the rule of law, including its importance in Western democratic societies. Summarize the various categories of law, including the purpose of each. Describe six categories of crimes and their characteristics. Describe the eight general features of crime. Explain what is meant by the elements of a specific criminal offense. Compare and contrast the four general categories of accepted criminal defense.

LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction

II.

The Nature and Purpose of Law Teaching Note: Discuss the importance of the common law to modern judicial decisionmaking. Teaching Note: Review the various purposes of the law. Ask students to discuss which of these purposes individual-rights advocates would most likely agree with and which would appeal most to public-order advocates.

 



 

III.   IV.

Teaching Note: Hold a discussion as to whether laws that enforce moral beliefs serve any significant purpose today, and whether they are even enforceable given society’s increasing diversity. Teaching Note: Point out the difference between laws intended to prevent harm and laws designed to promote social good. Ask students to identify instances of both in the criminal code of their home state. Teaching Note: When discussing the purposes of law, question students regarding their preconceptions about what the law is supposed to be and what it is supposed to do. Teaching Note: Point out that statutory law can be influenced by powerful interest groups that have been able to have their values formally endorsed. The Rule of Law Teaching Note: Explain the rule of law and how society must be governed by established principles and codes. Teaching Note: Discuss why the rule of law is so important. Types of Law



 



A. Criminal Law B. Statutory Law Teaching Note: Explain the difference between substantive and procedural law. C. Civil Law Teaching Note: Discuss the ways in which civil and criminal law overlap. Teaching Note: Discuss the consequences of “frivolous” litigation for the American system of civil law. D. Administrative Law Teaching Note: Discuss ways in which criminal and administrative law may overlap. E. Case Law Teaching Note: Demonstrate the significance of the law of precedent, or case law, by pointing to past Senate hearings over Supreme Court nominees (such as Judges Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas) during which senators realized that the philosophical leanings of judicial nominees could impact the social order. General Categories of Crime



Teaching Note: When explaining how felonies, misdemeanors, and infractions differ, suggest that the distinction between these categories is an artificial one, and that all 26



offenses are crimes with greater or lesser punishments specified for them by the criminal law. Teaching Note: Discuss how the seriousness of a particular crime, as determined by the degree of punishment, can change over time. Examples may include drunk driving and changes in the seriousness of drug crimes.



A. Felonies Teaching Note: Remind students that most of the serious crimes measured by the UCR/NIBRS and the NCVS are felonies.



B. Misdemeanors Teaching Note: Explain that the main distinction between felonies and misdemeanors is the possible punishments for each category.



C. Infractions Teaching Note: Explain that infractions generally do not involve any type of custodial sentence.



 VI. 

 

D. Treason E. Espionage Teaching Note: Explain that only U.S. citizens can commit treason, but espionage can also be committed by noncitizens. F. Inchoate Offenses Teaching Note: Explain how an incomplete act can still be a crime. General Features of Crime Teaching Note: Introduce the three features of a crime and stress that there can be no crime unless all the features are present. A. The Criminal Act (Actus Reus) Teaching Note: Explain that it is not a crime to have alcohol use disorder or substance use disorder. Teaching Note: Explain that an omission, or failure to act, can also be a “criminal act.” B. A Guilty Mind (Mens Rea) Teaching Note: Have students locate current news articles on crime and discuss the type of mens rea that may have been present in each case. Teaching Note: Ask students whether they agree with the doctrine of transferred intent and whether criminal liability in this type of situation should be reduced. 27



  

Teaching Note: Have students discuss the concept of strict liability crimes and debate whether an individual should be punished for a crime if they had no intent to violate the law. Teaching Note: Emphasize that mens rea is not the same as motive. Teaching Note: Have students discuss the concept of strict liability crimes. Lead a debate as to whether an individual should be punished for a crime if they had no intent to violate the law. Teaching Note: Ask students to create a list of strict liability crimes in your state and discuss whether punishment for these crimes is justified when there is no intent to cause harm. C. D.



VII.  



Concurrence Other Features of Crime

Teaching Note: After describing the various features of crime, you can help students understand that there can be no crime unless all the features are present by describing a courtroom situation in which a prosecutor proves each element of a specific offense Elements of a Specific Criminal Offenses Teaching Note: Use the criminal code of your state to find examples of the elements of various crimes. Teaching Note: Assign students a specific crime and have them research how the crime is defined in their state and in other states. Have them report on how the elements of a specific crime may differ depending on the state. A. The Example of Murder Teaching Note: Distinguish between homicide (the killing of a human being) and murder or “criminal homicide” (the unlawful killing of a human being). Point out that not all homicides are criminal. Discuss justifiable and excusable homicide and emphasize that these are both non-criminal homicides. Refer back to the discussion of homicide in Chapter 2. B. The Corpus Delicti of a Crime Teaching Note: Distinguish between the corpus delicti (the “body of the crime”) and the physical body of a murder victim. Show that the two are not the same by demonstrating that it is possible to convict a person of murder even though the body of the victim is never recovered. In a case from the 1990s, for example, a military officer whose wife disappeared was convicted of her murder based on the discovery of a computer disk in his office entitled “Murder.” On it he described in detail how he planned to kill his wife and dispose of her body. Teaching Note: Explain the difference between the corpus delicti of a crime and the 28

statutory elements necessary to convict a particular person of having committed a specific crime. VIII.  



 

    

Types of Defenses to a Criminal Charge Teaching Note: Introduce the four categories of defenses recognized by the legal system. Point out that the category of “alibi” is actually a single defense, rather than an overarching category containing multiple types of defenses. Teaching Note: Ask students how they might defend themselves in court by admitting that they committed the criminal act of which they are accused. A. Alibi Teaching Note: Explain that an alibi defense is the only defense in which the defendant actually claims that they did not commit the crime. B. Justifications Teaching Note: Explain that justification defenses essentially claim that the defendant had to choose the lesser of two evils. Teaching Note: Have students review the state self-defense statute (or assign each student or group of students a specific state to research) to determine what is considered to be “reasonable force” and identify under which situations an individual has the right to harm another person. Teaching Note: Organize the students into groups and conduct a debate on whether the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law should be repealed. Teaching Note: Explain the “castle exception” and ask students whether they agree with court decisions that have extended it to an individual’s place of business. C. Excuses Teaching Note: Explain the difference between a justification and an excuse. Teaching Note: Point out that duress is generally not a valid defense for crimes involving serious harm to another person. Ask students to discuss whether they agree with this restriction on the use of the defense of duress. Teaching Note: Explain the difference between insanity as a legal term and the medical concept of mental illness. Teaching Note: Link the insanity defense to the concept of mens rea and explain how insanity may negate intent. Teaching Note: Explain the different rules and tests for insanity. Ask students which ones they feel make the most sense and ask them to explain their reasoning. Teaching Note: Explain how the concept of “guilty but mentally ill” conflicts with conventional understanding about the mens rea component of criminal intent. Teaching Note: Discuss the social reaction to the acquittal of John Hinckley and the impact it had on insanity defense laws around the country. 29

  



Teaching Note: Point out that the insanity defense is rarely used, and when it is used, it is rarely successful. Teaching Note: Discuss the ways in which the criminal justice system handles individuals who are found “guilty but mentally ill.” Teaching Note: Explain the difference between insanity and mental incompetence. Point out that an individual may have been legally sane at the time of the crime but still be found mentally incompetent to stand trial. D. Procedural Defenses Teaching Note: Point out that procedural defenses do not address the question of whether or not the defendant who committed the crime had an excuse or justification. Instead, they focus on some failure by the criminal justice system to follow proper procedure. In other words, the defendant is released from criminal liability not because they have been shown to be innocent but because the system made a mistake. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether procedural defenses are reasonable; in other words, whether a guilty defendant should go free because the system made an error. Have them discuss how we can balance the defendant’s right to due process with the need to protect society. Teaching Note: Discuss the use of the entrapment defense by various well-known individuals (for example, automotive executive John DeLorean; Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry; and various members of Congress accused of taking bribes).

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE 



The 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case of Greer v. U.S. is discussed, in which the Court noted that the mens rea requirement for firearms possession offenses under federal law means that prosecutors must prove not only that the defendant knew that they possessed a firearm, but also that they knew that they were a felon when they possessed the firearm. Discussion of the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case of Panetti v. Quarterman has been added. In Panetti, the Court decided that criminal defendants sentenced to death may not be executed if they do not understand the reason for their imminent execution. Discussion of the dual sovereignty doctrine has been added, and it has been added as a Key Term.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Point out that the rule of law holds that an orderly society must be governed by established principles and known codes that are applied uniformly and fairly to all members and ask students whether the U.S. is an orderly society, since every state (and the federal government) has an individual criminal code. To respond to this, have students select two neighboring states and research how several crimes (both felonies and 30

misdemeanors) are defined. Have them report on the similarities and the differences and decide if the systems in the two states are similar enough that our society may be considered “orderly” or if the differences are so significant that a key fundamental principle of our society may be undermined. 

Ask students to research the criminal code of their home state and create a list of public order offenses in their state (state criminal codes are available on the Internet). Have students identify the potential indirect victims in each “victimless crime” they discover. Ask students to compare the criminal code of their home state with the laws of other states to determine which jurisdictions have enacted the largest number of “victimless crime” statutes. Ask the class to discuss why some states have criminalized more of these kinds of offenses than other states.



Use the civil case examples in the textbook to illustrate the increases in the number of civil law cases filed in court, and discuss issues of compensatory damages, punitive damages, and gross negligence.



Have students research the criminal code of their home state and identify the laws relating to the seven serious crimes that were measured by the traditional UCR (also known as Part I crimes). Remind students that the terminology used by the FBI may not be the same as that used by the state laws (e.g., rather than “rape,” many states use a term such as “sexual assault”). For each crime, students are the list the eight key features of the crime. Consider pairing students up and asking them to compare the differences between two states regarding how the elements are defined by the criminal law.



Describe the defense attorney’s role in proving the existence of a criminal defense. Explain that a defense to a criminal charge does not necessarily mean that a person denies committing the act in question. Use self-defense as an example of how one person can kill another and still be found not guilty.



Ask students to write an essay on the insanity defense in their home state (or assign students a state to research). Have them research the form that the insanity defense takes in their home state and examine the laws of criminal procedure or precedent to determine whether the historical roots of their state’s practice lie in the M’Naghten rule or in some other rule. Ask them to decide which forms of the insanity defense described in the textbook are the closest to their state’s view of insanity as a criminal defense. Have them determine whether their state makes possible some form of the “guilty but mentally ill” finding. Consider having students present their findings to the class and discuss whether they agree or disagree with their state’s position on the insanity defense and to explain why.



Prior to class, visit an online law dictionary. Enter each of the key terms at the start of the chapter into the dictionary. Prepare slides for classroom projection that show the 31

definitions from the Web site and the textbook side by side. Ask your students to discuss what differences exist in the two definitions. SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. What is the purpose of law? What would a society without laws be like? The purpose of law is to regulate relationships between parties and between people. Without civil law, people would not know what to expect from each other; without criminal law, people would not feel safe; without constitutional law, people could not exercise their basic rights as a citizen. Society needs laws to uphold fairness and to prevent the victimization of innocents. 2. What is the rule of law? What is its importance in Western democracies? What does it mean to say that “nobody is above the law”? The rule of law is essentially the belief that an orderly society must be governed by established principles and codes that are applied uniformly and fairly to all of its members. The rule of law is central to Western democracies. It allows people to disagree with the law and ensures that due process has to be followed in any criminal prosecution. To say that nobody is above the law means that those who make or enforce the law must also abide by it. 3. What types of law does this chapter discuss? What purpose does each serve?  Criminal law is the body of rules and regulations that define what behaviors are criminal and specifies punishments.  Statutory law is written law. It includes both substantive and procedural criminal law.  Substantive criminal law defines what constitutes particular crimes and specifies punishments for each offense.  Procedural law is the body of rules that determines the methods used in enforcing substantive law.  Civil law regulates relationships between parties. The focus of civil law is on noncriminal relationships.  Administrative law focuses on the regulations created by government to control businesses, industries, and individuals.  Case law provides a guide to court decision making because it includes the body of judicial precedent.

4. What are the six categories of criminal law violations? Describe each and rank the categories in terms of seriousness. 

Felonies are serious crimes, such as murder and rape. Offenders convicted of felonies can be incarcerated or sentenced to death and will lose certain privileges.



Misdemeanors are relatively minor crimes, such as petty theft. Generally, misdemeanors are punishable by a year or less in prison.



Infractions are minor violations of state statute or local ordinance punishable by a fine or other penalty or by a specified, usually limited, term of incarcertaion. INractions typically include such things as jaywalking, spitting on the sidewalk, and litering.



Treason is considered among the most serious felonies. Treason occurs when a U.S. citizen helps a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or injure the United States.



Espionage is also considered among the most serious felonies. It is related to treason but can be committed by noncitizens. Espionage focuses on the gathering, transmitting, and losing of information related to national defense in such a manner that the information becomes available to enemies of the United States and may be used to their advantage.



Inchoate offenses are incomplete offenses, or offenses that have not been fully carried out, such as conspiracy or an attempt. Inchoate offenses can still be serious (attempted murder), but they are less serious because the offense was not completed.

The rank order of seriousness will vary. 5.

List and describe the eight general features of crime. What are the “three conjoined elements” that comprise the legal essence of the concept of crime?  Actus Reus—The guilty act or act in violation of the law.  Mens Rea—The guilty mind or state of mind that accompanies a criminal act. Concurrence—The coexistence of (1) an act in violation of the law and (2) a culpable mental state.  Causation—The concurrence of a guilty mind and a criminal act may cause harm.  Harm—The harm caused by the crime.  Legality—A behavior cannot be criminal if no law exists against it. Punishment—No crime can be said to occur where punishment has not been specified in the law.  Necessary Attendant Circumstances—The facts surrounding an event.

The three conjoined elements that comprise the legal essence of the concept of crime are the criminal act, a culpable mental state, and a concurrence of the two.

6. Explain what is meant by the elements of a specific criminal offense. The elements of a crime are the essential features of that crime as specified by law or statute; the statutory minimum conditions without which the crime cannot be said to have occurred. Because statutes vary across jurisdictions, the specific elements of a criminal crime may also vary from place to place. Each crime has its own individual set of elements or conditions that are necessary for a person to be charged with that crime. To convict a defendant of a particular crime, prosecutors must prove that all of the required statutory elements are present and that the defendant was responsible for producing them. If even one element of an offense cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant will be found not guilty. 7. What four broad categories of criminal defenses does our legal system recognize? Under what circumstances might each be employed? The four categories of criminal defense recognized include alibi, justification, excuse, and procedural defense. An alibi means that the defendant was somewhere else at the time of the crime. When a defendant offers a justification, they admit to the wrong but argues that it was necessary to avoid a greater evil. A defendant offering an excuse claims that a personal condition or circumstance was such that they should not be held accountable under the law. A defendant who makes a procedural defense claims that they were discriminated against in some way or appropriate procedures were not followed.

CHAPTER 4 Policing: Agencies and Structure CHAPTER OVERVIEW Police agencies in the United States function to enforce the statutes created by lawmaking bodies, and differing types and levels of legislative authority are reflected in the diversity of police forces in our country today. Consequently, American policing presents a complex picture that is structured along federal, state, and local lines. Dozens of federal law enforcement agencies are distributed among 14 U.S. government departments and 28 non-departmental entities, and each federal agency empowered by Congress to enforce specific statutes has its own enforcement arm. The FBI may be the most famous law enforcement agency in the country and in the world. The mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners. State law enforcement agencies have numerous functions, including assisting local law enforcement departments in criminal investigations when asked to do so, operating centralized identification bureaus, maintaining a centralized criminal records repository, patrolling the state’s highways, and providing select training for municipal and county officers. State law enforcement agencies are usually organized after one of two models. In the first, a centralized model, the tasks of major criminal investigations are combined with the patrol of state highways. The second state model, the decentralized model, draws a clear distinction between traffic enforcement on state highways and other state-level law enforcement functions by creating at least two separate agencies. Local police agencies represent a third level of law enforcement activity in the United States. They encompass a wide variety of agencies, including municipal police departments, rural sheriff’s departments, and specialized groups like campus police and transit police. Private protective services constitute another level of law enforcement. Whereas public police are employed by the government and enforce public laws, private security personnel work for corporate or private employers and secure private interests. Private security personnel outnumber public law enforcement officers in the United States, and private agencies provide tailored protective services funded by the guarded organization rather than by taxpayers. A number of international law enforcement organizations, including Europol and Interpol, work 35

with governments and enforcement agencies from multiple countries in identifying illegal activities and capturing perpetrators in order to bring them to justice. The focus of American policing shifted after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Many agencies formed special anti-terrorist squads and began gathering intelligence on terrorist threats that might endanger the United States, including local communities. Important insights into what works and what doesn’t in policing have been gained through the application of scientific principles to the study of policing and crime control and prevention programs. Today, evidence-based policing (EBP) continues to inform the decision-making processes of competent law enforcement leaders. This chapter points out that people of color are now employed in policing in numbers that approach their representation in the general population. Women, however, are still significantly underrepresented. Questions can be raised about the degree of participation of underrepresented populations in the command structure of law enforcement agencies, about the desire of significant numbers of women to work in policing, and about the respect accorded to women and members of other underrepresented groups who work in law enforcement by their fellow officers. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Briefly describe federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. 2. Identify the two major models of state law enforcement organization. 3. Describe the various kinds of local law enforcement agencies and their roles in enforcing the law. 4. Describe private protective services in the United States and their possible future roles. 5. Name two international police agencies that this chapter identifies. 6. Describe how concerns over terrorism have changed policing in America. 7. Explain evidence-based policing (EBP), including why it is so important today. 8. Identify some of the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity issues in policing. LECTURE OUTLINE I. 

Introduction Teaching Note: Explain that the structure of modern-day American policing is very complex, with agencies functioning at the federal, state, and local levels. Ask students to identify various types of problems that might arise as a consequence of this complex structure and discuss ways to reduce or eliminate these problems. 36

II. 



III.  

IV. 

 

V. 



VI.

American Policing Today: Federal to Agencies Teaching Note: Explain the functions of federal law enforcement officers. Consider contrasting these functions to those of local police. A. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Teaching Note: Explain how the FBI’s function and primary activities have changed since the bureau’s early days and discuss how terrorist attacks on the United States have had a special impact on the FBI’s activities. American Policing Today: State Agencies Teaching Note: Explain the advantages and disadvantages of the two state policing models (centralized and decentralized). Teaching Note: Have students research the state policing model used in their state (or assign students or groups of students a specific state to research). Have students debate which model would be the best for their state. American Policing Today: Local Agencies Teaching Note: Ask students why they think the United States has so many local police departments? Have the class discuss whether the United States might be better served by one national police agency, instead of so many separate local departments Teaching Note: Discuss the pros and cons of appointing vs. electing police chiefs and/or sheriffs. Teaching Note: Gather information about the agencies in the jurisdiction of the college or university where you instruct and present it to the class. Discuss the number and types of law enforcement agencies in your jurisdiction. Private Protective Services Teaching Note: Ask students if they believe the rapid growth of private protective services can be expected to continue. Have students predict the problems as well as the benefits that continued expansion of private security services could entail for public law enforcement agencies. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss ways in which cooperation between private and public police agencies might be enhanced, particularly as the role of private security is continuing to expand. A. Integrating Public and Private Security B. Fusion Centers International Police Agencies A. Interpol and Europol 37

 

VII.  

VIII.  



IX.    

Teaching Note: Describe the theme of international police cooperation that characterizes Interpol. Ask what role students envision for Interpol in the twenty-first century. Teaching Note: Remind students that INTERPOL does not have any field investigators or any powers of arrest or search and seizure in member countries. Ask students whether an actual international police force, that did have such powers, would be a good idea. Terrorism’s Impact on Policing Teaching Note: Describe how the role of the police in the United States has changed since the events of 9/11. Teaching Note: Ask students if they think that the post-9/11 integration of military action and civil law enforcement may have contributed to the increasing number of incidents of use of deadly force by the police in recent years. Evidence-Based Policing Teaching Note: Discuss the potential that evidence-based policing holds in the area of police management. Teaching Note: Remind students that there is a difference between the kind of evidence gathered by law enforcement authorities seeking to prosecute criminal offenders and the kind of evidence used in evidence-based practice. Teaching Note: Explain the need to continually evaluate policing techniques to better fulfill law enforcement goals and to use resources wisely. Highlight the fact that reduced federal funding for scientific studies of the police has resulted in dramatically fewer studies today than in the heyday of public funding. Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Diversity in Policing Teaching Note: Identify some of the issues related to ethnic and gender diversity in policing and suggest ways of addressing them. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss why it is important to ensure ethnic and gender diversity in policing. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss reasons why women are still so greatly underrepresented in policing, and ways of addressing this problem. Teaching Note: Ask students to identify other groups that might be underrepresented in policing. A.

Women as Effective Police Officers

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE



The chapter, which has been retitled, focuses on the three levels of policing in the United States, and avoids becoming entangled with some of the claims about slavery as the historical basis for American policing.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Have students visit the websites of several of the federal law enforcement agencies listed in the text and describe the history, mission, organization, and responsibilities of each agency.



Have students gather information about the agencies in the jurisdiction of your college or university and present it to the class. Discuss the number and types of law enforcement agencies within your jurisdiction.



Invite a speaker from a local law enforcement agency to address students. Ask students to question the speaker about how their agency has responded to the threat of terrorism. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students visit the websites of several of the private security agencies listed in the text and describe the history and organization of each agency, as well as the types of security services each agency provides.



Invite a speaker from a private security firm to address students on agency structure and operations. Have students prepare questions in advance, particularly about how the speaker’s agency has responded to the threat of terrorism. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Prior to class, visit a number of private security agency sites on the Web. Gather information on each agency, including services offered, requirements for hiring, employment opportunities, and table of organization. Prepare a presentation for class containing the information you have gathered, organized by agency. Present and review in class.



Visit the Web sites of three different law enforcement agencies: one federal, one state, and one local. Summarize the characteristics of the different agencies. In class, have students view the information and assess the amount and type of information posted on the World Wide Web for each type of department.



Have students visit INTERPOL’s website and review the various types of crimes that have a transnational dimension and require a global response. Have them bring back information on these crimes and what INTERPOL is doing.



