Negotiated Pathways: PSMD who Commit Low-Level Offenses in the Criminal Justice System

Despite the central role that fines and other fiscal penalties play in systems of criminal justice, they have received relatively little scholarly attention. Court systems impose fines and other monetary sanctions in response to minor administrative and traffic offenses as well as for more serious criminal offenses. Monetary sanctions are intended to provide a deterrent punishment to reduce lawbreaking, to provide opportunities for accountability through financial restitution, to restore harm caused to victims of crime, and to fund the operation and administration of courts and criminal justice systems. Fines, fees, and other monetary sanctions are the most common form of punishment imposed by criminal justice systems. Most criminal sentences in the United States include financial penalties, and monetary sanctions are routinely imposed for less serious, and far more common, infractions such as traffic or parking violations. For many, paying a monetary sanction for a low-level violation is an annoyance. However, for the poor and people of color who are disproportionately likely to be subject to criminal justice system involvement, monetary sanctions can become a vehicle for expanded social inequality and increasingly severe criminal justice contact. Failure to pay legal financial obligations often results in court summons or license suspensions that may have attendant additional costs and may trigger incarceration. In the United States, the criminal justice system is heavily and routinely involved in the lives of low-income people of color. These already-existing biases, coupled with the deep poverty that is common in many communities, join to widen the net of criminal justice involvement by escalating low-level infractions to far more serious offenses when people are unable to pay. Despite the routine justification of monetary sanctions as less-severe penalties, if imposed without restriction on the poor, they are likely to magnify the inequality producing effects of criminal justice system involvement.

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Living with hate relationships: Familiar encounters, enduring racisms and geographies of entrapment

Environment and Planning D Society and Space ◽

10.1177/02637758211049808 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026377582110498

Author(s):

John Clayton ◽

Catherine Donovan ◽

Stephen J Macdonald

Keyword(s):

Domestic Violence ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Low Level ◽

North East

This paper utilises the concept of ‘hate relationships’ in conversation with the literature on geographies of encounter to explore experiences of racism for those entrapped by racist encounters with those who are familiar. In so doing, we attend to the uneven and harmful risks involved in some forms of everyday urban encounter. We draw upon case notes collated by a hate advocacy service in North East England, UK, to illustrate the cumulative damaging force of enduring hate relationships. By drawing parallels with work on domestic violence, we suggest hate relationships evident in our data exhibit distinct temporalities of routinisation, whereby harmful ‘low level’ violence, often under the radar of the criminal justice system, gains force through repeated neighbourhood-based encounters. In so doing, we also highlight both the situated and relational spatialities at work; localised encounters marked by familiarity, racialised territoriality and experiences of fear and immobility, but also relations of entrenched disadvantage and institutional failures that sustain harm. Concerted acts of resistance look to confront and/or escape these relationships, but as forms of resolution, where additional burdens are placed on victim/survivors, these are constrained by the same violent conditions through which such relationships are allowed to take shape.

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The notion and basic principles of restorative justice

Temida ◽

10.2298/tem0701025c ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 25-35 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Sanja Copic

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Restorative Justice ◽

Criminal Law ◽

Justice System ◽

Criminal Policy ◽

Basic Principles ◽

Low Level ◽

Is Development

One of the most important achievements of the contemporary criminal justice system and criminal policy is development of the concept of restorative justice. Contemporary concept of restorative justice was developed in 1970s on the basis of the criticism of the traditional criminal law and criminal justice system. Since that time, it has been developing through different programs in many countries. Reform of the criminal justice system in Serbia staring from 2002 went into direction of entering elements of restorative justice into existing criminal justice system. In that sense, development of restorative justice is still at the beginning in our country. However, it can be noticed that there is a low level of awareness on the nature and importance of restorative forms of response to crime among our professionals, as well as a lack of understanding of the concept itself. Due to that, the aim of the paper is to enable better understanding of restorative concept in general through defining restorative justice and basic principles it relies on. That may put a basis for further recognition of restorative elements in our criminal justice system, which may provide adequate implementation of relevant provisions of restorative character in practice. .

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Problems Related to Reintegration of Young Ex-Offenders in Estonia

Kriminologijos studijos ◽

10.15388/crimlithuan.2019.7.3 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 56-74

Author(s):

Anna Markina

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Social Participation ◽

Justice System ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

State Institutions ◽

Low Level ◽

Societal Participation

Based on 22 semi-structured interviews with 24 young ex-offenders in Estonia, this article looks at the effect that stigmatization has on the reintegration of young ex-offenders. The study looks at to what extent and in which domains ex-offenders experience stigma, how they manage it, and what effect it has on social participation and involvement. The results indicate that young ex-offenders experience stigma while looking for jobs and accommodation and when interacting with the criminal justice system. The strategies for managing stigma mostly include secrecy and withdrawal. These strategies are closely related to self-stigmatization, low societal participation, and a low level of trust toward state institutions.

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The consequences of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act for police arrests

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0261512 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. e0261512

Author(s):

Jessica T. Simes ◽

Jaquelyn L. Jahn

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Affordable Care Act ◽

Justice System ◽

Sensitivity Analyses ◽

Medicaid Expansion ◽

Low Level ◽

Drug Arrests ◽

The Affordable Care Act ◽

Negative Difference

Background & methods National protests in the summer of 2020 drew attention to the significant presence of police in marginalized communities. Recent social movements have called for substantial police reforms, including “defunding the police,” a phrase originating from a larger, historical abolition movement advocating that public investments be redirected away from the criminal justice system and into social services and health care. Although research has demonstrated the expansive role of police to respond a broad range of social problems and health emergencies, existing research has yet to fully explore the capacity for health insurance policy to influence rates of arrest in the population. To fill this gap, we examine the potential effect of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on arrests in 3,035 U.S. counties. We compare county-level arrests using FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program Data before and after Medicaid expansion in 2014–2016, relative to counties in non-expansion states. We use difference-in-differences (DID) models to estimate the change in arrests following Medicaid expansion for overall arrests, and violent, drug, and low-level arrests. Results Police arrests significantly declined following the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA. Medicaid expansion produced a 20–32% negative difference in overall arrests rates in the first three years. We observe the largest negative differences for drug arrests: we find a 25–41% negative difference in drug arrests in the three years following Medicaid expansion, compared to non-expansion counties. We observe a 19–29% negative difference in arrests for violence in the three years after Medicaid expansion, and a decrease in low-level arrests between 24–28% in expansion counties compared to non-expansion counties. Our main results for drug arrests are robust to multiple sensitivity analyses, including a state-level model. Conclusions Evidence in this paper suggests that expanded Medicaid insurance reduced police arrests, particularly drug-related arrests. Combined with research showing the harmful health consequences of chronic policing in disadvantaged communities, greater insurance coverage creates new avenues for individuals to seek care, receive treatment, and avoid criminalization. As police reform is high on the agenda at the local, state, and federal level, our paper supports the perspective that broad health policy reforms can meaningfully reduce contact with the criminal justice system under historic conditions of mass criminalization.

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