Have students visit Europol’s website and review the various types of crimes that have a transnational dimension and require a global response. Have them bring back information on these crimes and what Europol is doing. Watch the video “INTERPOL: Connecting Police for a Safer World” on YouTube.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. Describe federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. There are a large number of federal law enforcement agencies. Federal law enforcement officers are authorized to perform at least one of the following four functions: (1) conduct criminal investigations; (2) execute search warrants; (3) make arrests; (4) carry firearms. The FBI is housed within the Department of Justice. Its mission focuses on defending the U.S. against terrorist threats, enforcing the criminal laws, and providing leadership and criminal justice services to other agencies at all governmental levels. The FBI operates CODIS, a computerized forensic database of DNA profiles of offenders convicted of serious crimes. It also operates one of the largest crime laboratories in the world, which offers free services to all law enforcement agencies in the country. Since the events of 9/11, the FBI’s priorities have changed to focus on preventing future terrorist attacks. More recently, the FBI has refocused its efforts to combat cyber criminals. 2. Explain the role that law enforcement agencies play in enforcing the law, and describe the two major models of state law enforcement. Answers will vary regarding the role that law enforcement agencies play in enforcing the law. The centralized model of state law enforcement combines major criminal investigations with patrolling the state’s highways. The decentralized model makes a clear distinction between traffic enforcement on state highways and other law enforcement functions by forming two distinct agencies. States that use the decentralized model have other adjunct state-level agencies with enforcement powers. 3. What different kinds of local law enforcement agencies exist in the United States today? What role does each agency have in enforcing the law? Large and small municipal departments, county sheriff’s departments, and specialized groups like campus and transit police are all considered local police. Sheriff’s 40

departments are responsible for serving court papers, maintaining security within courtrooms, and running the county jails. Municipal departments are charged with enforcing the law and protecting the citizens within their specific jurisdiction. Similarly, campus and transit police have a different type of city in which to do their job. For campus police, their jurisdiction is the college campus; for transit police, their jurisdiction is the routes and associated properties of the district. 4. Describe the nature and extent of private protective services in the United States today. What role do you think they will play in the future? Private protective services have had an incredible impact on law enforcement and safety in America. Estimates suggest that private security personnel outnumber public law enforcement officers by nearly three to one. This gap is expected to increase, as it is anticipated that the number of people employed in private security will increase at a faster rate compared to the number in public law enforcement. Private agencies provide tailored policing that is funded by the organization being guarded, rather than by public money. Private security activities appear to be growing beyond traditional guard services to include dedicated efforts at security-related intelligence gathering. The relationship of private security to public law enforcement is changing and the focus has largely shifted from competition to the recognition that each form of policing can help the other. A key policy area involves building private security-public policing partnerships to prevent terrorism and to respond to the threat of terrorism. 5. What two international police organizations does this chapter identify? What are their missions? Interpol is an international law enforcement support organization that began operations in 1946. Interpol’s primary purpose is to act as a clearinghouse for information on offenses and suspects who operate across national boundaries. Europol is the integrated police-oriented intelligence-gathering and dissemination arm of the member nations of the European Union. Its mission is to improve the effectiveness and cooperation within the member states of the European Union with the ultimate goal of preventing and combating various serious forms of international organized crime. 6. What new responsibilities have American police agencies assumed since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? What other challenges are they facing? American police agencies have assumed new responsibilities in the areas of terrorism prevention and response since the 9/11 attacks. While the core mission of American police departments has not changed, law enforcement agencies at all levels now devote an increased 41

amount of time and other resources to preparing for possible terrorist attacks and to gathering the intelligence necessary to thwart them. In particular, local police departments play an especially important role in responding to the challenges of terrorism. Not only must they help prevent attacks, but they must respond quickly when attacks occur, offering critical evacuation, emergency medical, and security services to help stabilize communities following an incident. Community policing networks are being used to exchange information with citizens and to gather intelligence. Budgetary considerations and the assessed likelihood of attack to impact a local department’s engagement in preventive activities. Answers regarding additional challenges police agencies are facing will vary.

7. What is evidence-based policing? Why is it so important today? Evidence-based policing (EBP) involves using the best available research on the outcomes of police work to implement guidelines and evaluate agencies, units, and lines. It uses research into everyday police procedures to evaluate current practices and to guide police officers and executives in future decision making. EBP is potentially the most powerful force for change in policing today. It offers a long-term approach for creating cost-effectiveness in policing and for implementing the most effective policies and procedures. 8. Why are issues related to gender, race, and ethnicity so important in American policing today? What problems still exist? How can those problems be addressed? Two critical issues are the recruitment of women and people of color to policing and increasing the number of women and people of color in leadership positions. While people of color are now working in policing in numbers that approach their representation in the population, women are still significantly underrepresented, both among full-time sworn officers and in supervisory positions. Responses regarding how these problems can be addressed will vary.

CHAPTER 5 Policing: Purpose and Organization CHAPTER OVERVIEW The fundamental police mission in democratic societies includes five components: (1) enforcing the law (especially the criminal law), (2) apprehending offenders, (3) preventing crime, (4) preserving the peace, and (5) providing the community with needed enforcement related services. Police management involves the administrative activities of controlling, directing, and coordinating police personnel, resources, and activities in the service of preventing crime, apprehending criminal offenders, recovering stolen property, and performing regulatory and helping services. Virtually all American law enforcement organizations are formally structured among divisions and along lines of authority. Roles within police agencies usually fall into one of two categories: line and staff. Line operations are field or supervisory activities directly related to daily police work. Staff operations include support roles such as administration. Three policing styles are identified in this chapter: (1) the watchman style, (2) the legalistic style, and (3) the service style. The style of policing that characterizes a community tends to flow from the lifestyles of those who live there. Whereas the watchman style of policing, with its emphasis on order maintenance, was widespread during the mid-twentieth century, the service style, which is embodied in the community policing model, is commonplace today. Community policing is built on the principle that police departments and the communities they serve should work together as partners in the fight against crime. Police-community relations (PCR) places emphasis on positive police-citizen interaction. PCR recognizes the need for the community and the police to work together effectively. PCR is based on the notion that the police derive their legitimacy from the communities they serve. Many police agencies began to explore PCR in the 1960s and 1970s, and it is a theme still prevalent in policing today. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Explain the police mission in democratic societies. Summarize the typical organizational structure of a police department. Compare and contrast the three most common policing styles. Explain community policing and tell how it differs from traditional forms of policing. 43

LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction

II.

The Police Mission  

Teaching Note: Discuss each of the five basic elements of the police mission. Explain how they may complement or conflict with each other at various times. Teaching Note: Divide students into five groups and assign each group one of the five elements of the police mission. Have each group explain why its element should take precedence over the others in policing. If you like, you could set this up as a mock campaign, with each group campaigning for its element to be elected “most important” in the police mission. A.



Teaching Note: Discus the possible implications of the inability of the police to enforce all of the laws. Ask the class to discuss whether the police should strive to enforce all laws at all times. Who should be responsible for determining which laws should be prioritized for enforcement? B.



Apprehending Offenders

Teaching Note: Review the broken windows model of policing and explain how it has been used by the NYPD to reduce crime in New York City. C.



Enforcing the Law

Preventing Crime

Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss which are more important: crime prevention techniques or crime prevention programs. D.

Preserving the Peace

Providing Services

Teaching Note: Describe some of the many and varied types of calls for service received by the police, many of which have little to do with crime and law enforcement. Explain how much time service provision may involve and discuss various methods police 44

departments are adopting to deal with non-emergency calls for service, such as the use of 3-1-1 telephone systems. III. 

 

Managing Police Departments Teaching Note: Explain the concept of police management. A. Police Organization and Structure Teaching Note: Discuss the difference between line and staff operations and explain why both are essential for a police agency to function. Teaching Note: Ask students why they think police departments use civilians for many support services activities, rather than sworn officers. B.

IV.

Chain of Command

Policing Styles



The Watchman Style of Policing

The Legalistic Style of Policing

The Service Style of Policing

Teaching Note: Ask the class to describe the police department that serves your school’s community (or the student’s home community in an online-learning class). Is that department characterized by the watchman, legalistic, or service style of policing? Explore the basis for this decision. Police-Community Relations A.



Teaching Note: Ask students why they think team policing programs were not successful. How might these programs be changed to become more successful? B.

 

Team Policing

Community Policing

Teaching Note: Explain how community policing differs from traditional forms of policing. Teaching Note: Discuss the differences between the original concept of police– community relations and the more contemporary notion of community policing. Ask 45

students: Which would appeal more to individual-rights advocates? To public-order advocates? Why? C.

Critique of Community Policing

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE      

A new Reimagining the Police box has been added to the chapter. A brief discussion of Shotspotter has been added. Social justice-related concerns about broken windows policing is now discussed. The case of Daniel Prude is discussed. New Key Terms, including “white privilege” and “white supremacy” have been added. A photo of Keechant Sewell, the first Black woman to hold the position of New York City Police Commissioner, has been added.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Divide the class into five groups and assign each one of the five basic purposes of policing. Have each group research the activities involved in their assigned purpose of policing and the importance of that activity to the police and to society. Lead a class discussion regarding the relative importance of each purpose and have the class rank them in order of importance.



Invite a speaker from a local law enforcement agency to address students on departmental structure and operations. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students research the police department in their home community and identify the style of policing that characterizes that department. Have them present evidence to support their decision.



Invite a local chief of police to speak to the class. Have students prepare and ask questions that will allow the class to discuss later the style of policing that is most characteristic of the local police department. Ask the chief how policing styles have changed, if at all, over the course of their career. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students visit the Web sites of three police departments in different communities and obtain information on each department’s involvement in community policing. Have

them discuss the relationship (if any) between the type and extent of involvement in community policing and the characteristics of the department (size, jurisdiction, etc.). SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. What is the police mission in democratic societies? According to Sir Robert Peel, the basic mission of the police is to reduce crime and disorder. The basic purposes of policing are to enforce the laws, apprehend offenders, prevent crime, preserve domestic peace and tranquility, and provide the community with needed enforcement-related services. 2. Describe the different types of organizational structures typical of American police departments. Nearly all police departments are formally structured across divisions and along lines of authority. Roles within police agencies generally fall within one of two categories: line and staff. Line operations are those field or supervisory activities directly related to day-to-day police work. Staff operations entail activities, such as administration and training, that provide support for line operations. Police agencies are organized with a hierarchical chain of command, which clarifies who reports to whom. A key principle is unity of command, which means that each individual has only one supervisor to answer to and take orders from. 3. What are the three styles of policing described in this chapter? How do they differ? Which one characterizes the community in which you live? James Q. Wilson’s three policing styles include the watchman style, legalistic style, and service style. The watchman style focuses on order maintenance through the control of illegal and disruptive behavior. Watchman-style departments keep order through informal police “intervention.” The legalistic style enforces the letter of the law and routinely avoids community disputes that result from violations of social norms that do not break the law. The service style focuses on helping rather than strict enforcement. Service-style agencies are more likely to use community resources to supplement traditional law enforcement activities than other types of agencies. Answers regarding the style of policing that characterizes each student’s community will vary. 4. What is police-community relations (PCR)? What was the impetus that gave rise to PCR? How does PCR differ from traditional policing? PCR is an area of police activity that recognizes the need for the community and the police to work together effectively. PCR is based on the notion that the police derive their legitimacy from the communities they serve. PCR programs developed out of the increased social disorganization in the U.S. and represented an attempt for the police to reach 47

the grassroots of discontent. There are many ways in which community policing, a form of PCR, differs from traditional policing. First, community policing agencies are willing to work with the public and other community agencies to solve problems. In contrast, the relationship between citizens or community agencies and the police may be in conflict in traditional policing. Second, community policing focuses on solving problems; traditional policing focuses on solving crimes. Third, community policing focuses on all types of problems, even minor incidents, and traditional policing tends to consider non-crime-related calls for service as low-priority items. Finally, community policing is accountable to the community, but traditional policing is accountable to the law.

CHAPTER 6 Policing: Legal Aspects CHAPTER OVERVIEW Legal restraints on police action stem primarily from the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, especially the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, which (along with the Fourteenth Amendment) require due process of law. Most due-process requirements of relevance to police work concern three major areas: (1) evidence and investigation (often called search and seizure), (2) arrest, and (3) interrogation. Each of these areas has been addressed by a number of important U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and it is the discussion of those decisions and their significance for police work that makes up the bulk of this chapter’s content. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect citizens against abuses of police power. It does so by guaranteeing due process of law for everyone suspected of having committed a crime and by ensuring the availability of constitutional rights to all citizens, regardless of state or local law or procedure. Within the context of criminal case processing, due-process requirements mandate that all justice system officials, not only the police, respect the rights of accused individuals throughout the criminal justice process. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution declares that people must be secure in their homes and in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures. Consequently, law enforcement officers are often required to demonstrate probable cause in order to obtain a search warrant from a judge if they are to conduct searches and seize the property of criminal suspects legally. Not all searches require a warrant. Many searches conducted by law enforcement officers fall into the category of warrantless searches, or searches for which a warrant has not been issued by legitimate judicial authority. While most warrantless searches are permissible, some searches require the issuance of a warrant prior to the conduct of the search. The Supreme Court has also established that police officers, in order to protect themselves from attack, have the right to search a person being arrested and to search the area under the arrestee’s immediate control. Technically, arrest takes place whenever a law enforcement officer restricts a person’s freedom to leave. Arrests may occur when an officer comes upon a crime in progress, but most jurisdictions also allow warrantless arrests for felonies when a crime is not in progress, as long as probable cause can later be demonstrated. Reasonable suspicion, which requires a lesser degree of certainty than probable cause, permits the limited detention of persons of interest in an investigation. Consequently, an investigative detention is defined as a temporary seizure of an

individual by a police officer for investigative purposes. A vehicle stop provides an example of detention, not arrest—although the stop might turn into an arrest. Information that is useful for law enforcement purposes is called intelligence, and as this chapter shows, intelligence gathering is vital to police work. The need for useful information often leads police investigators to question suspects, informants, and potentially knowledgeable citizens. When suspects who are in custody become subject to interrogation, they must be advised of their Miranda rights before questioning begins. The Miranda warnings, which were mandated by the Supreme Court in the 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona, are listed in this chapter. They ensure that suspects know their rights—including the right to remain silent—in the face of police interrogation. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Explain how the Bill of Rights protects Americans from police abuse. 2. Explain how the idea of due process and democratically inspired legal restraints on the police help to protect our personal freedoms. 3. Describe the circumstances under which police officers may conduct searches or seize property legally. 4. Describe detention, arrest and types of searches. 5. Describe the intelligence function, including the roles of police interrogation and the Miranda warning. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction 

Teaching Note: Given the large number of cases presented in this chapter, it will be difficult for students to memorize the important holdings of each case. There are two strategies that may be used to help students learn these cases. First, limit the number of cases students are expected to know. Have them focus on those cases which you think are most important and provide them with the list of cases before they read the chapter. Second, if they are expected to know all (or most) of the cases, work with the class to construct a study sheet. For example, one side of the study sheet could be for Fourth Amendment cases and the other for Fifth Amendment cases. Provide subcategories for each set of cases (such as search incident to arrest cases and emergency circumstance cases for Fourth Amendment cases). Help students construct three- or four-word

descriptions of each holding. For example, Mapp v. Ohio could be the “exclusionary rule for states case,” and Warden v. Hayden could be the “emergency search of property case.” II.

The Abuse of Police Power 



Teaching Note: Discuss the Rodney King case, which drew the spotlight of public attention to the abuse of police power over three decades years ago. Ask students if they remember learning about the case and, if so, what they learned. Discuss the possibility that the Los Angeles officers were tried by the media rather than the courts and that these officers may also have a story to tell. Teaching Note: Explain how the potential for police abuse of power is anticipated by the Bill of Rights and how restraints on the police must be constantly balanced against the need for the police to be able to do their jobs. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss how violent acts by the police, such as those described in this chapter, affect their views of the police, and of the criminal justice system in general.

A. 



III.

A Changing Legal Climate

Teaching Note: This would be a good place to revisit the issues discussed in Chapter 1. Recall that one of the important issues discussed in Chapter 1 was the tension between individual-rights advocates and public-order advocates. During the Warren Court era, the Court was stacked with individual-rights advocates. A new conservative philosophy has resulted since a higher percentage of public-order advocates have come on the Court. Some say the Court may shift back toward an individual-rights focus or become significantly more focused on public order. Teaching Note: Explain that the due process environment surrounding police action extends to three important areas: search and seizure of evidence, arrest, and interrogation. Refer to Table 6-1 to highlight the rights of criminal defendants. Teaching Note: Explain how the potential for police abuse of power is anticipated by the Bill of Rights and how restraints on the police must constantly be balanced against the need for the police to be able to do their jobs. Individual Rights A.

Checks and Balances



Teaching Note: Describe checks on police action by the courts. Explain that police agencies in foreign countries are often not constrained by “the rule of law,” and explain why citizens of such countries often live in fear of unbridled police action. Teaching Note: Ask students to propose alternative ways of enticing officers to obey the law, without necessarily letting the guilty go free. B.

 IV.

Due Process Requirements

Teaching Note: Review the concept of “due process” as discussed in Chapter 1. Search and Seizure



Teaching Note: Explain that the U.S. Constitution (through the Bill of Rights) requires law enforcement personnel to seek a warrant before making an arrest or executing a search. Note that warrants are generally issued by magistrates who check to see that the police have probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested is likely to be the person who committed the crime or that the place to be searched is the place where sought-after evidence is likely to be found. Teaching Note: Help students visualize the process of obtaining a warrant by walking them through the steps. For example, a narcotics detective receives information from a reliable informant that a student is selling cocaine from his residence hall. The detective does three undercover buys over a two-week period, obtains a warrant by demonstrating these facts to a magistrate, and executes the warrant. Link this situation to the checks on police behavior. First, require the police to get the warrant before searching and seizing evidence. Second, if the arrested suspect’s case gets into the court system, his attorney would probably make a motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that the evidence was obtained in an unreasonable search and seizure. Be sure to explain such a motion. A.



The Exclusionary Rule

Teaching Note: Review the 1914 case of Weeks v. U.S. and describe the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court that led to the development of the exclusionary rule, which excludes illegally seized evidence from use at trial. Explain that illegally seized evidence often involves evidence that was obtained without a search warrant. Teaching Note: Consider explaining the “silver platter doctrine” which was also established by the Weeks case. This allowed evidence that was illegally obtained by local or state police and “handed it over on a silver platter” to federal law enforcement officers to be used in federal courts, as long as the federal authorities were not involved in obtaining the evidence. The silver platter doctrine was repealed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960 case of Elkins v. U.S., one year before the Mapp case. 52

 



Teaching Note: Explain the influence the Supreme Court can have on criminal justice policy Teaching Note: When discussing the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, consider using the example of an illegally seized document that details the structure of an elaborate illegal drug operation. Tell the class that although enforcement agents may set up complex investigative strategies based on the information in the list and may make hundreds of arrests over a period of months or years, the arrests themselves will be illegal – and the defendants will be set free – if it can be shown that the investigation was based solely on information from the illegally seized document Teaching Note: Have students discuss what they think American criminal justice would be like without the exclusionary rule and the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. Have the class debate whether these rules should be repealed or at least scaled back. Teaching Note: Discuss the way in which Chimel v. California (1969) defined what officers may search, when they may search, and why. Ask students why such directives are necessary and how they help individual suspects but may hinder police activity. Have them propose alternative methods of defining search parameters. B.



 



Judicial Philosophy and the U.S. Supreme Court

Teaching Note: Ask students how the personal views of individual Supreme Court justices might affect the police and society as a whole. Have the class debate whether justices should allow their personal philosophy to influence their judicial decisions. Teaching Note: Discuss the 1961 U.S. Supreme Court case of Mapp v. Ohio and explain that while the Weeks case applied the exclusionary rule to federal courts, Mapp extended it to the states as well. Teaching Note: Describe the notion of good faith and good-faith exceptions to the exclusionary rule. Ask students what they think the impact of good-faith exceptions will be on American criminal justice and whether they think the Court should ever have created the good-faith exception. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and hold a debate on whether the U.S. Supreme Court should have created exceptions to the exclusionary rule. Teaching Note: Discuss the wide variety of police investigative activities that have been approved by the courts over the years by referring to Table 6-3. Ask students which of the police powers identified in the table are exceptions to the exclusionary rule and which are not. Which do they find acceptable? Teaching Note: Describe the plain-view doctrine. Ask students what they think the ultimate impact of the plain-view doctrine will be on American criminal justice and whether they think the Court should ever have created it. Ask how hard this doctrine might be for police officers to keep in mind in their daily work.

 

Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether the plain-view doctrine should apply to computer searches. Teaching Note: Given the advent of good-faith exceptions to the exclusionary rule, the plain-view doctrine, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recognition of the need for emergency searches, ask students if it is realistically possible to argue that the exclusionary rule is still effective in contemporary American criminal justice or if the exclusionary rule has been so watered down by recent decisions that it is little more than a paper tiger. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and hold a debate on whether the U.S. Supreme Court should have created exceptions to the exclusionary rule. Teaching Note: Explain the use of no-knock search warrants and have the class discuss whether they believe courts should be permitted to issue such warrants. Detention and Arrest

  

Teaching Note: Define arrest and describe how popular depictions of the arrest process may not be consistent with legal understandings of the term. Teaching Note: Explain the difference between detention and arrest. Teaching Note: Ask students why an arrest is considered a form of seizure and therefore subject to the Fourth Amendment. A.

   

Teaching Note: Compare and contrast probable cause and reasonable suspicion. Teaching Note: Explain the rule regarding searches incident to arrest. Ask the class to discuss what limits they believe should be placed on such a search. Teaching Note: Explain why the 1968 Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio is considered to be a landmark case. Ask students to consider the possible purposes of a search incident to arrest. B.



Emergency Searches of Persons

Teaching Note: Review the four conditions that must apply for the police to conduct an emergency search of an individual without a warrant? Ask the class to discuss whether they agree with all four conditions, and to suggest other conditions that perhaps also should be required. C.



Searches Incident to Arrest

Vehicle Searches

Teaching Note: Discuss the U.S. Supreme Court’s rationale for allowing warrantless vehicle searches in cases in which the vehicle might quickly leave the jurisdiction of the 54



investigating officers. Note that because motor vehicles are highly mobile, officers may have the authority to search vehicles they have stopped without a warrant if they have reason to believe that the vehicles may harbor contraband or other evidence. Teaching Note: Explain that the police do not need reasonable suspicion to stop vehicles at checkpoints and roadblocks, as long as the police treat all vehicles the same way. D.



Teaching Note: Explain the Supreme Court’s rationale in allowing suspicionless searches in cases in which the need to maintain public safety may provide a compelling interest that can negate an individual’s right to privacy. E.



VI.

Suspicionless Searches

High-Technology Searches

Teaching Note: Have the class discuss whether the use of high-technology devices such as thermal-imaging devices violates the public’s right to privacy. The Intelligence Function



Teaching Note: Explain intelligence and the importance of intelligence gathering in police work. A.



Teaching Note: Explain that the Crime Stoppers program (discussed in Chapter 5) allows people to leave anonymous tips for the police and that the informants’ names are never revealed. B.



Informants

Police Interrogation

Teaching Note: Begin a discussion of police interrogation with the 1936 U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Mississippi, which outlawed the use of physical force in interrogative settings. Discuss how some forms of coercion are inherent rather than obvious and how psychological manipulation can be a form of unfair interrogation. Teaching Note: Discuss the implications of the 1991 case of Arizona v. Fulminante, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that under limited circumstances, the admission of a coerced confession into a criminal trial might be nothing more than a “trial error” that does not require the automatic reversal of a lower court’s conviction. Teaching Note: Ask the class to consider the possible benefits and drawbacks to the mandatory recording of police interrogations. 55



Teaching Note: Discuss the unreliability of eyewitness identification. (The Innocence Project website has a section on eyewitness misidentification, including a video and information on research into factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness identification). C.



Teaching Note: Explain that, as a result of the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case of Escobedo v. Illinois, suspects have the right to have a lawyer present during police interrogations. Teaching Note: Point out to students that interrogation can be a subtle and complex process, wherein respect for individual rights and police mandates must be carefully balanced to ensure fairness and ultimately just trials and outcomes. D.



 



 



The Right to a Lawyer at Interrogation

Suspect Rights: The Miranda Decision

Teaching Note: Review the case of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and discuss each of the five warnings that law enforcement officers are required to give to defendants. Ask the class to discuss what abuses each warning prevents and what police actions each warning hampers. Have the class debate whether the police should be required to provide each statement to criminal suspects. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and have them debate the question of whether Miranda should be overturned. Teaching Note: Examine the impact of Miranda warnings on American criminal justice. How might the justice system have functioned differently before 1966 (the date of the Miranda decision) than it does now as a result of this decision? Teaching Note: Ask students what rights, if any, they would add or remove from the Miranda rights. Teaching Note: Ask the class to consider each of the rights statements that make up the Miranda decision. Have students debate the wisdom of having law enforcement officers provide each rights statement to criminal suspects. Teaching Note: Remind students that suspects may only waive their Miranda rights through a voluntary waiver that is knowing and intelligent. Ask students to discuss how we can determine if a waiver truly is voluntary, knowing, and intelligent. Teaching Note: Review the public safety exception to Miranda and ask students what other exceptions to Miranda they think might be reasonable. Teaching Note: Explain the concept of Miranda triggers and discuss under what circumstances officers do not have to provide Miranda warnings. Ask students how the meaning of Miranda might change if the Court required only the first trigger (arrest). Teaching Note: In the case of Salinas v. Texas, the Court stated that defendants must expressly invoke their Miranda rights to ensure that their silence is not used against them 56

in court. Hold a debate regarding whether a defendant’s silence itself should be sufficient to indicate they are invoking their right to silence. E.   

Teaching Note: Explain the concept of nontestimonial evidence and discuss why the collection of this type of evidence creates legal complications for law enforcement. Teaching Note: Explain that body packing involves the swallowing or insertion into body cavities of drug-filled containers for the purpose of drug smuggling. Teaching Note: Review the case of U.S. v. Montoya de Hernandez (1985). Lead a discussion as to whether the investigating officers had sufficient reason to detain the suspect in this case. F.



    

Gathering of Special Kinds of Nontestimonial Evidence

Electronic Eavesdropping

Teaching Note: Have students identify the various types of electronic information that the typical person generates in an average day. Discuss which types of information might form the basis for the criminal prosecution of those involved in illegal activities. Teaching Note: Discuss the ways in which electronic evidence differs from other types of evidence. Teaching Note: Describe how the Electronic Communications Privacy Act limits the wiretapping and eavesdropping activities of law enforcement officers. Teaching Note: Explain how the USA PATRIOT Act has affected the ability of police investigators to intercept various forms of electronic communication. Teaching Note: Place students into groups and have them debate the pros and cons of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). Teaching Note: Explain that electronic evidence is similar in many ways to other forms of evidence and that crime scenes involving electronic evidence should be secured as soon as possible to avoid contamination or destruction of the evidence.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE 

 

The case of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old woman shot and killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers while serving a no-knock warrant on her apartment in 2020, is now discussed. Two new Key Terms, “nonbinary persons” and “cisgender” have been added to the chapter. A new Reimagining Criminal Justice Box on arrest has been added.



A new U.S. 2021 Supreme Court case of Lange v. California, in which the high court held that “pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect does not always justify a warrantless entry into a home,” has been added. The discussion of the USA PATRIOT Act has been updated.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Ask the class to list each of the Supreme Court decisions discussed in this chapter. Have students group the decisions according to the Court that rendered them (the Warren Court, the Rehnquist Court, and so on). Have class members assign a score to each decision, indicating whether it would likely appeal more to individual-rights advocates or public-order advocates. Decisions appealing most to individual-rights advocates could be scored a 0, and those with the greatest appeal to public-order advocates might be ranked 10, with other rankings in between.



Ask the class to consider each of the rights statements that make up the Miranda decision. Have students debate the wisdom of having law enforcement officers provide each rights statement to criminal suspects. Are there any “rights” that students would add to, or remove from, the Miranda rights? If so, what would they be?



Encourage students to listen to old time radio productions of police dramas such as Dragnet that were produced prior to the wave of court cases expanding individual rights and guaranteeing individual due process. Ask them to identify examples of how “times have changed.” Many of these programs are available online free to stream.



Have students keep a daily log of the kinds of electronic signals and the forms of electronic information they generate over a week. Ask them to decide how each item of information (and each type of media involved) might be useful to criminal investigators were the students to be involved in criminal activity.



Assign each student one of the legal issues discussed in the chapter. Have them locate a recent case that is relevant to that issue. Students are to read the full text of the case, summarize the case, explain the decision of the Court and the reasons behind the decision, and discuss any dissenting views. If the decision negates or contradicts anything in the textbook discussion, students should identify and explain the change.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. Name some of the legal restraints on police action, and list some types of behaviors that might 58

be considered abuse of police authority. Legal restraints on the police help ensure individual freedoms in our society. They come primarily from the Bill of Rights, particularly the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and include safeguards against illegal searches and seizures and protections against arrest without probable cause. Behaviors that might be considered abuse of police authority include an unjustified search without a warrant and the use of force and/or violence during an interrogation. 2. Explain how the idea of due process and democratically inspired legal restraints on the police help to protect our personal freedoms. Due process and democratically inspired legal restraints on the police are designed to protect citizens against abuses of police power. They show that the police are not above the law but must respect the rights of accused individuals. They also provide procedural guidelines that the police must follow when conducting searches and seizures, making arrests, and interrogating suspects, and provide consequences if these guidelines are not followed. For example, police officers who which to conduct a search and seize the property of a criminal suspect must do so within the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment. If an officer violates the law, the evidence obtained as a result may be unusable. These due process rights are central to democracy, and without them personal freedoms would suffer greatly. 3. Describe the legal standards for assessing searches and seizures conducted by law enforcement agents. The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. In most cases, the police must have a warrant before being legally permitted to conduct a search. The exclusionary rule holds that evidence that is illegally seized, or is seized without regard to the principles of due process, may not be allowed as evidence in a criminal trial. 4. What is arrest, and when does it occur? How do legal understandings of the term differ from popular depictions of the arrest process? How does detention differ from arrest? An arrest is the act of taking an adult or juvenile into physical custody by authority of law for the purpose of charging the person with a criminal offense, a delinquent act, or a status offense, terminating with the recording of a specific offense. Technically, an arrest occurs whenever a law enforcement officer curtails a person’s freedom to leave. 59

Popular depictions of arrest differ significantly from legal understandings. When an arrest occurs in popular culture, it usually involves the suspect being chased, subdued, and handcuffed after committing a serious crime. In practice, such situations rarely occur, and most arrests are more mundane, with an individual usually being arrested after agreeing to be questioned by police officers. Investigative detention is a temporary seizure of an individual by a police officer for investigative purposes. It differs from arrest in that the amount of time a person may be detained depends upon how long it would reasonably take to conduct an investigation of the facts at hand or to finish police business. 5. What is the role of interrogation in intelligence gathering? List each of the Miranda warnings. Which recent U.S. Supreme Court cases have affected Miranda warning requirements? Intelligence is information that is useful for law enforcement purposes; intelligence gathering is vital to police work. One method of gathering intelligence is interrogation. Interrogation includes any behaviors by the police that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. It often involves direct questioning of suspects by the police to gather information but may involve activities that go beyond verbal questioning, such as staged lineups, reverse lineups, positing guilt, minimizing the moral seriousness of crime, and casting blame on the victim or society. The Miranda warnings are:  You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.  You have the right to talk to a lawyer and to have a lawyer present while you are being questioned.  If you want a lawyer before or during questioning but cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you at no cost before any questioning.  If you answer questions now without a lawyer here, you still have the right to stop answering questions at any time. Recent Supreme Court cases that have affected Miranda warning requirements include:  Moran v. Burbine and Colorado v. Spring describe the waiver of Miranda rights by suspects  Brewer v. Williams and Nix v. Williams created the inevitable-discovery exception to the Miranda requirements  New York v. Quarles established the public-safety exception to the Miranda rule

 

Colorado v. Connelly held that “self-coercion” due to the defendant’s mental condition does not bar prosecution based on information revealed by the defendant Kuhlmann v. Wilson permitted the passive gathering of information and Illinois v. Perkins permitted active questioning by an undercover officer posing as a fellow inmate in jail

CHAPTER 7 Policing: Issues and Challenges CHAPTER OVERVIEW The police personality is created through informal pressures on officers by a powerful police subculture that communicates values that support law enforcement interests. This chapter describes the police personality as, among other things, authoritarian, conservative, honorable, loyal, cynical, dogmatic, hostile, prejudiced, secret, and suspicious. Various types of police corruption were described in this chapter, including “grass eating” and “meat eating.” The latter includes the most serious forms of corruption, such as an officer’s actively seeking illegal moneymaking opportunities through the exercise of their law enforcement duties. Ethics training is mentioned as part of a “reframing” strategy that emphasizes integrity in an effort to target police corruption. Also discussed was a recent U.S. DOJ report that focused on enhancing policing integrity and that cited a police department’s culture of integrity as more important in shaping the ethics of police officers than hiring the ‘right’ people. Police professionalism requires that today’s law enforcement officers adhere to ethical codes and standards established by the profession. Police professionalism places important limits on the discretionary activities of individual enforcement personnel and helps officers and the departments they work for gain the respect and regard of the public they police. The dangers of police work are many and varied. They consist of violent victimization, disease, exposure to biological or chemical toxins, stressful encounters with suspects and victims, and onthe-job fatigue. Stress-management programs, combined with department policies designed to reduce exposure to dangerous situations and agency practices that support officers’ needs, can help combat the dangers and difficulties that police officers face in their day-to-day work. Law enforcement officers are authorized to use the amount of force that is reasonable and necessary in a particular situation. Many officers have encounters where the use of force is appropriate. Nonetheless, studies show that the police use force in fewer than 20% of adult custodial arrests. Even in instances where force is used, police officers primarily use weaponless tactics. Excessive force is the application of an amount or frequency of force greater than that required to compel compliance from a willing or unwilling subject. Police discretion refers to the opportunity for police officers to exercise choice in their 62

enforcement activities. Put another way, discretion refers to 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. The widest exercise of discretion can be found in routine situations involving relatively less serious violations of the law, but serious criminal behavior may also result in discretionary decisions not to make an arrest. Racial profiling, or racially biased policing, is any police action initiated on the basis of the race, ethnicity, or national origin of a suspect rather than on the behavior of that individual or on information that identifies the individual as being or having been engaged in criminal activity. Racial profiling is a bigoted practice unworthy of the law enforcement professional. It has been widely condemned as being contrary to basic ethical principles. Further, it weakens the public’s confidence in the police, thereby decreasing police–citizen trust and cooperation. This chapter pointed out, however, that racial or ethnic indicators associated with particular suspects or suspect groups may have a place in legitimate law enforcement strategies if they accurately relate to suspects who are being sought for criminal law violations. Civil liability issues are very important in policing. They arise because officers and their agencies sometimes inappropriately use power to curtail the civil and due-process rights of criminal suspects. Both police departments and individual police officers can be targeted by civil lawsuits. Federal suits based on claims that officers acted with disregard for an individual’s right to due process are called 1983 lawsuits because they are based on Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code. Another type of civil suit that can be brought specifically against federal agents is a Bivens action. Although the doctrine of sovereign immunity barred legal action against state and local governments in the past, recent court cases and legislative activity have restricted the opportunity for law enforcement agencies and their officers to exercise claims of immunity. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe the police personality and subculture. 2. Describe different types of police corruption and possible methods for building police integrity. 3. Summarize the importance of police professionalism and ethics as well as methods for building them. 4. Describe the dangers, conflicts, challenges, and sources of stress that police officers face in their work. 5. Summarize the guidelines for using force and for determining when excessive force has been used. 6. Explain how police discretion affects contemporary law enforcement. 63

7. Describe racial profiling and biased policing, including why they have become significant issues in policing. 8. Describe civil liability issues associated with policing, including common sources of civil suits against the police. LEARNING OUTLINE I.

Introduction

II.

Police Personality and Culture 

 



III.

Teaching Note: Describe the police subculture according to the values that this chapter says are characteristic of that subculture. Explain how the police subculture influences the development of the police personality through socialization, and review the characteristics of the police personality by referring to Table 7-1. Teaching Note: Relate the police working personality to the police subculture. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss what elements of the police subculture and personality might lead to problems for officers who are women, both personally and in their underutilization in a police department? Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss the elements of the police subculture and identify each as desirable or undesirable. Ask students which aspects of the subculture they would change if they could and discuss ways of effecting such changes. Corruption and Integrity

  

 

Teaching Note: Ask students what elements of the police subculture might be changed to fight police corruption and how such changes could be brought about. Teaching Note: Explain the difference between police corruption and other forms of police misconduct or deviance. Teaching Note: Ask students to identify pressures that officers are likely to face that might lead to corruption. Focus in particular on the potential of illegal drugs, and the large amounts of money associated with them, for corrupting law enforcement personnel. Teaching Note: Explain the events leading up to the Knapp Commission. Review the concepts of grass eaters and meat eaters and the differences between them. Teaching Note: Explain the characteristics of policing that create opportunities for corruption and discuss the concept of the “slippery slope.” A.

Money – The Root of Police Evil?



Teaching Note: Have students discuss whether increasing police officer pay would reduce police corruption. B.



 

Teaching Note: Explain that internal affairs divisions are charged with investigating wrongdoing by police officers and discuss other methods departments can use to fight corruption. Teaching Note: Discuss the importance of ethics training as a key element in the efforts to control police corruption. Teaching Note: Review Garrity rights and lead a discussion as to whether police officers have these protections. Ask students how the special (non-civilian) status of the police affects their rights. C.



IV.

Building Police Integrity

Drug Testing of Police Employees

Teaching Note: Have students discuss whether police officers should be subject to random drug testing. Teaching Note: Explain that the drug testing of police officers is important not just in keeping police departments drug-free but also in fighting corruption. Professionalism and Ethics

 



Teaching Note: Review the hallmarks of a profession. Then divide the class into groups and have them debate whether police work in America today is a profession. Teaching Note: Have students read the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics in an “Ethics and Professionalism” box in this chapter and discuss whether they think the code is realistic. Ask them what elements should be added or removed. Teaching Note: Have students research the CALEA accreditation requirements and the accreditation process. Have them discuss the pros and cons of accreditation and whether it is worth the effort for a police agency to go through the process. A.



Education and Training

Teaching Note: Explain the importance of higher education to police officer training, especially in the era of community policing. Ask students how they think education might make a difference in their own approach to policing and if it has already changed their sense of the profession.



Teaching Note: Point out that police standards and training vary greatly among jurisdictions. Have students discuss whether there should be a national standard that all police officers in the U.S. must meet. Teaching Note: Hold a debate regarding whether police applicants should be required to have a college degree. The Dangers of Police Work

 

Teaching Note: Discuss what can be done to reduce danger to the police. Teaching Note: Ask the class to suggest other (perhaps currently unrealized) dangers of policing that might occur in the future and suggest ways the police can protect against these dangers. A.

 

Teaching Note: Point out that although the police do face a risk of violent death in the line of duty, the actual rate of such death is extremely small. Teaching Note: Explain the dangers of police work by referring to the risk of violence on the job, the danger of infectious diseases such as AIDS, terrorism, and the possibility of infection at accident sites and when dealing with injured people. Use Figure 7-2 to highlight the kinds of situations in which law enforcement officers are most likely to be killed. B.



Violence in the Line of Duty

Risk of Disease, Drug Exposure, and Infected Evidence

Teaching Note: Point out that casual contact will not lead to HIV/AIDS, that there must be contact with fresh blood or other body fluids, and that breaks in the skin or mucous membranes provide the most likely route for infection to occur. Note, however, that the Ebola virus is more infectious and that additional precautions should be taken when dealing with persons exposed to Ebola. Discuss the roles that accident scenes, rape crimes, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), bites, and cuts may play in Ebola or HIV transmission. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and hold a debate regarding whether police officers should have the right to refuse to have physical contact with someone who is known to have an infectious disease. Teaching Note: Lead a discussion regarding what police managers should do regarding officers who are infected with serious communicable diseases. C.

Stress and Fatigue among Police Officers



VI.

Teaching Note: Ask students to identify elements of the police subculture and working personality that may cause police officers and administrators to avoid acknowledging the psychological stress of using deadly force. Teaching Note: Outline some techniques for stress reduction, such as exercise, meditation, breathing exercises, prayer, music, subliminal conditioning, and diet. Discuss techniques that are most likely to work with law enforcement personnel and those that are least likely to be effective. Teaching Note: Have students research support programs for police officers’ family members and present their findings in class. Compare the various programs and discuss whether police departments are doing enough or if more support for families of police officers is necessary. Police Use of Force

    



Teaching Note: Describe the situations in which police officers are most likely to use force and provide some guidelines for determining when too much force has been used. Teaching Note: Discuss how the immediate situation can affect whether an officer’s actions are considered to be excessive or not. Teaching Note: Use Figure 7-5 to discuss the application of a critical decision-making model to the use of force, including deadly force. Teaching Note: Explain the difference between excessive force and the excessive use of force. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss who should be responsible for determining whether an officer used excessive force in a specific situation. Have the class discuss if someone who was not present at the scene can fully understand the officer’s decision to use force. Teaching Note: Have the class discuss whether it is reasonable to compare an officer’s split-second decision to use force that was made during an emotionally-charged event with recommendations made by others who have repeatedly viewed a video of the event in a calm environment. Teaching Note: Discuss the recent National Consensus Policy on Use of Force and explain when, according to this policy, the use of deadly force by police is justified. Ask students what guidance officers should be given to determine when they are justified in using deadly force. A.



Deadly Force

Teaching Note: Ask the class to discuss how a community policing approach could affect police views of when deadly force is appropriate.

  

 VII.   

VIII. 



IX.

Teaching Note: Discuss the 1985 Supreme Court case of Tennessee v. Garner and explain how this case affected police use of deadly force. Teaching Note: Discuss the problem of “suicide by cop” and the effects it might have on officers. Teaching Note: Have students discuss what elements of the police subculture and personality cause police officers and administrators to avoid acknowledging the psychological stress of using deadly force. B. Less-Lethal Weapons Teaching Note: Discuss the possible risks of using less-lethal weapons. Discretion and the Individual Officer Teaching Note: Discuss the implications of allowing officers to have discretion when carrying out official duties, including making the decision whether to arrest. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss what might happen if police discretion was severely curtailed or was completely eliminated. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether police discretion violates the right to equal justice and to propose ways to control and guide discretion without eliminating it completely. Racial Profiling and Biased Policing Teaching Note: Explain the difference between racial profiling and behavioral profiling. Ask students why behavioral profiling is considered to be acceptable while racial profiling is not. Teaching Note: Consider discussing recent media, political issues, and research focusing on this topic. Police Civil Liability A.



 

Common Sources of Civil Suits

Teaching Note: Review the major sources of civil liability, as listed in Table 7-3. Have students discuss ways of reducing the potential for civil liability for individual officers, administrators, and departments as a whole. Teaching Note: Explain the impact of department policy in reducing civil liability. Teaching Note: Ask students how discretion could lead to civil liability. Have them discuss what departments might do to train officers to use discretion wisely and to avoid major sources of civil liability through the proper exercise of discretion. 68



Teaching Note: Discuss some of the main types of police officer behavior that may result in civil liability. B.



Federal Lawsuits

Teaching Note: Discuss the concepts of sovereign immunity and qualified immunity and have students discuss whether police officers, police departments, and other government agencies should have any form of immunity.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE      

A new chapter-opening story begins the chapter. A discussion of how big city police departments are now training their officers in deescalation tactics in an effort to reduce and restrict the use of force has been added. Concerns over COVID-19 have been added to the list of concerns affecting officer safety. Discussion of the use of force has been updated, and the traditional use-of-force continuum has been replaced with a newer critical decision-making model. Section 835a of the California Penal Code that restricts the use of deadly force by police officers has been added as an extract within the chapter. “Racial profiling” and “profiling” have been added as Key Terms, and the discussion of profiling has been expanded.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Ask students to list police activities that might be regarded as corrupt. Discuss the list, deciding on a “final” list of activities that most students agree are forms of corruption. Then have the class rank each of the items in the list from the least serious to the most serious.



Huge monetary settlements in the LAPD’s Rampart scandal went to drug dealers, gang members, and other criminal offenders who claimed that they had been framed, shot, beaten, or otherwise mistreated by police. Ask students if they agree with Los Angeles city councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s statement that, “Civil rights are civil rights, and they apply to everyone across the board.” Why or why not?



Have students research racial profiling (the web site of the American Civil Liberties Union – the ACLU – may be a good source of information) and present arguments for and against the use of racial profiling as a necessary tool for the police.



Have students locate recent newspaper articles on police corruption and identify the effect of each incident on the police department and the community. 69



Have students create a questionnaire designed to assess the degree of racial profiling by the police that respondents feel they have experienced, if any. Administer the questionnaire to people on campus, at a local shopping center, or on the Web.



Invite a human resource officer from a local police department to visit the class and discuss issues relating to officer stress and the ways in which the department assists officers and their families in dealing with stress. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students research the education and training requirements in various departments in your state, or have each student (or group of students) research a different state. Discuss the wide variation in standards and the implications of this diversity. In a distance learning class, students may research requirements in their home states.



Visit a number of police memorial Web sites. Prepare a display of the types of information displayed on these sites and discuss in class.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. What is the police working personality? What are its central features? How does it develop? How does it relate to police subculture? The working personality includes all aspects of the traditional values and patterns of behavior evidenced by police officers who have been effectively socialized into the police subculture. Characteristics of the police personality often extend to the personal lives of law enforcement personnel. Characteristics of the police working personality include authoritarianism, cynicism, conservatism, suspicion, hostility, individualism, insecurity, loyalty, efficiency, honor, secretiveness, and prejudice. American police officers develop a working personality through an informal socialization process wherein officers learn “appropriate” police behavior (that is, acceptable to fellow officers) from veteran members of the department. Once acquired, it creates a “streetwise” view of the world shared by members of the police ranks. The police working personality is a central component of police culture. Rookie officers are socialized into the police culture. Hiring practices, training, interactions with supervisors, other officers, and citizens are all issues that impact this socialization process. The working personality is one byproduct of this socialization process. 2. What are the different types of police corruption? What themes run through the finding of the Knapp Commission and the Wickersham Commission? What innovative steps might police departments take to reduce or eliminate corruption among their officers? 70

Police corruption ranges from minor violations to serious violations of the law. The main types of police corruption include accepting gratuities, playing favorites, taking minor or major bribes, being above “inconvenient laws,” role malfeasance, committing property crime, engaging in criminal enterprise, denying civil rights, and committing violent crime. Researchers have also provided more specific categories of police corruption. Barker and Carter, for example, distinguish between occupational deviance and abuse of authority, and the Knapp Commission report distinguished between grass eaters and meat eaters. Both the Knapp and Wickersham Commissions found that the infamous “blue wall,” a contributing factor in police corruption, existed. The willingness of police officers to tolerate corrupt behavior known to them rather than to report it (characterized as “ratting” on a fellow officer) baffles most observers. While controlling corruption is difficult, there are several ways police administrators may attempt to minimize it. Ethics training must be emphasized. Additionally, formal and informal leaders within police ranks must create a culture in which the intolerance of behavior that diminishes the group is valued above misplaced loyalty toward a corrupt fellow officer. 3. What is police professionalism? How can you tell when police action is professional? Why are professionalism and ethics important in policing today? Police professionalism is the increasing formalization of police work and the accompanying rise in public acceptance of the police. Police action is generally professional when it is rational, fair, and unbiased. Professionalism is important in policing because it legitimizes the police role in society. A commitment to ethical guidelines, professional associations, and accreditation sends a clear message about the quality of a profession. 4. What are the dangers of police work? What can be done to reduce those dangers? The dangers of police work include violence in the line of duty, the risk of disease and exposure to biological or chemical toxins, stress, and on-the-job fatigue. Many police departments have taken proactive steps to reduce these dangers by improving training, developing support programs, and making organizational adjustments. It may be that the most important step that has been taken by departments is the acknowledgement that these dangers exist. 5. In what kinds of situations are police officers most likely to use force? When has too much force been used? The use of force is a relatively rare occurrence; police use force in less than 20% of all adult custodial arrests. Police are most likely to use force when making arrests, dealing 71

with disturbances, handling domestics, and making traffic stops. The amount of force used is considered to be excessive when it is greater than that required to compel compliance from a willing or unwilling subject. This may be as simple as pushing a suspect when grabbing the suspect would have been sufficient. 6. What is police discretion? How does the practice of discretion by today’s officers reflect on their departments and on the policing profession as a whole? Police discretion is the opportunity for law enforcement officers to exercise choice in their daily activities. Discretion is essential to policing in America. Because police agencies receive too many calls and departmental priorities are influenced by a number of external factors, flexibility in police response is critical to police legitimacy. If, however, police discretion results in unpredictable and discriminatory practices, such as racial profiling, then the reputation of police departments and the policing profession is damaged. 7. What is racial profiling? What is racially biased policing? Why have they become significant issues in policing today? Racial profiling is any police-initiated action that is based on the race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than on the behavior of an individual, or on information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged in criminal activity. Racially biased policing involves police actions based on race alone. These have become significant issues in policing today for several reasons. First, several research reports have indicated that racial profiling is a significant problem. Second, media coverage of these reports and the publicity of specific profiling incidents have increased public awareness and concern about this problem. Third, national opinion polls have shown that the vast majority of respondents are morally opposed to the practice of racial profiling by the police, although beliefs about its use vary widely by race. 8. What are some of the civil liability issues associated with policing? What are some of the common sources of civil suits against the police? How can civil liability be reduced? There are several civil liability issues associated with policing. First, there have been an increasing number of suits brought in federal courts against police departments. Second, such cases generate a good deal of media publicity and criticism directed at the police department. Third, in general, the U.S. Supreme Court has supported a type of qualified immunity for individual officers. The most common sources of civil lawsuits against the police include assault, battery, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. Departments may protect themselves from lawsuits to a significant degree by providing 72

proper and adequate training to their personnel, and by creating regulations limiting employee authority. Because civil lawsuits against police probably will not decline in number, most police departments have started to carry liability insurance to protect themselves against the financial damages of losing a large civil suit.

CHAPTER 8 The Courts: Structure and Participants CHAPTER OUTLINE In the United States, there are two judicial systems. One consists of state and local courts established under the authority of state and local governments. The other is the federal court system, created by Congress under the authority of the U.S. Constitution. This dual-court system historically results from general agreement among the nation’s founders about the need for individual states to retain significant legislative authority and judicial autonomy separate from federal control. A typical state court system consists of trial courts of limited jurisdiction, trial courts of general jurisdiction, and appellate courts – usually including a state supreme court. State courts have virtually unlimited power to decide nearly every type of case, subject only to limitations imposed by the U.S. Constitution, their own state constitutions, and state law. It is within state courts that the large majority of criminal cases originate. The federal court system consists of three levels: U.S. district courts, U.S. courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. district courts are the trial courts of the federal system and are located principally in larger cities. They decide only those cases over which the Constitution gives them authority. The highest federal court, the U.S. Supreme Court, is located in Washington, D.C., and hears cases only on appeal from lower courts. The courtroom work group comprises professional courtroom personnel, including the judge, the prosecuting attorney, the defense counsel, the bailiff, the local court administrator, the court reporter, the clerk of court, and expert witnesses. Also present in the courtroom for a trial are “outsiders”—nonprofessional courtroom participants like witnesses and jurors. The courtroom work group is guided by statutory requirements and ethical considerations, and its members are generally dedicated to bringing the criminal trial and other courtroom procedures to a successful close. This chapter describes the role that each professional participant plays in the courtroom. The judge, for example, has the primary duty of ensuring a fair trial—in short, seeing that justice prevails. Nonprofessional courtroom participants include lay witnesses, jurors, the victim, the defendant, and spectators and members of the press. Nonjudicial courtroom personnel, or outsiders, may be unwilling or inadvertent participants in a criminal trial. 74

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Summarize the development of American courts, including the concept of the dual-court system. 2. Describe a typical state court system, including some of the differences between the state and federal court systems. 3. Describe the structure of the federal court system, including the various types of federal courts. 4. Identify all typical job titles of the courtroom work group members. 5. Describe the roles of outsiders, or nonprofessional courtroom participants. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction

II.

History and Structure of the American Court System 



III.

Teaching Note: Explain the differences between state and federal courts and provide a brief overview of how our country’s system of separate state and federal courts developed. Teaching Note: Ask students whether they agree with the move towards increasing the power of the federal government in comparison to the states. The State Court System A. The Development of State Courts



Teaching Note: Outline state court development, beginning with the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and continuing to the present day. Use Figure 8-2 to demonstrate the general state court structure. Teaching Note: Discuss the concepts of original and appellate jurisdiction. Explain that early courts did not distinguish between these concepts but that today courts generally have either original or appellate jurisdiction. B.

State Court Systems Today

 



 

IV.

Teaching Note: Outline the structure of a typical state court system and describe the jurisdiction of various types of state and local courts. Teaching Note: Explain that most state judicial structures encompass courts at three levels: trial, appellate, and supreme. Mention that a state supreme court is also called a court of last resort. Teaching Note: Explain that the function of appellate courts is to review decisions made by lower courts within their jurisdiction. Tell the class that defendants convicted in a lower court generally have a right to appeal and that most convictions are confirmed upon appeal. Teaching Note: Ask students to theorize as to why most state court systems have two levels of trial courts and two levels of appellate courts. Teaching Note: Describe the high workloads facing many criminal courts today. Discuss the fact that many simple disputes, even if they involve minor crimes, may not need formal resolution before a formal court of law Teaching Note: Discuss the goals of problem-solving courts and explain how they differ from other criminal courts. Teaching Note: Describe the relatively recent evolution of dispute resolution centers as informal mechanisms for the mediation of conflicts. Consider using the example of a dispute over a parking space on a crowded residential street leading to a minor act of vandalism, such as a broken car antenna or a punctured tire, to illustrate the type of disagreement that might benefit more from mediation than from formal intervention by a court of law. The Federal Court System

   

Teaching Note: Discuss the rise of federal courts by referring to Article III, Section I, of the U.S. Constitution, which outlines the specific structure of federal courts. Teaching Note: Identify the three levels of the federal judiciary and describe some of the differences between state and federal court systems. Teaching Note: As you move through the section on federal courts, compare each federal court to the corresponding level of state courts. Teaching Note: Unlike judges in state courts, federal judges and justices serve for life. Have students discuss the pros and cons of life tenure. Dive the class into groups and hold a debate regarding whether federal judges and justices should serve life terms. A.



U.S. District Courts

Teaching Note: Tell the class that there are 94 federal district courts. Explain that federal district courts have original jurisdiction over all cases involving alleged violations of federal statutes. 76



Teaching Note: Review Justice Roberts’ concern regarding the pay of federal district court judges. Ask students to discuss whether federal district court judges should be paid a salary similar to what they could earn in private practice, as a way of attracting more highly-qualified judges to the federal bench. B.



Teaching Note: Explain that the U.S. Constitution created a Supreme Court and gave Congress the power to create inferior courts. Ask students why they think Congress felt it necessary to create a second level of appellate courts. Teaching Note: Refer to figure 8-3 to describe the geographic boundaries of the federal judicial circuits. C.



U.S. Courts of Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court

Teaching Note: Discuss the power of judicial review and explain that the U.S. Supreme Court wields immense judicial power by virtue of its role as interpreter of constitutional mandates. Teaching Note: Highlight the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) as significant because it was through this case that the U.S. Supreme Court first asserted its power and laid claim to its continuing role as the ultimate arbitrator of constitutional issues. The case is available online for students to read. Teaching Note: Have students examine the changing composition of the Supreme Court since the Reagan-Bush era. Ask them to discuss how the daily activities of police officers, lower court functionaries, and prison administrators could be affected by the changing makeup of the Court. Teaching Note: Ask students to identify whether the current makeup of the Supreme Court more reflects the individual rights or public order viewpoint. The Courtroom Work Group



Teaching Note: Consider using a well-known and highly-publicized criminal case as an example when discussing the roles of the various professional courtroom actors, including the judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, bailiff, local court administrator, court reporter, clerk, and expert witness. A.

The Judge



Teaching Note: Explain the general responsibilities of the trial judge by referring to the American Bar Association’s Standards for Criminal Justice. Emphasize the judge’s role as mediator within an adversarial setting. Teaching Note: Point out that the chapter describes three systems of judicial selection. Ask students to discuss which of the three would be most favored by public-order advocates and which by individual-rights advocates. Teaching Note: Explain the various kinds of processes used in different jurisdictions for the selection of judges. Describe the problems associated with both political appointment and popular election, including the fact that appointed judges may unfairly represent the interests of those who appoint them. Class Activity: Divide the class into groups and assign each group a selection method to research and support (election, appointment, or the Missouri Plan). Conduct a debate on which is the best method. B.



  

Teaching Note: Explain the role of the prosecuting attorney as the primary representative of the state or the people. Emphasize the fact that within the adversarial context of a criminal trial, the prosecuting attorney is expected to argue the state’s case effectively. Teaching Note: Discuss the prosecutor’s law enforcement role and the need for close cooperation and communication with the police. Teaching Note: Ask students whether the prosecutor’s role as an advisor to the police might create bias. Teaching Note: Explain prosecutorial discretion. Demonstrate that the discretionary decision of a prosecutor as to whether a suspect should be charged with a crime makes the prosecutor one of the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system.

C.  



The Prosecuting Attorney

The Defense Counsel

Teaching Note: Compare and contrast the two major categories of criminal defense attorneys: retained counsel and indigent defense. Teaching Note: Explain that as a result of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), criminal defendants are now entitled to have a lawyer to represent them in court. Ask what impact the Gideon decision probably had on the legal profession in this country. Teaching Note: Be sure to explain to students why defendants need the assistance of counsel. Discuss the complexity of court proceedings and point out that the majority of defendants have low income and little education. In the same way we rely on doctors when we need medical treatment, defendants need attorneys, as educated and trained professionals, to cut through legal complexities on their behalf. 78

 



VI.

Teaching Note: Review the five systems used to deliver legal services to defendants who are unable to pay for private defense attorneys. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and lead a debate as to which of the five systems used to deliver legal services to defendants who cannot afford to hire an attorney is the best. Teaching Note: Assign students one of the five systems used to deliver legal services to defendants who cannot afford to hire an attorney and have them create public service announcements or other advertisements supporting their system. Teaching Note: Describe the ethical concerns of the defense lawyer by referring to the “Ethics and Professionalism” box in this chapter, which highlights the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Ask students how the adversarial model (and the win-lose scenario) creates temptations for defense attorneys to violate these standards. D.

The Bailiff

Trial Court Administrators

The Court Reporter

The Clerk of Court

Expert Witnesses

Teaching Note: Describe an expert witness as someone who is recognized as having special knowledge and skills in an area of concern to the court. Explain that expert witnesses, unlike lay witnesses, may express opinions and draw conclusions in their areas of expertise. Teaching Note: Most authorities agree that jurors usually view expert testimony as more trustworthy than other forms of evidence. Ask students to discuss the implications of this and how it might affect the way prosecutors and defense attorneys approach a case. Outsiders: Nonprofessional Courtroom Participants



Teaching Note: Explain what the textbook means by describing nonprofessional participants in criminal trials as providing “grist” for the judicial mill. A.



Lay Witnesses

Teaching Note: Explain that lay witnesses may testify only about things they know from personal experience to be true. 79



Teaching Note: Describe some of the hardships endured by witnesses in criminal trials, such as uncertainty of what is expected of them, anxiety about having to testify, possible fear of the defendant, and lack of knowledge of courtroom procedure. Teaching Note: Explain how lay witnesses and expert witnesses differ, and emphasize the importance of both to the judicial process. B.

 



Teaching Note: Point out that jury duty is the one remaining way in which members of the public can be involved in the judicial process. Teaching Note: Define a peer jury as a jury composed of a representative cross-section of the community. Explain that the right to a jury of one’s peers is not guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution but by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss the ways in which our jury system does and does not serve individual-rights and public-order needs. Teaching Note: Explain that one of the biggest challenges for jurors is to remain objective and to avoid making up their minds about guilt or innocence until all evidence has been heard. Teaching Note: Emphasize that juries can be unpredictable. Even in cases in which there is overwhelming evidence in support of a conviction, jurors have been known to return not guilty verdicts, reacting more to emotional testimony than facts. One of the best movie portrayals of jury decision making is 12 Angry Men. C.



Jurors

The Victim

Teaching Note: Point out that the victim’s role in court processing (trial and sentencing) is much more limited today than in the past, and that many victims today have little if any input or involvement. Teaching Note: Encourage students to students imagine what it would be like for a victim to testify at trial. Explain that many victims have to sit outside the courtroom waiting to be called as witnesses and describe how the process is intimidating, frightening, and overwhelming for victims. Remind students that it is the responsibility of the defense attorney to raise some doubt in the minds of jurors about the suspect’s guilt. This can often result in a very painful cross-examination for the victim. Teaching Note: Ask students to consider how court processes may potentially cause harm to crime victims of crime and to discuss ways in which the courts could work to reduce this harm, which is also known as “secondary injury.” D.

The Defendant



Teaching Note: Describe the role of the defendant in the criminal trial. Highlight the choices the defendant makes as the trial proceeds, including the selection of an attorney, the choice of a plea, and the decision about whether to testify. Teaching Note: Point out that the defendant has considerably more influence over the court process than the victim does. Ask students whether they agree with this or if they believe victims should have more input. E.



Spectators and the Press

Teaching Note: Discuss the ways in which pretrial news coverage may be damaging to the objective outcome of a criminal trial. Given the emphasis that our society places on freedom of the press and freedom of speech, ask students whether they agree that judges should be allowed to issue gag rules restricting the ability of trial participants to discuss a case outside of court. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and hold a debate as to whether video cameras should be permitted in criminal courtrooms.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE  

The discussion of indigent defense systems has been revised and updated. The discussion of virtual courtrooms has been enhanced.



Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is now discussed.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Students may have a difficult time understanding how the state and federal court systems interact in practice. One way to illustrate state and federal court decision-making processes is to walk a case through the various levels. For example, you could discuss a felony murder trial that receives a significant amount of pretrial publicity. Discuss how the defendant would be tried first in a state court of general jurisdiction. Then explain the process of appeal from the state intermediate appellate court to the court of last resort. Explain in what circumstances the case could be appealed directly to a federal district court or to the U.S. Supreme Court (for example, if there was a claim that the defendant’s due process right to a speedy trial was violated).



Have students research the various methods used for judicial selection. Lead a debate regarding which is the best method.



Invite a local or federal magistrate to speak to the class. Have students prepare questions in advance about the challenges of the magistrate’s role in the criminal justice process. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a federal judge to speak with the class. Have the judge outline their responsibilities and discuss the differences between being a federal judge and a judge in a state court. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a court judge to visit and speak to the class. Have the judge outline their responsibilities and discuss the adversarial process. Ask the judge to discuss the greatest challenges they face. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a prosecutor and/or defense attorney to speak to the class (either separately or together). Ask them to describe their respective roles and to comment on what they believe are the pros and cons of the adversarial process in criminal trials. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a court administrator to speak with the class. Ask the administrator to outline their responsibilities and to discuss the complexities involved in ensuring the courts run smoothly. Have students prepare questions regarding juror management and possible strategies for making the system run more efficiently and more humanely. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a local bail bondsperson to visit the class and explain how the bail process operates. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Assign students (or groups of students) a specific state and have they research the use of dispute resolution and specialized courts. Have each student/group present their findings to the class. Lead a discussion on how state systems are similar and how they vary.



Have the class research the congressional confirmation hearings of selected Supreme Court nominees, including Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, John G. Roberts, Samuel Alito, Robert Bork, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Ask them to identify the issues raised by both sides in the debates over these candidates. Have the class decide, on the basis of the confirmation hearings, which of these nominees would make the best justice, and have them provide the reasoning behind their decision. Which of these candidates would probably be the favorite of individual-rights advocates? Of public-order advocates? Why? 82



Have students visit the Web site of the U.S. Supreme Court and view various sections of the stie. Have students develop a list of ten facts that they learned about the Court from this exercise. This could be given as a written assignment or used as an in-class activity.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. How did the American court system develop? What are some of the unique features of American court history? What is the dual-court system? Why do we have a dual-court system in America? The dual-court system is the result of general agreement among the nation’s founders about the need for individual states to retain significant legislative authority and judicial autonomy separate from federal control. States, when joining the union, were assured of limited federal intervention in their affairs. States were free to create laws and create a court system to interpret such laws. Unique features include the fact that state courts do not hear cases of federal law and that the federal courts decide issues of state law only when there is a conflict between state statutes and constitutional guarantees. The dual-court system in America is comprised of courts on two levels—the federal and the state. The dual-court system results from America’s adoption of the federal system of governance. The federal government retains power over matters that are national in scope while relinquishing power to the states over other matters. This structure necessitates the existence of court systems in each resulting jurisdiction that are empowered to rule on matters from the unique perspective of that jurisdiction’s constitution. 2. What is a typical state court system like? What are some of the differences between the state and federal court systems? Most state court systems involve a three-tiered structure of two trial courts and an appellate tier. Lower courts are trial courts of limited or special jurisdiction. They are authorized to hear less serious criminal cases or to hear special type of cases, such as traffic violations, family disputes, and small claims. Trial courts of general jurisdiction are authorized to hear any criminal case and may also provide the first appellate level for courts of limited jurisdiction. The state appellate division includes a high-level appellate court, or court of last resort, and may also include an intermediate appellate court, or court of appeals. There are several differences between federal and state courts. First, the two court systems have different jurisdiction over various issues of law. Second, the number of cases processed by the two systems is very different. Far more cases are processed through state court systems than the 83

federal court system. Third, the types of cases processed by the two systems are different, as many more misdemeanors and offenses are processed in state court systems. Finally, state court systems are much more likely to have instituted some informal type of court, such as dispute resolution centers, to handle some cases. 3. How is the federal court system structured? What are the various types of federal courts? Federal courts were created by the U.S. Constitution, which provides for one Supreme Court any inferior courts which Congress may establish. The federal court system has jurisdiction over cases arising under the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties. Federal courts are also where disputes are settled between states or when one of the parties in a case is a state. The federal judiciary consists of three levels: U.S. district courts, U.S. courts of appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court. The 94 U.S. district courts are the trial courts of the federal system and have original jurisdiction over all cases involving alleged violations of federal statutes. The 13 U.S. courts of appeals, which are sometimes referred to as circuit courts, hear appeals from the district courts located within their individual circuits. The highest court in the nation is the U.S. Supreme Court, which has the power of judicial review and may hear appeals from U.S. courts of appeals and from state supreme courts. 4. What is meant by the courtroom work group? Who are the professional members of the courtroom work group, and what are their roles? The courtroom work group refers to the professional courtroom actors, including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, public defenders, and others who earn a living serving the court.  The judge ensures justice, balancing the rights of the accused and the interests of society, and holds ultimate authority.  The prosecuting attorney is responsible for presenting the state’s case against the defendant and also is a quasi-legal advisor to police departments.  The defense counsel is responsible for representing the accused as soon as possible after arrest and through all stages of the court process.  The bailiff is responsible for ensuring order in the court.  The trial court administrator is responsible for facilitating the smooth functioning of the court.  The court reporter is responsible for creating a record of all that occurs during a trial.  The clerk of court maintains all records of criminal cases, creates a pool of potential jurors, and marks physical evidence during a trial.  Expert witnesses testify at trial about scientific evidence.

5. Who are the nonprofessional courtroom participants, and what are their roles?     

Lay witnesses provide nonexpert testimony, such as eyewitness testimony. Jurors have the role of the arbiters of facts presented at trial. The victim works with the prosecutor to obtain a conviction. The defendant wants to defend themselves against the charges. Spectators and the press may be present at trial but have no formal role.

CHAPTER 9 Pretrial Activities and the Criminal Trial CHAPTER OVERVIEW This chapter describes the criminal trial process and the court-related activities that take place before the trial begins. Pretrial activities include the first appearance, which involves appointment of counsel for indigent defendants and consideration of pretrial release; the preliminary hearing to determine whether there is probable cause to hold the defendant; the filing of an information by the prosecutor or the return of an indictment by the grand jury; and arraignment, at which the defendant may enter a plea. Guilty pleas, when they are made, are often not as straightforward as they might seem and are typically arrived at only after complex negotiations known as plea bargaining. The criminal trial involves an adversarial process that pits the prosecution against the defense. Trials are peer-based fact-finding processes intended to protect the rights of the accused while disputed issues of guilt or innocence are resolved. The primary purpose of a criminal trial is to determine whether the defendant violated the criminal law of the jurisdiction in which the court has authority. A criminal trial has eight stages: trial initiation, jury selection, opening statements, presentation of evidence, closing arguments, judge’s charge to the jury, jury deliberations, and verdict. Each is described in detail in this chapter. At least a few experts have suggested the training and use of a cadre of professional jurors, versed in the law and in trial practice, who could insulate themselves from media portrayals of famous defendants and who would resolve questions of guilt or innocence more on the basis of reason than emotion. The American court system has been called into question by some well-publicized trials of the last two decades, which have demonstrated apparent weaknesses in the trial process. Some people suggest that court unification might help address a number of today’s problems by reducing the number of jurisdictions, resulting in more uniform procedures. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe pretrial steps and activities. 2. State the purpose of the criminal trial. 86

3. Describe the criminal trial process. 4. Describe ways of improving the adjudication process. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction

II.

Pretrial Activities 

Teaching Note: Figure 9-1 outlines the common pre-trial activities. If any of these have different names in your state, explain this to students. For distance learning classes, consider asking students to research the procedures in their home states to identify any variations in the pre-trial process. A.



 



 

The First Appearance

Teaching Note: Teaching Note: Describe the role of the magistrate in terms of deciding whether an arrest was properly made. Discuss what might be a reasonable period of time for a first appearance before a magistrate. Explain the necessity for a quick appearance in terms of the potential for abuse, the detention of political prisoners, and so on. Teaching Note: Explain the significance of the first appearance before a magistrate as an opportunity for release via the setting of bail, release on recognizance, and so on. Explain that a high percentage of all criminal defendants are released from custody before trial. Teaching Note: The U.S. Constitution states that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Divide the class into groups and lead a debate regarding whether the pretrial detention of unconvicted defendants violates the presumption of innocence requirement. Teaching Note: Describe the various alternatives available for the setting of bail. Class Activity: Have students research how bail works in other countries (for example, in England, bail generally is not financial, and defendants do not have to post money to get bail) and report back to the class. Lead a discussion as to the pros and cons of the various methods. Teaching Note: Discuss former attorney general Loretta Lynch’s description of money bail as contributing to “the criminalization of poverty.” Have students consider whether the use of cash bail should be eliminated, or at least severely limited. Teaching Note: Discuss danger laws, which are designed to prevent the pretrial release of criminal defendants judged to represent a danger to others. Class Activity: Have students research the proportion of criminal defendants who are released before trial on the federal and state levels. Lead a discussion as to how the

community might be reasonably protected, given the release of so many criminal suspects. B. 



Teaching Note: Explain the role of the grand jury in returning criminal indictments. Comment on the fact that not all states use the grand jury system, although all make use of some form of indictment or information. Teaching Note: Point out that very few countries other than the U.S. still use the grand jury system. Consider leading a class debate regarding whether the U.S. should abolish the grand jury system. C.



 

III.

Arraignment and Plea

Teaching Note: Discuss the various pleas that are allowed. Explain the difference between a plea of guilty and one of nolo contendere and what advantages there may be for a defendant to plead “no contest” instead of guilty. E.



The Preliminary Hearing

Teaching Note: Explain the purpose of a preliminary hearing and its similarity to a trial. D.



The Grand Jury

Plea Bargaining

Teaching Note: Describe plea bargaining by highlighting how the process serves the interests of the defendant, the prosecutor, and the court. Ask students to identify those interests and ask whether plea bargaining might circumvent other community interests. Teaching Note: Ask the class to discuss the pros and cons of plea bargaining, and to consider whether it might be harmful to the defendant and to society. Teaching Note: Ask students whether victims should have the right to have input in the plea bargaining process, and if they should be able to veto a plea bargain. The Criminal Trial A. Nature and Purpose of the Criminal Trial

 

Teaching Note: Explain the importance of the advocacy model to the adversarial system. Review the pros and cons of the adversarial system. Teaching Note: Explain that although the criminal trial depends on an adversarial process, it is not a free-for-all. Explain that the adversarial model relies on well-defined

rules of procedure that have evolved through years of common practice and that are often codified. IV.

Stages in a Criminal Trial 



Teaching Note: Have students research the trial chronology in their state (or assign students or groups of students specific states to research) and identify how these processes may differ from those outlined in the book. For distance learning classes, students may research the processes in their home states to identify variations. Teaching Note: Refer to Figure 9-2 while discussing the stages in a criminal trial. A.



Teaching Note: Cite the federal Speedy Trial Act as typical of the attempt by states and the federal government to comply with the Sixth Amendment’s requirement of a fast trial. Explain that the intent of the Sixth Amendment was to prevent innocent people from languishing in jail before trial. B.



 

Trial Initiation: The Speedy Trial Act

Jury Selection

Teaching Note: Discuss the process of jury selection. Ask why one side in the adversarial process might prefer jurors with certain characteristics, while the other side might not. Ask what characteristics might be relevant in this regard. Teaching Note: The textbook states that some prospective jurors deliberately try to get excused from jury duty. Ask students why they think this is so. Have them discuss whether they would want to serve on a jury and to consider the difficulties that jury service might create for them. Teaching Note: Explain that peremptory challenges can be used to remove potential jurors without having to cite a reason. Ask whether peremptory challenges based on race should be allowed. Class Activity: Many jurisdictions have developed an orientation video for prospective jurors that explains the process of jury service, including jury selection. Many of these are available online. Have students locate the orientation video for their local jurisdiction (if not available suggest they use one prepared for a neighboring jurisdiction) and watch it. Ask them how they would feel if they were watching it as a prospective juror. Teaching Note: Discuss some of the methods used in scientific jury selection, as well as the pros and cons of this process. Review the use of shadow juries. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether some jurors, such as those with small children, should have the right to refuse to participate in a trial that will require them to be sequestered for a long period of time. Have them consider what might be the pros and cons of permitting this. 89



Teaching Note: Tell the class that in the 1991 case of Powers v. Ohio, the Supreme Court determined that the rights of a White defendant had been infringed when Black citizens were excluded from his jury through the use of peremptory challenges. Ask students whether they believe that the exclusion of Black citizens from a jury about to try a White defendant is as significant a form of discrimination as their exclusion from a jury about to try a Black defendant. C.



 



Teaching Note: Discuss the purpose of the opening statement. Identify which attorney presents first in your state. In distance learning classes, consider asking to students to determine this for their home states. D. The Presentation of Evidence Teaching Note: Describe the various kinds of evidence that may be used in court. Explain the difference between direct evidence and circumstantial evidence by underscoring how the latter requires the judge or jury to reach conclusions, whereas the former needs no interpretation for its significance to be understood. Teaching Note: Refer to the “CJ Issues” box titled “Pretrial and Post-Trial Motions” to discuss the wide variety of pretrial and post-trial motions available to both sides during a criminal trial. Teaching Note: Refer to the types of testimony: direct, cross, redirect, and recross. Explain that prosecutors and defense attorneys can continue asking questions as long as necessary to get all the information from a witness. Teaching Note: Explain perjury and discuss the possible penalty for perjury in your state. Teaching Note: Highlight the problems involved when children are used as witnesses, including issues such as children may not tell the truth, may confuse fact with fiction, may not appreciate the seriousness of the trial process, and may fear a direct confrontation with the defendant. Teaching Note: Describe hearsay as anything not based on the personal knowledge of a courtroom witness. Explain the hearsay rule as a constraint against accepting evidence based on hearsay. Observe that some exceptions to the hearsay rule do exist, such as allowing a witness to repeat the final statements of a dying person. E.



Opening Statements

Closing Arguments

Teaching Note: Discuss the purpose of the closing statement. Identify which attorney presents first in your state. In distance learning classes, consider asking to students to determine this for their home states.



Teaching Note: In most states, the defense attorney presents closing arguments before the prosecutor. Ask students to discuss whether they think the order of presentation matters, and why or why not. F.

 

Teaching Note: Explain the importance of the judge’s charge to the jury and describe how it could affect the outcome of a trial. Teaching Note: Point out that the reasonable doubt standard only applies in criminal courts and that the standard of proof is lower in civil courts. Give examples of cases in which a defendant has been found not guilty in a criminal court but has been found responsible in civil court. G.



 

The Judge’s Charge to the Jury

Jury Deliberations and the Verdict

Teaching Note: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that unanimous jury verdicts are required in all felony trials everywhere. Divide the class into groups and conduct a debate as to whether all jury verdicts should have to be unanimous. Teaching Note: Highlight some of the problems that attend the current jury system, including the ignorance of many jurors of the law and of legal precedent. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and conduct a debate on whether the United States should use professional jurors rather than requiring jury service as a responsibility of citizenship. Improving the Adjudication Process



Teaching Note: Ask students whether they think that high-technology courtrooms might have an impact on the outcome of the trial and if there any situations in which these courtrooms might have some type of negative effect on the trial or the participants. Teaching Note: Ask students how they would improve the adjudication process in criminal cases. Have them propose suggestions for streamlining the system, reducing delays, and increasing the quality of “justice” that results. A.



Virtual Courtrooms and the Future

Teaching Note: Invite students to discuss the pros and cons of virtual trials.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE 

“Preliminary hearing” and “bail” are now better defined. 91

 

The discussion of bail reform and of non-cash bail has been expanded. A discussion of the 2020 U.S. Supreme court case of Ramos v. Louisiana that overruled a precedent that had allowed states to convict defendants with less than unanimous jury votes is now included.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Invite a trial court judge to speak to the class about the trial process and the practice of plea bargaining. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a prosecutor and/or defense attorney to speak to the class (either separately or together). Ask them to discuss the process of jury selection and the trial process from the view of each type of attorney. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a local bail bondsperson to visit the class and explain how the bail process operates. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students research the requirements for jury duty in different states, as well as who is exempted from jury service. Compare and contrast how different states choose jurors. Have students create an “ideal” jury selection process.



Have students attend a session of the local criminal court to observe the court in action. Tell them to keep a log of their observations. Have them report back to the class on their impressions.



Have students visit a local courtroom and evaluate the various types of technologies that are integrated into the courtroom or can otherwise be made available.



Invite a local judge and/or criminal attorney to speak to the class about virtual courtrooms. Ask them to explain the process and to discuss their own experiences with virtual criminal justice procedures such as hearings and trials. Have students prepare questions about the challenges of virtual courtrooms. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



This exercise may be challenging and time-consuming, but it is an effective way to highlight the stages of the criminal trial. Using the Web, compile the facts and witness information for a specific criminal trial. Highlight the key facts for the class. Ask students which facts they think will be emphasized by the prosecutor and by the defense. Ask 92

students to decide which witnesses best support the prosecution’s case and which witnesses support the defense’s case. Walk the case through the trial process, giving examples of opening and closing statements and the types of questions asked on direct examination, and highlight important points for cross-examination. SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. What activities are typically undertaken during the pretrial period (i.e., before the start of a criminal trial)? A number of courtroom activities routinely take place prior to the actual trial of a criminal defendant. These activities might involve the following:  First appearance  Preliminary hearing  Grand jury indictment or prosecutor’s information  Arraignment and plea  Plea bargaining 2. What is the purpose of a criminal trial? What is the difference between factual guilt and legal guilt? What do we mean by the term adversarial system? The primary purpose of a criminal trial is to determine the defendant’s guilt or innocence. Factual guilt deals with the issue of whether the defendant is actually responsible for the crime for which they are charged. Legal guilt is established when the prosecutor presents evidence to convince the dug or jury that the defendant is guilty as charged. The adversarial system is the two-sided structure under which American criminal trial courts operate. It pits the prosecution against the defense and, in theory, justice is done when the more effective adversary is able to convince the judge or jury that their perspective on the case is the correct one. 3. What are the various stages of a criminal trial? Describe each one. Answers should describe each state of the criminal trial, including:  Trial initiation  Jury selection  Opening statements  Presentation of evidence  Closing arguments  The judge’s charge to the jury  Jury deliberations and the verdict

4. How might the adjudication process be improved? Answers should discuss some of the various proposals for improvement. These include court unification to eliminate the overlapping and fragmented jurisdictions of court decision making; court-watch citizen groups; and statistical measurement of court performance.

CHAPTER 10 Sentencing CHAPTER OVERVIEW The goals of criminal sentencing include retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. Retribution corresponds to the just deserts model of sentencing, which holds that offenders are responsible for their crimes. Incapacitation seeks to protect innocent members of society from offenders who might harm them if not prevented from doing so. The goal of deterrence is to prevent future criminal activity through the example or threat of punishment. Rehabilitation seeks to bring about fundamental changes in offenders and their behavior to reduce the likelihood of future criminality, and restoration seeks to address the damage done by crime by making the victim and the community “whole again.” The indeterminate sentencing model is characterized primarily by vast judicial choice. It builds on the belief that convicted offenders are more likely to participate in their own rehabilitation if such participation will reduce the amount of time that they have to spend in prison. Structured sentencing is largely a child of the just deserts philosophy that grew out of concerns with proportionality, equity, and social debt—all of which this chapter discusses. Numerous different types of structured sentencing models have been created, including determinate sentencing, which requires that a convicted offender be sentenced to a fixed term that may be reduced by good time or gain time, and voluntary/advisory sentencing, which consists of recommended sentencing guidelines that are not required by law, are usually based on past sentencing practices, and are meant to guide judges. Mandatory sentencing, another form of structured sentencing, requires clearly enumerated punishments for specific offenses or for habitual offenders convicted of a series of crimes. The applicability of structured sentencing guidelines has been called into question by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions including U.S. v. Booker (2004), which held that guidelines developed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission should be considered advisory rather than mandatory. Just deserts and get-tough-on-crime policies have increased prison populations to the point of overflowing, adding to budget crises that both the federal and state governments have been facing for the past couple of decades. Prison population in the United States have grown far faster than rates of serious violent and property crime, leading to calls for changes in some laws, and for the implementation of alternative forms of criminal sentencing. Alternative sentences include the use of court-ordered community service, home detention, day 95

reporting, drug treatment, psychological counseling, victim–offender mediation, or intensive supervision in lieu of other, more traditional sentences such as imprisonment and fines. Numerous questions have been raised about alternative sentences, including questions about their impact on public safety, the cost-effectiveness of such sanctions, and the long-term effects of community sanctions on people assigned to alternative programs. Alternative sentences are closely linked to a strategy of justice reinvestment, whereby monies saved through alternative sentencing can be reinvested in other aspects of the justice system. Probation and parole officers routinely conduct presentence investigations to provide information that judges may use in deciding on the appropriate kind or length of sentence for convicted offenders. Historically, criminal courts have often allowed victims to testify at trial but have otherwise downplayed the experience of victimization and the suffering it causes. A new interest in the experience of victims, beginning in the 1970s in this country, has led to a greater legal recognition of victims’ rights, including a right to allocution (the right to be heard during criminal proceedings). Many states have passed victims’ rights amendments to their constitutions, although a federal victims’ rights amendment has yet to be enacted. The Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 established statutory rights for victims of federal crimes and gives them the necessary legal authority to assert those rights in federal court. Victim services agencies also provide assistance for crime victims, to include things such as information and referrals, legal an victims’ rights assistance, financial and material assistance, emotional support and safety, medical and physical health assistance, and other services. The four traditional sentencing options identified in this chapter are fines, probation, imprisonment, and—in cases of especially horrific offenses—death. The appropriateness of each sentencing option for various types of crimes is discussed, and the pros and cons of each were examined. Arguments for capital punishment identified in this chapter include revenge, just deserts, and protection of society. The revenge argument builds upon the need for personal and communal closure. The just deserts argument makes the straightforward claim that some people deserve to die for what they have done. Societal protection is couched in terms of deterrence, as those who are executed cannot commit future crimes, and execution serves as an example to other would-be criminal offenders. Arguments against capital punishment include findings that death sentences have been imposed on innocent people, that the death penalty has not been found to be an effective deterrent, that it is often arbitrarily imposed, that it tends to discriminate against powerless groups and individuals, and that it is very expensive because of the numerous court appeals involved. Opponents also argue that the state should recognize the sanctity of human life.

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe the five goals of contemporary criminal sentencing. 2. Define indeterminate sentencing, including its purpose. 3. Describe structured sentencing models in use that became popular during the late twentieth century, using the federal model as an example. 4. Tell how get-tough-on-crime sentencing practices led to significant prison overcrowding in the United States. 5. Describe alternative sentences and their relationship to justice reinvestment strategies. 6. Explain the purpose of presentence investigations and presentence investigation reports. 7. Describe the history of victims’ rights and services, including the growing role of the victim in criminal justice proceedings today. 8. List the four traditional sentencing options. 9. State the arguments for and against capital punishment. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction 

II.

Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether they consider the sentencing decision or the determination of guilt or innocence to be the more difficult decision. The Philosophy and Goals of Criminal Sentencing



Teaching Note: Stress that the dominant philosophies guiding sentencing decisions today are incapacitation and deterrence. An effective way to demonstrate the predominance of these philosophies is to show a graph illustrating the number of incarcerated people over time. Even with declining crime rates, the number of defendants sentenced to incarceration continues to grow. A.



Retribution

Teaching Note: Explain that retribution is similar to the notion of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Add that during Old Testament times, “an eye for an eye” often reduced the punishment offenders experienced. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether or not they agree with the just deserts model of sentencing.

B. 

Teaching Note: Explain incapacitation as society’s interest in making the offender incapable of immediately committing other crimes. C.



 



III.

Rehabilitation

Teaching Note: Explain rehabilitation as an attempt to change the offender into a lawabiding citizen. Discuss how rehabilitation might be measured or studied. Teaching Note: Lead a class discussion on whether rehabilitation is possible. E.



Deterrence

Teaching Note: Explain deterrence as an attempt to convince either the offender or others that criminal activity is not worthwhile. Discuss how deterrence might be measured or studied. Teaching Note: Have the class consider the difference between general and specific deterrence and discuss whether they are equally important goals of sentencing. Ask students which should take priority, if both cannot be achieved equally. Teaching Note: Contrast deterrence and retribution and point out that retribution focuses on the past while deterrence focuses on the future. D.



Incapacitation

Restoration

Teaching Note: Explain restoration as an attempt to make victims “whole again,” insofar as possible. Discuss how restoration might be measured or studied. Teaching Note: Using Table 10-2, compare and contrast restorative and retributive justice. Discuss whether the two models are compatible or contradictory. Teaching Note: Have students discuss which of the goals of criminal sentencing individual-rights advocates would most likely find attractive and which goals would public-order advocates favor. Teaching Note: Ask students to consider whether the goals of criminal sentencing are compatible. Divide the class into groups and have each group formulate a situation in which a sentence that is designed to achieve one goal could negatively affect the attempt to achieve another goal. Teaching Note: Place students in groups and ask them to consider the five goals of criminal sentencing. Have them rank them in order of importance and identify which goals are compatible and which are contradictory. Indeterminate Sentencing 98

A.  



Teaching Note: Describe the nature of indeterminate sentencing and explain its purpose. Teaching Note: Explain that the indeterminate sentencing model, the most common model in the United States for most of the twentieth century, assumed that sentenced offenders would take part in their own rehabilitation if offered the chance at early freedom. Ask students what assumptions this model makes about human behavior Teaching Note: Provide students with sample sentencing options when operating under an indeterminate sentencing model. For example, a defendant convicted of burglary could be sentenced to a fine, probation, 5 to 10 years in prison, or 10 to 25 years, depending on the judge’s decision. Use examples like this to highlight the problems with the indeterminate sentencing model. B.

 



IV.

Explanation of Indeterminate Sentencing

Critiques of Indeterminate Sentencing

Teaching Note: Discuss the problems with the indeterminate sentencing model. Explain that most states no longer use this model and review the reasons why this is the case. Teaching Note: Explain that the indeterminate model failed due to the high rates of recidivism of those sentenced under it. It was replaced in most jurisdictions by the determinate model of sentencing. Thematic Question: Divide the class into groups and lead a debate focusing on whether good time and gain time programs should be expanded, limited, or abolished altogether. Structured Sentencing



  

Teaching Note: Describe the differences between indeterminate and structured sentencing, alluding to the fact that the structured approach generally sets a predetermined term in prison, whereas the indeterminate model sets only minimums and maximums. Teaching Note: Describe the nature of structured sentencing and the different types of structured sentencing models in use today. Discuss which (if any) are used in your state. In a distance learning environment, consider asking students to identify the sentencing model used in their home state. Teaching Note: Explain that the determinate model of criminal sentencing establishes fixed terms of confinement, with dramatically reduced possibilities for parole. Teaching Note: Discuss the role of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in criminal sentencing. Use CJ Exhibit 10-1 to provide examples of such sentencing considerations. Teaching Note: Death-penalty legislation provides an effective illustration of the differences between aggravating and mitigating circumstances. For example, some aggravating circumstances that might be considered during the sentencing phase of a death-penalty trial include the number of victims who were murdered, whether the 99



murder occurred during the commission of another crime (felony-murder), how heinous the murder was, and whether the victim was a law enforcement officer. Mitigating factors include the defendant’s age, the defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense, the defendant’s prior record, and the defendant’s use of drugs or alcohol at the time of the offense. Teaching Note: Ask students to consider the aggravating and mitigating circumstances listed in CJ Exhibit 10-1 and identify any additional items they would like to add, and any items they believe should be removed from the list. Teaching Note: Explain that structured sentencing can result in sentences that mislead the public because inmates in some jurisdictions are still released early for good behavior and other reasons. A.

 



Teaching Note: Describe the federal government’s adoption of determinate sentencing under the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act. Teaching Note: Explain how federal structured sentencing, which has become largely advisory because of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, involves two main components: the level of the offense and the criminal history of the offender. Give examples of various offense levels and criminal history categories to give students a clear sense of how this model works. Teaching Note: Mention that plea bargains, which account for most of the criminal sentences handed down in federal courts, were relatively unaffected by the structured sentencing guidelines adopted in 1984. B.

 



The Legal Environment of Structured Sentencing

Teaching Note: Discuss the impact that the adoption of structured sentencing has had on federal prison populations and on other aspects of the federal criminal justice system. Teaching Note: Explain that some critics of structured sentencing charge that the model does little to promote rehabilitation. Ask students what aspect of the model might lead to such criticism. C.



Federal Sentencing Guidelines

Three-Strikes Laws

Teaching Note: Explain the purpose of three-strikes laws and provide information on any three-strikes legislation in your state. In a distance learning environment, consider asking students to research three-strikes legislation in their home states. Teaching Note: Ask students how three-strikes laws may affect state and federal spending on the criminal justice system and whether such spending can be justified. 100

D.    

Mandatory Sentencing

Teaching Note: Explain the difference between mandatory sentencing and presumptive sentencing. Teaching Note: Point out that three-strikes laws are a form of mandatory sentencing. Teaching Note: Discuss the problem of sentencing disparity and the effect of mandatory sentencing on this problem. Teaching Note: Discuss the impact of mandatory sentencing laws on the criminal justice system. Sentencing and Today’s Prison Crisis

V. 

VI.

Teaching Note: Discuss the impact of get-tough-on-crime policies, including various sentencing policies, on the prison population today. Point out that while crime rates are decreasing, incarceration rates are increasing. Ask students whether they think that the increasing rates of incarceration may have caused the reduced crime rates and explain why this may not actually be the case. For example, point out that many offenders currently are being incarcerated for violations of drug laws, rather than violent or property crimes. Innovations in Sentencing

 

Teaching Note: Explain that innovative judges are using their discretion to impose unique punishments and discuss the use of shaming as a punishment strategy. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss whether they agree with the use of shaming as a form of punishment. A.



VII.  

Justice Reinvestment

Teaching Note: Use Exhibit 10-2 to explain the justice reinvestment decision-making process. The Presentence Investigation Teaching Note: Describe the nature and importance of the presentence investigation report. Teaching Note: Discuss the concept of offender risk and needs assessment (RNA) and review the key high-risk factors that have been identified.

101

 

VIII.



Teaching Note: Describe the usefulness of presentence reports in assisting judges in determining the appropriate kind and length of sentence for convicted offenders. Teaching Note: Have the students brainstorm to identify the factors that they think are relevant for a judge to know to make an accurate sentencing decision. The Victim – Forgotten No Longer A. Victims’ Services Teaching Note: Review the services provided by victim services agencies. Ask students which they believe to be most important. B.



  



Teaching Note: Discuss the growing victims’ rights movement, and draw students’ attention to the ongoing debate regarding the addition of a victims’ rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Teaching Note: Break the class into groups and organize a debate regarding the passage of a federal victims’ rights amendment. Teaching Note: Have students discuss the provisions that a victims’ rights amendment should contain and possibly have them draft a proposed victims’ rights amendment. Teaching Note: Point out that in some cases, the rights of the suspect and victim could conflict in some way. Have students discuss whose rights should have a higher priority – the suspect or the victim – and whether this would change if the victim’s rights conflict with those of a convicted offender (as compared to an unconvicted suspect). Teaching Note: Assign each student (or group of students) a specific state. Have students research the rights provided to victims in that state and report back to the class. Lead a discussion about the similarities and differences among the states. Consider having students debate whether victims’ rights should be standardized nationally. C.

  

IX.

Victims’ Rights

Victim-Impact Statements

Teaching Note: Discuss the purpose of victim-impact statements and the role they play during a sentencing hearing. Teaching Note: Ask students what individual rights might be supported by victim-impact statements and what might be harmed. Teaching Note: Tell the class that victim-impact evidence is simply another form of guidance available to sentencing judges. Discuss the possibility that victim-impact statements might result in sentencing disparity. Traditional Sentencing Options 102

A. 

Teaching Note: Review the four contemporary sentencing practices and discuss why these are still the most commonly used types of punishments. Discuss some other types of sanctions that might be used today, such as community service. B.



 

Sentencing Practices

Teaching Note: Discuss Figure 10-7. Ask the class to identify likely reasons for the increase in court-ordered prison commitments between 1960 and 2010, as well as reasons why prison admissions have declined recently. C.



Sentencing Rationales

Fines

Teaching Note: Review the usefulness of monetary fines as criminal sanctions in terms of the advantages identified in this chapter. Teaching Note: Review the objections to the use of fines. Discuss whether these objections might be more appropriate for certain classes of offenders (drug dealers, for example) than for others. Teaching Note: Discuss the concept of day fines: Fines should be proportionate to the severity of the offense and the financial resources of the offender. Teaching Note: Identify three offenses usually punishable by a fine in your state. Have the class discuss other appropriate sanctions that might be applied and decide whether fines are the most effective way to deal with each type of offense. Death: The Ultimate Sanction

  

Teaching Note: Review the historical imposition of the death penalty, beginning with the early Teaching Note: Discuss why the U.S. Attorney General imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021. Teaching Note: Point out that the number of states that allow the use of capital punishment is decreasing. Teaching Note: Discuss the methods used to impose death and point out that at least one state permits the use of a firing squad in some cases. A.

Habeas Corpus Review

103



Teaching Note: Discuss the fact that an average of over 18 years typically elapses between the time a sentence of death is imposed and the time it is carried out. Discuss why the delay is so lengthy. Ask whether that is too long. Ask how it might be reduced. Teaching Note: Explain the purpose of a writ of habeas corpus, and why then-Chief Justice Rehnquist and others have called for reforms to the federal habeas corpus system. B.



  

Teaching Note: List and explain the various arguments for and against the death penalty as a form of criminal sentencing. Engage the class in a discussion as to the relative merits of each of these arguments. Teaching Note: Discuss the decision by the governor of Illinois in February 2000 to conduct an investigation of the death-penalty system in that state. One factor that motivated the governor was that 13 individuals have had to be released from death row because they were found to be wrongfully convicted. Teaching Note: Discuss the research into the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Ask students how the deterrent effect might be improved. Teaching Note: Explain what the DPIC means by stating that in the U.S. the death penalty has historically served as an instrument of social control. Teaching Note: Discuss the evidence regarding the extent to which the death penalty discriminates against people of color. C.

 



Justifications for Capital Punishment

Teaching Note: Explain that justifications for the death penalty are collectively referred to as the retentionist position. Teaching Note: Discuss the five main retentionist arguments: just deserts, revenge, protection, closure, and victim representation. D.



Opposition to Capital Punishment

The Courts and the Death Penalty

Teaching Note: Review the key Supreme Court decisions regarding the death penalty and related issues. Explain the impact that Furman v. Georgia and Gregg v. Georgia had on death penalty statutes around the country. Teaching Note: Stress that when the Court invalidates a state’s death penalty procedures, as in the recent case of Hurst v. Florida, this does not mean that capital punishment in that state is abolished. E.

The Future of the Death Penalty

104

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE    

    



A new Reimagining Criminal Justice box, called “Cooperative Justice” has been added to the chapter. The federal Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA) is now discussed. Consecutive and concurrent sentences are now Key Terms and clearly defined. Mention is made of the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case of Terry v. U.S. in which the Court held that a crack offender is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act only if convicted of a crack offense that t riggered a mandatory minimum sentence. “Victim services” has been added as a new Key Term in this chapter. Recent state-level changes with regard to the death penalty are discussed. Pro and con arguments with regard to capital punishment have been updated and expanded. The 2021 exoneration of two men convicted of Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination is now discussed. Discussion of a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center, saying that the death penalty in America has historically been used as a mean s of social control, is now included. The Parkland School Shooting and its ramifications are discussed.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Discuss the five goals of sentencing. Have students rank them in order of importance and justify their ranking. Lead a class discussion or debate regarding the relative importance of the goals.



Invite a victims’ rights advocate to speak with the class. Ask them to describe the important issues represented by the victims’ rights movement and to discuss how the structure of criminal trials currently overlooks the interests of victims. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a trial court judge to speak with the class. Ask the judge to discuss the sentencing model used in the state and to explain how sentencing decisions are made. Encourage the judge to talk about situations in which they used judicial discretion in handing down sentences and to explain why. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Present students with sample cases and have them prepare a presentence investigation report, including recommendations for an appropriate sentence. Sample cases should include the crime(s) of which the offender was convicted, the offender’s criminal history, 105

and relevant personal circumstances (employment status, job qualifications, education, etc.) 

Ask the class to undertake an on-campus inquiry into opinions about the death penalty. Have students construct a survey instrument and conduct personal interviews to gauge the degree of opposition to or support for the death penalty. Have students use different offender characteristics (for example, race and gender) as well as different offenses (for example, rape-murder, terrorism, or school shooting) in the survey to see how support varies.



Have students research wrongful convictions and discuss the risk of convicting and punishing innocent people. Have them brainstorm ways of reducing this risk.



The text mentions an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the admission of a victim-impact video in a capital case; the Court rejected the appeal. Have students view the video and read the statements by Justice Stevens, who agreed with the rejection but expressed concerns, and Justice Breyer, who dissented (The video and statements are available on the U.S. Supreme Court website under the case Kelly v. California). Have students discuss whether they think the video in the Kelly case was appropriate, whether victim-impact videos are appropriate in capital cases, and whether victim-impact videos should be allowed at sentencing in non-capital cases.



Divide the class into groups, each taking a position on the death penalty. In class, display three or four Web sites for evidentiary support for various positions. Allow the class to participate in a debate on the issue.



Assign each student a state that permits the use of the death penalty and have them research current statistics on capital punishment in that state. Have them obtain information on the types of crimes punishable by death in that state, the method(s) of imposing death used, the number of offenders on death row, the demographics of death row inmates, and so on. In class, compare the information on the different states.



Have students research examples of sentencing innovations and report back to the class. Lead a discussion on the appropriateness of various “unique” punishments.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. Describe the five goals of contemporary criminal sentencing discussed in this chapter. Which of these goals do you think ought to be the primary goal of sentencing? How might your choice vary with the type of offense? In what circumstances might your choice be less acceptable? 106

The five goals of contemporary criminal sentencing are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. Retribution is the taking of revenge on an offender for their criminal act(s). Incapacitation seeks to deny a criminal the opportunity to commit an offense. Deterrence is the effort to prevent others from committing a criminal act similar to the one for which an offender is being sentenced. Rehabilitation is the effort to reform an offender. Restoration attempts to make the victim of a criminal act “whole again.” Many factors must be considered in determining the primary goal of sentencing. Among them are the prevailing public attitude toward crime and punishment and the severity of the crime for which the offender is being punished. Sentencing goals must be individualized for the crime and the offender. For example, it would be unjust to focus on retribution with a first offender convicted of committing a relatively minor property offense while emphasizing rehabilitation for a repeat offender convicted of a violent crime. Answers will vary. 2. Describe the nature of indeterminate sentencing and explain its positive aspects. What led some states to abandon indeterminate sentencing? Indeterminate sentencing seeks to rehabilitate by affording the offender an opportunity to reduce their sentence. Under indeterminate sentencing, offenders receive unspecified sentences (for example, one to ten years of imprisonment) and the offender’s performance while incarcerated significantly affects the point at which they are paroled. In addition to good time, the offender can accelerate their release through participation in various rehabilitation programs. Critics of the indeterminate model claim that it allows judges’ personalities and personal philosophies to produce too wide a range of sentencing practices and perpetuates a system under which offenders might be sentenced more on the basis of personal and social characteristics than on culpability. These criticisms led many states to adopt some form of structured sentencing, such as determinate sentencing or sentencing guidelines. 3. What is structured sentencing? What is the status of the federal structured sentencing model today? Structured sentencing is a model of criminal punishment that includes determinate sentencing, voluntary/advisory sentencing guidelines, and presumptive sentencing. Although each structured sentencing model has some advantages in better accomplishing equity, proportionality, and social debt when compared to indeterminate sentencing, these models are not without criticism, and there is little evidence to indicate that any of these models will be effective long-term crime107

reduction strategies. The federal structured sentencing model was adopted in 1984 with the passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act. However, recent Supreme Court decisions have made the federal sentencing guidelines merely advisory and have given federal judges wide latitude in imposing punishments. Federal judges must take the guidelines into consideration in reaching sentencing decisions but do not have to follow them. 4. How did get-tough-on-crime sentencing policies lead to the overcrowding that we see in our prisons today? Over the past 40 years, mandatory sentencing laws, three-strikes laws, and other get-tough-oncrime policies significantly increased the use of incarceration as a sentencing option. As a result, even though crime rates began to decrease in the U.S. in the mid-1990s, the number of convicted offenders being sent to prison continued to increase. The rising incarceration rates led to significant prison overcrowding problems at both the state and federal level and placed huge financial burdens on both state and federal governments. 5. What are alternative sanctions? Give some examples of alternative sanctions, and offer an assessment of how effective they might be. Alternative sanctions utilize nontraditional sentences in lieu of imprisonment and fines. Examples of alternative sanctions are community service, in-home detention, day reporting, drug treatment, psychological counseling, victim-witness programming, and intensive supervision. Due to the size of prison populations, alternative sanctions are likely to become more popular. However, there are a number of questions regarding their safety and effectiveness. 6. What is a presentence investigation? How do presentence investigations contribute to the contents of presentence reports? How are presentence reports used? Presentence investigations involve the examination of a convicted offender’s background prior to sentencing. They are generally conducted by probation or parole officers and are submitted to sentencing authorities. The investigation is critical to the quality of the report, as probation officers rely on official records and information provided by the offender and the victim. The more thorough the investigation, the more comprehensive the report. Presentence reports are used by judges to make more informed sentencing decisions, and generally a judge follows the report writer’s recommendation. 7. Describe the history of victims’ rights and services in this country. What role does the victim play in criminal justice proceedings today? Victims historically have been marginalized in the criminal justice process. This began to change 108

in the 1970s, as grassroots organizations worked to inform the public and politicians about the plight of crime victims. One result of this pressure was the 1982 President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime. The Task Force opened a floodgate of legislative changes that have since been implemented to assist crime victims. Among the changes is an expansion of the role of the victim in criminal justice proceedings. Victims, for example, are able to provide victim-impact statements, and the constitutional amendments being considered will increase their involvement in the process even further. 8. What are four modern sentencing options? Under what circumstances might each be appropriate? The four traditional sentencing options are fines, probation, imprisonment, and death. The option selected usually depends on the severity of the offense and the background characteristics of the defendant. Often two or more of these options are combined. 9. Outline the major arguments on both sides of the capital punishment debate. The main arguments against capital punishment include:  It is unconstitutional  Innocent people have been executed  There is a lack of proven deterrence  The imposition of the death penalty is arbitrary  The death penalty discriminates against certain ethnic and racial groups  There are concerns regarding the methods used  It is expensive  Human life is sacred The main arguments in favor of capital punishment include:  Just deserts  Revenge and retribution  Social protection and deterrence  Closure for the victim’s family and friends  It speaks for the victim

109

CHAPTER 11 Probation, Parole, and Reentry CHAPTER OVERVIEW Probation, simply put, is a sentence of imprisonment that is suspended. Its goal is to retain some control over criminal offenders while using community programs to help rehabilitate them. Probation, a court-ordered sanction, is one form of community corrections (also termed community-based corrections) – that is, a sentencing style that depends less on traditional confinement options and more on correctional resources available in the community. John Augustus, a Boston shoemaker, is generally recognized as the world’s first probation officer. By 1925, all 48 states had adopted probation legislation. In that same year, the federal government enacted legislation enabling federal district court judges to appoint paid probation officers and to impose probationary terms. Parole is the conditional early release of a convicted offender from prison. It is a reentry strategy with a primary purpose of returning offenders gradually to productive lives. Parole differs from probation in that parolees, unlike probationers, have been incarcerated. Parole supported the concept of indeterminate sentencing, which held that an incarcerated person could earn early release through good behavior and self-improvement. Twelve especially significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions, each of which was discussed in this chapter, provide the legal framework for probation and parole supervision. The 1987 case of Griffin v. Wisconsin may be the most significant. In Griffin, the Supreme Court ruled that probation officers may conduct searches of a probationer’s residence without either a search warrant or probable cause. Other important court decisions include the 1998 case of Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole v. Scott, in which the Court declined to extend the exclusionary rule to apply to searches by parole officers, and the 2001 case of U.S. v. Knights, which expanded the search authority normally reserved for probation and parole officers to police officers under certain circumstances. Probation/ parole work consists primarily of four functions: (1) presentence investigations, (2) other intake procedures, (3) diagnosis and needs assessment, and (4) client supervision. The tasks performed by probation and parole officers are often quite similar, and some jurisdictions combine the roles of both into one job. Intermediate sanctions, which are sometimes termed alternative sentencing strategies, employ sentencing alternatives that fall somewhere between outright imprisonment and simple 110

probationary release back into the community. These sanctions include shock incarceration, intensive probation supervision, and home confinement with remote location monitoring. Intermediate sanctions have three distinct advantages: (1) They are less expensive than imprisonment, (2) they are socially cost-effective because they keep the offender in the community, and (3) they provide flexibility in terms of resources, time of involvement, and place of service. In recent years, parole and sometimes probation have been criticized for increasing the risk of community victimization by known offenders. In response, many states eliminated or significantly curtailed parole opportunities. Now, however, as jurisdictions seek to reduce prison populations, reentry programs are once again seen as the best hope for successfully transitioning released inmates back into the community. The federal Second Chance Act of 2008 provides an example of new initiatives being undertaken in the reentry arena. Among other things, the Second Chance Act reduces the number of people being sent back to prison because of minor parole violations. The 2018 First Step Act mandated that the U.S. attorney general develop a risk and needs assessment system for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to select individual inmates for participation in enhanced evidence-based recidivism reduction programs. The act also offered incentives for inmates to participate in recidivism reduction programs and made possible the early release of certain offenders. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Describe the history, purpose, and characteristics of probation. Describe the history, purpose, and characteristics of parole and reentry. Identify significant court cases affecting probation and parole. Compare and contrast the work of probation officers and parole officers. Describe various intermediate sanctions. Describe the likely future of probation and parole.

LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction 

Teaching Note: Although all of the sentencing options discussed in Chapter 11 can be considered community-based sentences, stress that the type of restriction varies depending on the sentence. For example, house arrest is more restrictive than straight probation, electronic monitoring is more restrictive than house arrest, and shock incarceration is more restrictive than electronic monitoring. 111

II.

What is Probation?  

Teaching Note: Explain the history, nature, and purposes of probation. Teaching Note: Stress that probation is a sentence of imprisonment that is suspended. Tell the class that offenders who violate the conditions of probation may be sent to prison to serve the remainder of their sentences. A.



Teaching Note: Referring to Figure 11-1, describe the percentages of individuals under the various types of correctional supervision in the United States. Ask why probation is such a commonly used alternative. Teaching Note: Ask the class to discuss the merits of granting probation to violent offenders. Explain that probation may result when the prosecutor’s evidence is especially weak or when a plea bargain is accepted in lieu of a jury trial. B.



Probation Conditions

Teaching Note: Discuss the various conditions of probation that may be imposed by the court. Explain that general conditions apply to all probationers in the jurisdiction while special conditions may be imposed on individual probationers at the discretion of the sentencing judge. Teaching Note: The following example can help you describe the general and specific conditions of probation. Alice Meyer was convicted of drunk driving (her second offense). The judge sentenced her to probation. Thus, she had to abide by the general conditions of probation in that jurisdiction, which included meeting with her probation officer once a month, obeying all laws, and maintaining employment. The judge added two specific conditions to her probation. First, she was required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings once a week. Second, she had to attend a victim-impact panel. At these panels, offenders listen to survivors of drunk-driving accidents talk about the harm caused by the crime. C.

III.

The Extent of Probation

The Federal Probation System

What is Parole?  

Teaching Note: Explain the history, nature, and purposes of parole. Teaching Note: Explain the differences between parole and probation and emphasize that probation is a sentence while parole is a corrections strategy. 112



   



Teaching Note: Stress that parole is not a sentence. Explain that parole is supervised early release from prison. Tell the class that offenders who violate the terms of parole may be returned to prison to complete the remaining portions of their sentences (just as can happen with probationers). Teaching Note: Have students discuss the similarities and differences between probation and parole. Teaching Note: Discuss the current movement away from discretionary parole release and ask students whether they agree with this. Teaching Note: Point out that medical parole is on the increase and ask students to discuss whether they agree with this trend. Teaching Note: Have students discuss who would be more likely to favor parole, individual rights advocates or public order advocates, and who would be more likely to favor probation. A.

The Extent of Parole

Parole Conditions

Teaching Note: Discuss the conditions of parole that may be imposed and compare them to those imposed on probationers. C.



IV.

Federal Parole

Teaching Note: Explain how the federal system of supervised release differs from parole.

The Legal Environment 



Teaching Note: Consider reviewing some of the important legal aspects discussed in Chapter 3. Remind students about the purpose of the exclusionary rule and Miranda protections. You can also use this discussion as an opportunity to demonstrate how conviction changes an offender’s legal status. Teaching Note: Describe the legal environment surrounding the use of probation and parole, and review the significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Use Table 11-1 for reference. Teaching Note: Explain that the courts have not held probation and parole officers to the same standards as police officers in the gathering of evidence. Discuss the fact that probation and parole officers may turn incriminating statements made by clients over to prosecutors and that officers may enter a client’s home without a warrant.

113



 



Teaching Note: Describe probation and parole revocation. Explain that, in most cases, revocation orders can be issued only after a hearing in front of a neutral body and that certain procedures must be followed. Teaching Note: Tell the class that members of parole boards have generally been immune to lawsuits arising from “bad” release decisions. Ask students whether they think parole decision makers should be held personally liable for the decisions they make. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and lead a debate on whether nonrevocable parole should be permitted. Teaching Note: Ask students to consider the various competing needs and rights that parole boards must weigh and have them discuss whose rights or needs should be given the greatest consideration. Teaching Note: Point out that offenders are given certain procedural considerations in probation or parole hearings but that these stop short of introducing an adversarial element into the proceedings. Have students discuss the appropriateness of this. The Job of Probation and Parole Officers A. Job Descriptions



Teaching Note: Explain the nature of the job of probation and parole officers. Point out that the tasks of probation and parole officers are very similar and explain that some jurisdictions combine both roles into one job. B.



VI.

The Challenges of the Job

Teaching Note: Describe the job of a probation or parole officer in terms of both its difficulties and its rewards. Ask students if they would consider careers in the field of probation and parole. Discuss their choices. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and lead a debate as to which of the two models (social work and correctional) should take priority. Intermediate Sanctions

 



Teaching Note: Explain what intermediate sanctions are and list the advantages of intermediate sanctions over more traditional forms of sentencing. Teaching Note: Explain that intermediate sanctions resulted from the desire to improve the effectiveness of rehabilitative efforts. Ask students which of these sanctions would be most likely to be effective in rehabilitating offenders? Teaching Note: Remind students of the goals of sentencing identified in Chapter 10. Ask students which of these goals each of the intermediate sentencing options discussed here are likely to achieve. 114

A. B. 

Teaching Note: Explain the difference between a split sentence and shock probation. Point out that shock probation clients must apply for probationary release and cannot be certain of the judge’s decision. C.



VII.   

Intensive Supervision of Probationers and Parolees

Teaching Note: Explain the difference between standard probation and intensive probation supervision. Ask students what goals of sentencing, if any, might be more effectively met by IPS as compared to incarceration? F.



Mixed Sentencing and Community Service

Teaching Note: Link community service to restorative justice. E.



Shock Incarceration

Teaching Note: Explain why boot camp programs are no longer popular in most states. D.



Split Sentencing Shock Probation and Shock Parole

Home Confinement and Remote Location Monitoring

Teaching Note: Discuss home confinement as a sentencing option with built-in inequities. Explain how some offenders are better able to afford the court-ordered costs associated with this alternative and how some homes are obviously more comfortable “prisons” than others. Teaching Note: Consider discussing cases involving high-profile offenders such as Bill Cosby and ask students whether home confinement might be an appropriate sentencing option in these cases. Discuss the value of each of the intermediate sanctions described in this chapter and ask students which they consider to be the most fair, and why. The Future of Probation and Parole Teaching Note: Discuss the criticisms of parole. Teaching Note: Describe the likely future of probation and parole. Teaching Note: Ask the class to discuss ways in which they believe probation and parole should change in the future. 115

A.    

Teaching Note: Explain the use of desistance as a measure of the success of reentry and post release supervision programs. Teaching Note: Describe reentry courts and refer back to the discussion of specialized courts in Chapter 8. Teaching Note: Discuss the barriers to successful reentry and the need for increased focus on reentry. Teaching Note: Discuss the focus on developing programs designed to facilitate the transition from incarceration back into the community. B.



Changes in Reentry Policies

The Reinvention of Probation and Evidence-Based Practices

Teaching Note: Discuss the use of evidence-based practices in probation and parole.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE  

All data related to probation, parole, and reentry have been updated throughout this chapter. The idea of court-ordered COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of probation or parole is discussed.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Have students visit a local criminal court and observe the sentencing choices of individual judges. Are some judges more likely to order probation than others? If so, how great is the difference?



Invite a probation or parole officer to speak with the class, either in person or through virtual conferencing. Have students prepare questions to ask the speaker about the use of alternative sentencing options in the local area and about the rewards and difficulties associated with their job. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students identify what intermediate sanctions are used in their home state. Alternatively, assign each student (or group of students) a state to research. Consider having them research the relative use of each sanction – which ones are most popular, and why?

116



Visit the website of the American Probation and Parole Association and locate information on the Association’s various position statements. Use this information as a discussion starter.



Have students visit the website of the Dispute Resolution section of the American Bar Association and read essays on mediation and dispute resolution. Lead a discussion comparing and contrasting the findings from the different essays.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. What is probation? What purpose does it serve? Probation is a prison sentence that is suspended. English courts in the fourteenth century entrusted prisoners to willing citizens based on good behavior. In Boston in the late 1700s, prisoners were taken home by John Augustus as an alternative to incarceration. Later, Massachusetts authorized the city of Boston to hire a salaried probation officer. Missouri, Vermont, and Rhode Island followed with similar enactments. By the end of the nineteenth century, probation was widely accepted. The purpose of probation is to retain control over offenders while using community programs to help rehabilitate them. 2. What is reentry and how is it associated with parole? How do probation and parole differ? How are they alike? Reentry involves the managed return to the community of individuals released from prison. It also refers to the successful transitioning of a released inmate back into the community. Parole, which is a period of conditional supervised release in the community following a prison term, is a strategy of prisoner reentry. Parole and probation differ in several ways. Probation is a sentencing option while probation is a correctional strategy designed to return offenders gradually to productive lives. While probationers generally do not serve any time in prison, parolees have already been incarcerated. However, they also share a number of similarities. Both probation and parole involve supervising offenders in the community. Both impose conditions on offenders, and if an offender fails to abide by the conditions, then the offender’s probation or parole can be revoked. 3. Describe significant court cases that have had an impact on the practices of probation and parole. Answers should include a review of key court cases, such as those included in Table 11-1. 117

4. What do probation and parole officers do? What role do probation officers play in the sentencing of convicted offenders? The work of probation and parole officers consists generally of four functions: presentence investigation, other intake procedures, needs assessment and diagnosis, and client supervision. Probation officers play an important role in the sentencing of convicted offenders because after completing a presentence investigation, the probation officer makes a recommendation to the judge. 5. What are intermediate sanctions? How do they differ from more traditional forms of sentencing? What advantages do they offer? Intermediate sanctions employ sentencing alternatives that fall between outright imprisonment and simple probationary release to the community. They include the use of split sentencing, shock probation or parole, shock incarceration, mixed sentencing, community service, intensive supervision, or home confinement in lieu of other, more traditional sanctions, such as imprisonment and fines. They differ from more traditional forms of sentencing options in that they are generally considered a compromise between the lack of punishment for some sentences (probation) and the excessive punishment of other sentences (such as imprisonment). The major advantage of intermediate sentences is that they give judges more options when deciding an appropriate sentence. Other advantages include that they are less expensive than imprisonment and also that they are socially cost-effective. 6. How are probation and parole changing? What does the future hold for each? Both probation and parole are frequently attacked for being ineffective and allowing offenders to get off easy for their crimes. These concerns are reflective of a broader social attitude that we must get tough with offenders. There has been significant pressure to abolish parole as well as significantly revise probation. Although the future is unclear, probation and parole will continue to play vital roles in the punishment of offenders. The reality of the imprisonment binge is that it is impossible for states to build prisons fast enough and many states’ prison systems are overcrowded. Probation and parole are necessary to deal with this overcrowding issue. It may not be wise to eliminate parole, but certainly the administration of parole can be improved.

118

CHAPTER 12 Prisons and Jails CHAPTER OVERVIEW The growth in American prison populations during the late 1900s was brought about by a system-wide overemphasis on drug-related offenses—an emphasis that tended to imprison mostly Black youths with low income and little education who were rarely dangerous. Prisons today are largely classified according to security level, such as maximum, medium, and minimum security. Most contemporary American correctional facilities are medium or minimum security. Although the goals of recidivism and deterrence are still important in the minds of corrections administrators, today’s prisons still tend to warehouse inmates awaiting release. Public disappointment with high rates of recidivism produced a prison system today that focused on the concept of just deserts and produced an era of mass incarceration. Overcrowded facilities are still the norm in many jurisdictions, although a nationwide effort is now under way to reduce the size of prison populations everywhere. In contrast to prisons, which are long-term confinement facilities designed to hold those who have been sentenced to serve time for committing crime, jails are short-term confinement facilities whose traditional purpose has been to hold those awaiting trial or sentencing. Inmates who have been tried and sentenced may also be held at jails until their transfer to a prison facility, and today’s jails sometimes hold inmates serving short sentences of confinement. The emergence of direct-supervision jails, in which traditional barriers between inmates and staff have been mostly eliminated, seems to have reduced the incidence of jail violence and can be credited with improving the conditions of jailed inmates in jurisdictions where such facilities operate. Until recently, the use of privately run correctional facilities, or private prisons, has grown in number as the movement toward the privatization of correctional facilities gained steam. Private prisons, operated by for-profit corporations, hold inmates on behalf of state governments or the federal government and provide for their care and security. In 2016, the federal Bureau of Prisons moved to end the use of private correctional facilities in the federal system, saying that they were not meeting their goals. A year later, however, the Trump administration reversed direction. It is likely that private prisons will remain a part of the correctional landscape in America for some time to come. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES 119

After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe the growth of American prisons. 2. Describe the purpose and major characteristics of today’s prisons. 3. Summarize the role jails currently play in American corrections and the issues jail administrators face. 4. Describe the current and likely future roles of private prisons. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction

II.

The Emergence of Prisons  



Teaching Note: Describe prisons as long-term confinement facilities in which convicted criminal offenders serve out their sentences. Differentiate prisons from jails. Teaching Note: Explain that prisons are a relatively new invention, and that before the development of prisons, physical punishments were primarily used to penalize criminal offenders. Lead a discussion as to whether corporal punishment might serve a purpose in the modern criminal justice system. Teaching Note: Point out that early punishments often included public humiliation, or shame. Link this back to the modern-day use of shaming as a punishment, discussed in Chapter 10. Teaching Note: Refer to Figure 12-1 and ask students what factors may have contributed to the huge increase in prison populations during the past few decades. A.

 

III.

The Decarceration Era

Teaching Note: Explain the concept of mass incarceration and discuss the problems created by incarcerating ever larger numbers of individuals. Teaching Note: Emphasize that evidence-based corrections is linked to the use of evidence-based practices in other parts of the criminal justice system. Refer back to the information on evidence-based practices in criminal justice found in Chapter 1, as well as the discussion of evidence-based policing in Chapter 4, and evidence-based practices in probation and parole in Chapter 11. Prisons Today

120



 

Teaching Note: Review the demographic characteristics of prison inmates and discuss the obvious racial and gender disparities. Ask students whether they believe the racial disparities among prison inmates are due more to differences in offending or to disparate treatment by the criminal justice system. Teaching Note: Describe the main types of prisons found in a typical prison system. Teaching Note: Ask the class to examine Figure 12-2 and to propose reasons why states differ so greatly on the use of imprisonment. A.

  

Teaching Note: Discuss the various causes of prison overcrowding and the legal problems that overcrowding may create for a prison system. Teaching Note: Ask students if they agree with the Supreme Court’s ruling that overcrowding on its own is not cruel and unusual punishment. Teaching Note: Lead a class discussion on selective incapacitation and whether the “false positive” problem is too great for the policy to work. B.

 

Prison Classification Systems

Teaching Note: Discuss the purpose of prison classification systems and review the Supreme Court’s ruling that classification criteria must be relevant to legitimate security needs. Ask students whether they agree with this ruling and why/why not. D.



Security Levels

Teaching Note: Review the various levels of prison security and explain that the same facility may combine multiple custody levels. Teaching Note: If it is possible to arrange a tour of a state prison, be sure to point out to students the level(s) of security imposed by the institution. C.



Overcrowding

The Federal Prison System

Teaching Note: Describe the various levels of security used by the Bureau of Prisons. Teaching Note: Have students compare the federal ADMAX facility at Florence to the Pennsylvania system originally used at Eastern State Penitentiary. Ask students to consider the problems with the Pennsylvania system and discuss whether the use of ADMAX facilities today is justified. E.

Recent Improvements

121



IV.

Teaching Note: Discuss the accreditation program that has been developed for correctional institutions and link this back to the discussion of police accreditation in Chapter 7. Jails



  

Teaching Note: Describe jails as temporary confinement facilities originally intended to hold defendants awaiting trial or to house convicted offenders awaiting sentencing. Explain that many jurisdictions now use jails in lieu of prisons for offenders sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. Teaching Note: Explain the role that jails play in American corrections and discuss the issues that jail administrators currently face. Teaching Note: Review the various purposes of jails and discuss the possible problems inherent in placing so many responsibilities on one institution. Teaching Note: Ask students to discuss the unique qualities of jails as compared to prisons. A.

 

Teaching Note: Review some of the specific problems faced by justice-involved women while in jail. Teaching Note: Ask students to consider why women are the largest growth group in jails. B.



Direct-Supervision Jails

Teaching Note: Lead a discussion as to whether direct-supervision jails are superior to their predecessors. D.



Jail Crowding

Teaching Note: Discuss the problem of jail overcrowding and ask students how the prison overcrowding problem may affect jail populations. C.



Justice-Involved Women and Jail

Jails and the Future

Teaching Note: Ask students to review the American Jail Association Code of Ethics for Jail Officers and discuss how the Code seeks to balance the individual rights of inmates and correctional officers with public-order concerns. Teaching Note: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of regional jails. 122

Private Prisons   

Teaching Note: Describe the role of private prisons today, and assess their future. Teaching Note: Explain the advantages and disadvantages of private prisons. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and lead a debate regarding the use of private prisons.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE     

All data throughout the chapter have been updated, and the discussion of the mass incarceration era has been expanded. State efforts to reduce prison populations are discussed in some detail. A new prisons-related era, termed the decarceration era, is now discussed—and “decarceration” is now a Key Term. The disproportionate confinement of people of color is highlighted and discussed. The applicability of a public health model to corrections is discussed.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 

Have students collect data on prison populations in your state and compare the growth of those inmate populations to the national trend. Alternatively, assign each student (or group of students) a state to research. Discuss the issue of prison overcrowding as it pertains to various state systems.



Invite a corrections administrator (warden, program director, shift supervisor, etc.) to visit the class. Ask them to comment on the ideas discussed in this chapter, such as mass incarceration and rehabilitation. Ask the speaker whether they believe that rehabilitation can occur effectively in a prison setting and what elements are necessary for successful rehabilitation. With what kinds of inmates has the speaker seen rehabilitation succeed or fail? Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Schedule a tour of a local prison. Ask to see as many facilities as possible, including dormitories, shops, the cafeteria, segregation units, religious assembly areas, and so on. Ask students what they think of the prison’s living conditions and the facilities provided. If students also visited a jail, ask them to compare their observation of the prison with those of the jail and identify the major similarities and differences.



Schedule a tour of a local jail and visit as many facilities as possible. Ask students what they think of the living conditions and the facilities provided. If students also visited a 123

prison, ask them to compare their observations of the jail with those of the prison and identify the major similarities and differences. SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1.

What led to the huge growth of American prison populations during the late twentieth century?

Answers should discuss the reasons for the growth of American prison populations, particularly the changes in sentencing laws that focused on taking drug offenders off the streets as well as the later focus on immigration law violators. 2. What are today’s prisons like? What purpose do they serve? Prisons today house an extremely large number of inmates, although the growth of the prison population has been slowing in recent years and in some states prison populations are starting to decrease. The vast majority of inmates are men. Inmates overwhelmingly have little education, have low literacy skills, use drugs, often have weak and troubled job histories and strained family ties, are likely to have mental illness, and lack the basic skills to survive. There are clear racial and gender disparities. Answers should discuss the goals of recidivism and deterrence, as well as that of incapacitation. 3. What role do jails play in American corrections? What are some of the issues that jail administrators currently face? Answers should discuss the multiple purposes served by jails, in addition to their original purpose of housing suspects following arrest and pending trial. Answers should also discuss some of the key issues faced by administrators, including dealing with the growing population of women confined in jails, the problem of overcrowding, antiquated architectural design, and organizational problems. 4. What will be the likely state of private prisons two or three decades from now? Answers will vary.

124

CHAPTER 13 Prison Life CHAPTER OVERVIEW Prisons are small self-contained societies that are sometimes described as total institutions. Early studies of prison life have detailed the existence of prison subcultures, or inmate worlds, replete with inmate values, social roles, and lifestyles. Research that focused on institutions for men found that new inmates who are socialized into prison subcultures undergo the process of prisonization. Prison subcultures are very influential, and both inmates and staff must reckon with them. Today’s prisons are miniature societies, reflecting the problems and challenges that exist in the larger society of which they are a part. Women represent a small but growing proportion of the nation’s prison population. Many inmates who are women have histories of physical and sexual abuse. Although they are likely to have dependent children, their parenting skills may be limited. Most incarcerated women are housed in centralized state facilities known as women’s prisons, which are dedicated exclusively to incarcerating women who are felons. Some states, however, particularly those with small populations, continue to keep incarcerated women in special wings of what are otherwise institutions for men. Few facilities for women have programs especially designed for incarcerated women. Like inmates, corrections officers undergo a socialization process that helps them function by the official and unofficial rules of staff society. Prison staffers are most concerned with custody and control. The enforcement of strict rules; body and cell searches; counts; unannounced shakedowns; the control of dangerous items, materials, and contraband; and the extensive use of bars, locks, fencing, cameras, and alarms all support the staff’s vigilance in maintaining security. Although concerns with security still command center stage, professionalism is playing an increasing role in corrections today, and today’s corrections personnel are better trained and more proficient than ever before. Security threat groups (STGs) are prison gangs. More formally, they can be defined as inmate groups or organizations whose members act together to pose a threat to the safety of corrections staff or the public, who prey upon other inmates, or who threaten the secure and orderly operation of a correctional institution. American prisons contain a number of well-organized STGs whose influence extends between prisons and out into the general public.

125

For many years, courts throughout the nation assumed a hands-off approach to prisons, rarely intervening in the day-to-day administration of prison facilities. That changed in the late 1960s when the U.S. Supreme Court began to identify inmates’ rights mandated by the Constitution. Rights identified by the Court include the right to physical integrity, an absolute right to be free from unwarranted corporal punishments, certain religious rights, and procedural rights, such as those involving access to attorneys and to the courts. The conditional rights of incarcerated people, which have repeatedly been supported by the Court, mandate professionalism among prison administrators and require vigilance in the provision of correctional services. High Court decisions have generally established that prison inmates retain those constitutional rights that are not inconsistent with their status as prison inmates or with the legitimate penological objectives of the correctional system. In other words, inmates have rights, much the same as people who are not incarcerated, provided that the legitimate needs of the prison for security, custody, and safety are not compromised. The era of prisoners’ rights was sharply curtailed in 1996 with the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, spurred on by a growing recognition of the legal morass resulting from unregulated access to federal courts by inmates across the nation. The major problems and issues facing prisons today include (1) the need to deal with a growing older offender population (the result of longer sentences and the aging of the American population); (2) a sizable number of inmates who are neurodivergent and have intellectual disabilities; and (3) a concern over inmates with terrorist leanings and those who have been incarcerated for terrorism-related crimes. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe early research on prison life, including the development of the concept of total institutions. 2. Discuss the realities of prison life in men’s prisons. 3. Differentiate between men’s and women’s prisons. 4. Describe prison life from the corrections officer’s point of view. 5. Describe the nature of security threat groups and summarize the causes of prison riots. 6. Discuss the legal aspects of prisoners’ rights, including the consequences of related, precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court cases. 7. Describe the major issues that prisons face today. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction

126

Research on Prison Life – Total Institutions

II. 



Teaching Note: Describe total institutions as enclosed places where residents share all aspects of their daily lives. Explain that inhabitants of total institutions work, recreate, worship, eat, and sleep together. Teaching Note: Ask students whether prisons might be better at rehabilitating inmates if they were more open to the outside world, rather than being total institutions. Men’s Prisons

III.  



Teaching Note: Describe the realities of prison life and prison subculture from the inmate’s point of view. Teaching Note: Define prisonization as the socialization of new inmates into prison subculture. Use the five elements of the prison code discussed in the text to describe the realities of that subculture. Teaching Note: Ask students to identify similarities between prison society, as described in this chapter, and free society, and to identify differences. Lead a discussion as to what might account for these similarities and differences. Teaching Note: Describe prison subculture as a lifestyle that reflects criminal values and behavior patterns characteristic of incarcerated offenders. Note that prison subculture shows amazing consistency among prisons across the U.S. Teaching Note: Explain that subcultures can be found in many occupations and different human environments. For example, when discussing law enforcement, the text describes the police subculture. Similarly, many cultures and subcultures, such as the fraternity and sorority subcultures, exist on college campuses. Have students try to identify different subcultures in a class discussion. A.



Teaching Note: Describe the evolution of prison subculture as new generations of convicts arrive. Explore some of the differences between traditional and emerging subcultural values. B.



The Evolution of Prison Subcultures

The Functions of Prison Subcultures

Teaching Note: Explain the deprivation and importation models of the prison subculture. Ask students which one they think best explains the development and evolution of prison subcultures in the United States. C.

Prison Lifestyles and Inmate Types 127



Teaching Note: Describe inmate types as adaptive roles inmates take on to define themselves in prison society. Ask the class what personality characteristics, criminal history, or background might lead a prisoner to adopt a particular style. How might prison staff respond to each of the types listed in this chapter? Teaching Note: The text describes nine inmate types. Ask students to develop a hierarchy based on the descriptions of these inmate types. What inmate types have the most power in prison society? Which types have the least amount of power? Through this exercise, students will develop an appreciation for the different types. It will also help them understand various aspects of inmate society. D.



Sexual Activity and Sexual Victimization in Prison

Teaching Note: Discuss same-sex relations in prison, and ask why this appears to be so common. Describe the difference between same-sex behavior in prison and same-sex behavior in the free society as the contrast between limited opportunity and free choice. Note that relatively few offenders involved in same-sex activities in prison will continue them upon release. Explain that at least some same-sex activity in prison is a form of adaptive behavior. Teaching Note: Discuss the problem of prison rape and explain the characteristics of offenders. What effects can sexual assault in prison have on victims? Women’s Prisons

IV.  

Teaching Note: Illustrate the significant differences between men’s prisons and women’s prisons. Teaching note: Discuss the relative proportions of ethnic groups in women’s prisons. Ask students how they might account for the fact that these proportions do not even approximate the proportions of racial and ethnic groups in the wider society? Should society strive to create a more racially and ethnically “balanced” prison population? If so, how? A.



Parents in Prison

Teaching Note: Explain that the vast majority of women in prison are parents, and most are custodial parents. Discuss the economic impact this may have on society. Point out that many children of incarcerated women never visit their mothers during the period of incarceration, explain the various reasons for this, and ask students how they think having an incarcerated parent may affect children. Teaching Note: Have students discuss the impact that parental incarceration has on children and how this might be mitigated. They may wish to visit the Sesame Street in 128

Communities website and review some of the material in the section Coping with Incarceration. B.   

Teaching Note: Discuss the concept of gender responsiveness and why it is important to correctional facilities. Teaching Note: Review the mother/baby program described in the chapter and lead a debate about the issue of allowing infants and toddlers to live in prison. Teaching Note: Ask the class to consider how prisons should handle inmates who are nonbinary or transgender. Should these inmates be placed in the prison that matches their biological gender? Should transgender inmates who have fully transitioned be handled differently from those who may not have completely transitioned before being incarcerated? C.



Types of Female Inmates

Teaching Note: Have students compare the types of incarcerated women described in this chapter to the types of incarcerated men and discuss the ways in which they do or do not reflect women’s and men’s roles in the larger society. F.



Social Structure in Women’s Prisons

Teaching Note: Explain the “family” structures so frequently found in prisons for women. Note that “families” are found cross-culturally and nationwide in women’s institutions. Ask the class to explain the phenomenon. Teaching Note: Discuss the issue of sexual victimization of prison inmates and why women are at greater risk of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization than men. Also discuss why sexual misconduct between staff and inmates is much more commonly found in women’s prisons. E.



Institutions for Women

Teaching Note: Have students compare the characteristics of institutions for women with those of institutions for men. D.



Gender-Responsiveness

Violence in Women’s Prisons

Teaching Note: Review the recommendations of the Task Force on the Female Offender. Ask students to identify the rationale behind each recommendation. 129

The Staff World   

Teaching Note: Describe the realities of prison life from the correction officer’s point of view. Teaching Note: Describe the jobs and roles prison staff members fulfill. Explain that one individual may wear many different hats. Teaching Note: Explain that custody and control are still the major concerns of corrections staffers—just as they have been since the inception of imprisonment A.



VI.

The Professionalization of Corrections Officers

Teaching Note: Discuss how the ACA Code of Ethics is designed to uphold both the standards of the profession and the values of society. Ask students what social values the code embodies. Teaching Note: Point out that the amount of training required for correctional officers is generally much less than that required to become a police officer. Ask students if they agree or if more training should be required of individuals before they are allowed to work in corrections. Teaching Note: Have students visit the website of the Bureau of Prisons to learn about the job requirements for a federal BOP corrections officer. Security Threat Groups and Prison Riots



 

VII. 

Teaching Note: Explain that the 1970s were once called the “explosive decade” of prison riots. Suggest that the frequency of riots in prison may reflect the frequency of public protests in the wider society of which prisons are a part. Teaching Note: Discuss the importance of informal controls within the prison subculture in keeping order and preventing riots. Teaching Note: One of the interesting aspects of the Attica prison riot was that inmates requested, and were granted permission, to have the news media present during negotiations with correctional administrators. A substantial amount of riot footage exists because television cameras were present. For example, some very powerful footage can be seen in the Eyes on the Prize video series. Consider showing some of this in class or assigning it for out-of-class viewing. Inmates’ Rights Teaching Note: Explain the hands-off doctrine as a nonintervention policy that American courts assumed with regard to prisons before the late 1960s. Explain that widespread 130



abuses of power by correctional staff, combined with an increasingly sensitive Supreme Court, led to many decisions concerning correctional administration during the past two decades. Teaching Note: Lead a discussion as to whether the U.S. should return to a hands-off policy. Ask students whether the hands-off doctrine would be more likely to appeal to public-order advocates or to individual-rights advocates. Teaching Note: Explain the concept of civil death and discuss those aspects that still exist in the modern correctional system today. A.



 

Teaching Note: Discuss the legal aspects of prisoners’ rights, and explain the consequences of precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court cases in the area of prisoners’ rights. Teaching Note: Explain that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments have been used as the basis for most inmate suits against the conditions of confinement. Teaching Note: Review the conditional rights of inmates listed in Table 13-3. Ask students which of these rights they believe are absolutely necessary. Which do they think should be curtailed or even eliminated? B.



VIII.

Grievance Procedures

Teaching Note: Review the grievance procedures used in the prisons in your state. In a distance learning environment, consider having students research the procedures in their home states. C.



The Legal Basis of Prisoners’ Rights

A Return to the Hands-Off Doctrine?

Teaching Note: Comment on the observation made in the text that the U.S. Supreme Court may have signaled at least a partial return to the hands-off doctrine. Use the case of Wilson v. Seiter (1991) as the basis for a discussion of the issue. Teaching Note: Point out that offenders are sentenced to prison as punishment, not for punishment. Explain that incarcerated individuals may not be physically or mentally abused and that their basic needs, including protection from harm, must be met. Teaching Note: Have students review the pros and cons of the PLRA and discuss whether they agree with the Supreme Court’s willingness to uphold provisions of the PLRA. Issues Facing Prisons Today

131



Teaching Note: Identify some of the major issues facing prisons today, including older offenders, inmates with neurodivergence, inmates with intellectual disabilities, and terrorism. Ask students whether they can envision any additional types of issues that might be on the horizon, waiting to emerge. A.



Teaching Note: Discuss the factors leading to a higher incidence of older inmates. How does this situation affect prisoners’ rights to medical treatment, which was discussed earlier in this chapter? Teaching Note: Discuss the problems that older inmates create for prisons. In additional to the cost of medical care, problems include prison structures, which generally are not designed for individuals with disabilities; security risks due to the use of canes and crutches, which could also be used as weapons; and the stress that caring for older inmates may place on corrections staff. Lead a discussion as to whether older inmates incarcerated for nonviolent crimes should be released to the community. B.



Inmates with Neurodivergence and Inmates with Intellectual Disabilities

Teaching Note: Link the situations of inmates with mental illness to that of inmates with intellectual disabilities and that of older inmates. Point out that most correctional institutions do not have the ability to care properly for these individuals. C.



Geriatric Offenders

Terrorism and Corrections

Teaching Note: Ask the class to consider what kinds of terrorist activity might occur in prison and to discuss possible steps corrections personnel might take to reduce the threat of terrorist activity in their facilities.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE   

There is a new chapter opening story about a Wisconsin county sheriff who insists on calling people in his jail “residents” in order not to stigmatize them. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on prisons and inmates’ rights is now discussed. PREA data have been updated.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES

132



Invite a corrections officer to speak with the class. Ask the officer to explain the selection and training process for correctional officers and to discuss the institutional work environment. Encourage the officer to talk about staff culture and priorities. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Invite a corrections administrator (warden, program director, shift supervisor, and so on) to speak with the class. Ask them to comment on the ideas discussed in this chapter, such as offender typologies, the prison subculture, and prisonization. Do they believe that these concepts adequately describe prison reality as they have experienced it? Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students visit the Stanford Prison Experiment website. Conduct a discussion regarding how the results of this study might be useful in selecting and training correctional officers.



Search the Web for stories about life in prison from the perspective of a correctional officer or from the perspective of an inmate. After displaying an overview of this information, lead a discussion on the different prison life perspectives.



If you did not do so while discussing Chapter 12, now would be a good time to schedule a tour of a local prison. Ask to see as many facilities as possible, including dormitories, workshops, cafeterias, segregation units, religious assembly areas, etc. If possible, ask to speak with inmates about the challenges of prison life. Ask if there are any positive aspects to “being on the inside.”



Assign each student (or group of students) a state and have them research the job requirements for correctional officers in that state. Have them compare the requirements for each state and identify similarities and differences.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. Describe early research on prison life, including the development of total institutions. Answers should explain the participant-observation study of prison life conducted by Hans Reimer and the impact of his report to American Prison Association on future research. Answers should also explain Erving Goffman’s concept of total institutions and how it led to a focus on the study of prison subcultures and the way they communicate prison values and expectations. 2. What are prison subcultures, and how do they influence prison life? How do they develop, and what purpose do they serve? Answers should define prison subcultures, describe how and why they are constantly changing, 133

and discuss how they are used by inmates to cope with the realities of prison life. Answers should explain that subcultures may be an adaptation to deprivation and confinement that provide inmates a means of exercising control in their world. 3. How do women’s prisons differ from men’s? Why have women’s prisons been studied less often than institutions for men? Answers should explain the differences between women’s and men’s prisons, with a particular focus on social structure. Answers should include a discussion of the construction of pseudo families in women’s prisons; the differences in sexual relationships between inmates; the differences in rates of staff-inmate sexual relationships; and the different frequency of violence. Answers should also explain the various reasons why women's prisons are less frequently studied, including differences in prison populations sizes and differences in their involvement in criminal activities. Answers should also point out the impact of the fact that that the field of criminal justice was dominated by men during the early days of the development of the discipline. 4. What are the primary concerns of prison staff? What other goals do staff members focus on? Answers should stress that custody and control remain the primary concerns of prison staff. Society expects correctional staff to keep inmates in custody, so it is necessary before any other correctional activities, such as instruction or counseling, can be undertaken. Control ensures order and an orderly prison is thought to be safe and secure. Other goals that may be discussed include the maintenance of fairness in prison operations and the creation of an environment that encourages rehabilitative efforts by the inmates. 5. What are security threat groups? What problems do they cause? Answers should define security threat groups (STGs) as inmate groups, gangs, or organizations whose members act together to pose a threat to the safety of correctional staff or the public and should describe the characteristics of STGs. Answers should identify the problems created by STGs, including the risk of members preying on other inmates; the threat to the secure and orderly operation of the institution; and the risk of turf violations if multiple STGs are present. 6. What are the generally accepted rights of prison inmates in the United States today? Where do these rights come from? What U.S. Supreme Court cases are especially significant in the area of prisoners' rights? Answers should explain that due process entitlements extend to all people within the jurisdiction of the United States or of the individual states. Those rights are constitutionally mandated and 134

protected. Further, the U.S. Supreme Court enforces them in its interpretation of those constitutional mandates. Inmates have rights as well, provided that the legitimate needs of the prison for security, custody, and safety are not compromised. Answers should also review some of the cases discussed in the text and in Table 13-4. 7. What are some of the major issues that prisons face today? What new issues might the future bring? Answers should discuss the problems involved with the special needs of older offenders and the unique needs of inmates with neurodivergence and inmates with intellectual disabilities. Answers should also discuss the possible impact of terrorism on corrections, as well as the role of correctional personnel in antiterrorist efforts. Answers regarding new issues that may be seen in the future will vary.

135

CHAPTER 14 Justice-Involved Youth CHAPTER OUTLINE Adolescence is a distinct, but transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. Adolescents differ from adults and children in three important ways that lead to differences in behavior: (1) adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulation in emotionally charged contexts relative to adults; (2) adolescents have a heightened sensitivity to proximal external influences, such as peer pressure and immediate incentives, relative to children and adults; and (3) adolescents show less ability than adults to make judgments and decisions that require future orientation. The combination of these three cognitive patterns accounts for the tendency of adolescents to prefer and engage in risky behaviors. Studies of adolescent development show that most chronic juvenile offenders begin their delinquency careers before age 12, and some as early as age 10. Under today’s laws, children occupy a special status that is tied closely to cultural advances that occurred in the Western world during the past 200 years. Before the modern era, children who committed crimes received no preferential treatment and were adjudicated, punished, and imprisoned alongside adults. Beginning a few hundred years ago, England, from which we derive many of our legal traditions, adapted the principle of parens patriae. That principle allowed the government to take the place of parents in dealing with children who broke the law. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, the child-savers movement began in the United States. Child savers espoused a philosophy of productivity and eschewed idleness and unprincipled behavior. Not long afterward, the 1899 codification of Illinois juvenile law became the model for juvenile court statutes throughout the United States. It created a juvenile court separate in form and function from adult criminal courts and based on the principle of parens patriae. To avoid the lasting stigma of criminality, the term delinquent, rather than criminal, began to be applied to young adjudicated offenders. Soon, juvenile courts across the country focused primarily on the best interests of the child as a guide in their deliberations. Today, juveniles who have been charged with an offense or adjudicated for a violation of the law are sometimes referred to as “justice-involved youth.” Important U.S. Supreme Court decisions of special relevance to the handling of juveniles by the justice system include (1) Kent v. U.S. (1966), which established minimal due-process standards for juvenile hearings; (2) In re Gault (1967), in which the Court found that a child has many of the same due-process rights as an adult; (3) In re Winship (1970), which held that the 136

constitutional safeguard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required during the adjudicatory stage of a delinquency proceeding; (4) McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971), which held that jury trials were not required in delinquency cases; (5) Breed v. Jones (1975), which restricted the conditions under which transfers from juvenile to adult court may occur; (6) Schall v. Martin (1984), in which the Court held that pretrial detention of juveniles based on “serious risk” does not violate due process, although prior notice, an equitable detention hearing, and a statement by the juvenile court judge explaining the reasons for detention are required; (7) Roper v. Simmons (2005), which held that age is a bar to capital punishment when the offender commits a capital crime when they are younger than age 18; (8) Graham v. Florida (2010), in which the Court found that the Constitution does not permit a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime; (9) J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011), which held that the age of suspects must be considered when determining whether they would feel free not to respond to police questioning; (10) Miller v. Alabama (2012), in which the Court held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for individuals 17 or younger convicted of homicide violate the Eighth Amendment; and (11) Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), which retroactively applied the Miller decision providing people who had been sentenced to mandatory life without parole as juveniles, the right to have their sentences reviewed. Recent Supreme Court decisions in the area of juvenile justice have emphasized the importance of findings from contemporary neuroscience that depict the adolescent brain as still developing – contributing to the inability of young people to fully appreciate the long-term consequences of their actions. The juvenile justice system can be viewed as a process that, when carried through to completion, moves through four stages: intake, adjudication, disposition, and postadjudicatory review. Although organizationally similar to the adult criminal justice process, the juvenile system is far more likely to maximize the use of discretion and to employ diversion from formal processing at every point in the process. The juvenile justice system differs in important ways from the adult system. The juvenile system (1) is less concerned with legal issues of guilt or innocence and focuses on the child’s best interests; (2) emphasizes treatment rather than punishment; (3) ensures privacy and protection from public scrutiny through the use of sealed records and laws against publishing the names of juvenile offenders; (4) uses the techniques of social science in dispositional decision making rather than sentences determined by a perceived need for punishment; (5) does not order long-term confinement, with most juveniles being released from institutions by their 21st birthday; (6) has separate facilities for juveniles; and (7) allows broad discretionary alternatives at all points in the process. The “professionalization” of delinquency, the hallmark of which is the repeated and often violent criminal involvement of juveniles in drug-related gang activity, presented a major challenge to the idealism of the juvenile justice system in the latter part of the twentieth century. Consequently, the juvenile justice system’s commitment to a philosophy of protection and restoration, expressed in the juvenile court movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth 137

centuries began to dissipate. However, necessitated by budgetary concerns at both the state and federal level, the tide has now shifted to evidence-based models that demonstrate effectiveness in the handling of juvenile offenders. The present juvenile justice system, for the most part, continues to differ substantially from the adult system in the multitude of opportunities it provides for diversion and in the emphasis it places on rehabilitation rather than punishment. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Explain how adolescent development relates to justice-involved youth. 2. Describe how the juvenile justice system has evolved in the Western world. 3. Describe important U.S. Supreme Court decisions relating to juvenile justice, including their impact on the handling of juveniles by the system. 4. Explain how the juvenile justice system works. 5. Briefly describe possible future directions in juvenile justice. LECTURE OUTLINE I.

Introduction 

Teaching Note: Discuss the key ways in which adolescents differ from adults and children. Invite students to consider examples from their own experiences that illustrate these differences. A.



II.

Justice-Involved Youth

Teaching Note: Discuss the age-crime curve shown in Figure 14-1. Explain that although juveniles make up only a relatively small proportion of the entire U.S. population, they account for a seemingly large proportion of all offenses. Ask the class to suggest reasons for this. Teaching Note: Ask students why they think the term justice-involved youth is used, rather than the terms used in the adult criminal justice system? Juvenile Justice Throughout History A.

Earliest Times

138



  



Teaching Note: Explain the historical treatment of juveniles as small adults. Underscore the fact that in past centuries, juveniles who committed crimes were treated much the same as adults. Discuss whether that might happen again. Teaching Note: Use Figure 14-2 to review how social views of juveniles and the treatment of juveniles by the justice system have changed over time. Teaching Note: Explain the concept of parens patriae and ask students if this concept is still applicable today. Teaching Note: Explain that the first house of refuge, which opened in New York City in 1824, mainly sheltered young thieves, children experiencing homelessness, and children who had run away from home, but quickly became overcrowded. Point out that children with more severe delinquency problems were placed in adult prisons and jails. Teaching Note: Describe the Chicago Reform School as one product of the child-savers movement of the mid-nineteenth century. B.

 



Teaching Note: Explain the juvenile court movement as an effort to give children separate hearings with different goals and protocols than those of the adult system. Teaching Note: Explain that rehabilitative goals were developed early in the evolution of the juvenile justice system and continue today. Contrast early reform attempts with today’s programs and anticipated future reforms. Teaching Note: Review the philosophical principles on which the juvenile court movement was based. Ask students if there are any principles they disagree with, and why. C.



 

III.

The Juvenile Court Era

Categories of Children in the Juvenile Justice System

Teaching Note: Discuss the various legal categories most states apply to children within their jurisdiction. Refer to the definitions provided in the text and ensure that students understand the differences between the categories. Teaching Note: Ask students if there are any other legal categories of children they think should be added. Teaching Note: Discuss the concept of status offenses and ask the class whether they agree with basing the determination of an act as criminal or legal upon the age of the person engaging in the act. The Legal Environment



Teaching Note: Review some of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment cases that were discussed in the police and court sections of this text. Remind students of the protections 139

 



provided to adults against unreasonable searches and seizures, protections against selfincrimination, and right to counsel. This review will set the stage for the discussion of juvenile case law. Teaching Note: Identify important U.S. Supreme Court decisions of relevance to juvenile justice, and describe their impact on the handling of juveniles by the system. Teaching Note: Describe the hands-off approach to juvenile justice that the U.S. Supreme Court followed until the 1960s. Then discuss the precedent-setting cases that have been decided since then. Link this to the discussion in Chapter 13 of the Court’s hands-off policy with regard to adult corrections. Teaching Note: Spotlight the 1967 Gault decision as the most significant of all the court precedents relating to the handling of juveniles. Explain that this decision extended many, but not all, of the rights of adult defendants to juveniles. A.



Teaching Note: Discuss the various federal Acts that Congress has passed that specifically relate to juveniles and the juvenile justice system B.

IV.

Legislation Concerning Juveniles and Justice

The Legal Rights of Juveniles

The Juvenile Justice Process Today  

Teaching Note: Explain the concepts of original and concurrent jurisdiction in the juvenile justice system. Teaching Note: Explain that the age cut-off for juvenile court jurisdiction varies by state, and point out that while a few states set the cutoff age at 17, most states include anyone who has not yet reached the age of 18. A.



Adult and Juvenile Justice Compared

Teaching Note: Summarize the similarities and differences between the adult and juvenile justice systems by referring to CJ Exhibit 14-1. Point out that although the U.S. Supreme Court has held that juveniles are entitled to the protection of due process, it has refrained from declaring that juveniles have a right to all aspects of due process afforded adults. Teaching Note: Ask the class to consider whether any of the differences shown in CJ Exhibit 14-1 between the adult and juvenile justice systems should be enhanced and which might best be minimized or eliminated. Teaching Note: Ask the class to discuss how the tension between individual rights and public order is reflected in the juvenile justice process, and how both sets of concerns influence ideas for revision of the juvenile justice system. 140

B. 

Teaching Note: Describe the juvenile justice system as being built around the processes of intake, adjudication, disposition, and post adjudicatory review. Compare this to the adult criminal court process. C.

   



 

Adjudication

Teaching Note: Review the various ways in which adjudicatory hearings for juveniles differ from adult trials and ask the class why they think these differences exist. Teaching Note: Explain the reasons behind the concern for children’s privacy. Ask students how this concern fits with the overall juvenile justice philosophy of the last half century. Teaching Note: Explain why juveniles do not have a right to trial by jury. Teaching Note: Explain how teen courts work and encourage eligible students to consider volunteering in a teen court program. E.



Intake and Detention Hearings

Teaching Note: Explain the differences between adult and juvenile intake procedures, and highlight the wide variety of options available in the juvenile justice system Teaching Note: Describe the various types of hearings that may take place during the intake process. Teaching Note: Explain the purpose of the preliminary hearing in the juvenile justice system. Teaching Note: Divide the class into groups and lead a debate as to whether juveniles should or should not ever be tried in adult court. D.



How the System Works

Disposition

Teaching Note: Mention that states vary widely in their use of secure detention for adjudicated juveniles. While some states institutionalize thousands of juveniles, others have almost none in training facilities. Ask the class to suggest reasons why, population differences aside, this variation exists. Teaching Note: Remind students of the primary object of the juvenile court and ask them to consider how this might affect the juvenile court judge’s choice of disposition. Teaching Note: Refer back to the discussion of private prisons in Chapter 13. Divide the class into groups and lead a debate as to whether juveniles should be held in private facilities. 141



Teaching Note: Discuss the disparities in juvenile placement into public vs. private facilities, and ask students to discuss what impact this may have on the juveniles involved. F.



Postadjudicatory Review

Teaching Note: Discuss the various reasons why juvenile appeals may be less consequential than appeals of adult criminal convictions. Ask students to discuss whether they believe the federal courts need to establish a clear right to appeal from juvenile court. Trends in Juvenile Justice

  



Teaching Note: Review the major developments that took place in many states during the past 25 years. Ask the class what changes they think may be forthcoming. Teaching Note: Ask the class what changes seem to be on the horizon for the American system of juvenile justice. Teaching Note: Review the recent National Academy of Sciences research regarding adolescent brain development and discuss the impact this may have on criminal and juvenile justice. Teaching Note: Refer back to the earlier discussion of the cutoff age for juvenile court jurisdiction. Ask students to discuss whether this age should be increased even further, given recent research into adolescent brain development such as the National Academy of Sciences report. Teaching Note: Discuss the trends identified in the recent National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) report.

LIST OF CHANGES/TRANSITION GUIDE      

The name of this chapter has been changed, and it is no longer called “Juvenile Justice.” A new section on adolescent development has been added. It points out how adolescents and adults differ in important ways. Two new Key Terms, “crossover youth” and “dual system youth,” have been added to the chapter and defined. A new figure highlighting the differences between crossover and dual system youth has been added. A new Reimagining Criminal Justice box describing disproportionality in American juvenile justice has been added and includes a definition of the term “blackness.” The number of youth held in secure confinement in the United States has been updated.

ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS AND CLASS ACTIVITIES 142



Invite a juvenile court official (judge, intake personnel, juvenile probation officer) to speak with the class either in person or through online conferencing. Have students prepare questions before the speaker’s arrival about the challenges and rewards of their work. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Class Activity: Invite an official from a local teen court program to speak with the class. Ask the speaker to discuss the pros and cons of the teen court program, what the purpose of the program is, and how effective the program has been, given the stated purpose. If it is permitted, consider also inviting teens who participate in the program to visit the class. Computer conferencing may be considered as an alternative to a classroom visit.



Have students collect data from the FBI website (UCR and NIBRS) on violent crime and on juvenile involvement in violent crime over the past ten years and create a table or graph illustrating the data trend. Have them compare and contrast the overall crime trends with those of juvenile involvement in crime. Consider having some students examine national trends while others examine data from a specific state. This exercise could also be used to examine trends in property crime.



Arrange for a tour of a local secure juvenile detention facility. Ask to see as many areas of the facility as possible during the tour, including the cafeteria, the school, vocational training areas, and dormitories. If students have also been on a tour of an adult correctional facility, have them compare and contrast adult and juvenile facilities.



Assign students (or groups of students) a state and have them research the legal rights of juveniles in that state. Have them report back and discuss on how the rights given to juveniles vary by state.



Have students research the juvenile justice process in various states and report back on the similarities and differences among states.



Have students research the various types of juvenile facilities used in your state, including both public and private facilities if applicable (or assign students or groups of students different states to research). Issues they might consider include facility size, conditions of confinement, overcrowding problems, programming for juveniles, and the characteristics of juveniles in each type of facility.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER ASSIGNMENTS 1. Why is an understanding of adolescent development important in working with justice143

involved youth? One of the hallmarks of adolescence is the development of a sense of self. The period of adolescence is characterized by greater risk taking and experimentation, a general lack of consideration of long-term consequences, and greater sensitivity to social influences. This period of risky experimentation serves adaptative functions for adolescents, and generally does not continue past adolescence. It is important to understand that most adolescents mature out of the tendency to take risks that are linked to the development of their individual identities. Therefore, most justice-involved youth are not likely to continue engaging in risky and experimental behaviors, particularly those that violate the law, as they mature. 2. Describe the history and evolution of the juvenile justice system in the Western world, and list the six categories of children recognized by the laws of most states. What other two categories of justice-involved children does this chapter identify? In past centuries, children who committed crimes could expect no preferential treatment because of their youth. There was little distinction between delinquency and criminality. Early philosophy in dealing with juveniles derived from the Roman principle of patria potesta, which led to the development of the legal principle of parens patriae. By the end of the 18th century, when the Enlightenment occurred, people started to revisit the role of children in society. America changed dramatically in the early 19th century, and many children were victimized and abandoned. These changes pressured government officials to consider how best to help children in society. Most of the pressure to change came from the child savers movement. This movement created the reform school for children. As the needs of children were more broadly recognized, states began to adopt legislation requiring separate hearings for juveniles. In 1899, the Illinois juvenile law was passed, creating a juvenile system separate from the adult system and serving as a model throughout the nation. In most jurisdictions, children subject to juvenile court jurisdiction are divided into six categories:  Delinquent: those who violate the criminal law  Undisciplined: those said to be beyond parental control  Dependent: those without parents or a guardian to care for them  Neglected: those not receiving proper care from their parents or guardian  Abused: those who experienced physical abuse at the hands of their custodian  Status offenders: those who violated laws written only for children This chapter also identifies two additional categories of justice-involved children:  Crossover youth: young people who have been victims of maltreatment and who engage in delinquent acts 144



Dual system youth: crossover youth who have at some point formally entered both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems

3. What U.S. Supreme Court decisions have had a substantial impact on the handling of juvenile offenders by the justice system? Some key Supreme Court decisions that have affected how juvenile offenders are handled by the justice system include:  



 



 



Kent v. U.S. (1966): This case ended the hands-off era in juvenile justice and recognized that at least minimal due process must be provided in juvenile court hearings. In re Gault (1967): In this case, the Court decided that juveniles have a right to notice of charges, a right to counsel, a right to confront and to cross-examine witnesses, and constitutional protections against self-incrimination. In re Winship (1970): In this case, the Court held that allegations of delinquency must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, while status offenses may be established by preponderance of the evidence. McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971): The Court ruled that juveniles do not have the constitutional right to a jury trial. Breed v. Jones (1975): This case severely restricted the conditions under which transfers from juvenile to adult court may occur, stating that they must occur before an adjudicatory hearing has been held in juvenile court. Schall v. Martin (1984): The Court upheld the practice of preventive detention but stated that it cannot be imposed without prior notice, an equitable detention hearing, and a statement by the judge setting the reasons for the detention. Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988): The Court ruled that national standards for decency do not permit the execution of any offender who was under the age of 16 at the time of the crime. Roper v. Simmons (2005): The Court held that the death penalty may not be imposed on offenders who commit a capital crime when younger than 18. Graham v. Florida (2010): The Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits the imprisonment of a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole as punishment for a crime not involving homicide. Miller v. Alabama (2012):,The Court ruled that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for individuals under the age of 18 who were convicted of homicide violates the Eighth Amendment. Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016): The Court retroactively applied the Miller decision, giving offenders who had been sentenced to mandatory life without parole as juveniles the right to have their sentences reviewed. This case also made it clear that sentences of life without parole should be imposed only in rare cases of “permanent incorrigibility.” 145

4. Describe the juvenile justice process today. Answers should review the four stages of the juvenile justice system: Intake, adjudication, disposition, and postadjudicatory review. For each stage, the students should explain the processes that occur during that stage. 5. Describe possible future directions in juvenile justice. Answers will vary but should review issues such as the OJJDP comprehensive strategy; the recent move back toward the original principles of the juvenile court; the decline in the use of juvenile institutionalization and a possible move away from the use of large juvenile confinement facilities; a move towards creating more boundaries between the adult and juvenile justice systems; a focus on how increased awareness of adolescent brain development may affect the justice system; increasing the age of juvenile court jurisdiction; the development of evidencebased reform; due process reforms; greater recognition of mental health needs of justice-involved youth; a focus on addressing racial and ethnic disparities; and improvements to aftercare programs.

146