Correctional Psychology

7. How do we control crime?

Criminology: A Very Short Introduction ◽

10.1093/actrade/9780199643257.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 83-96

Author(s):

Tim Newburn

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Social Norms ◽

Social Control ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Crime Control ◽

Prison System ◽

Informal Social Control ◽

Community Based ◽

Norms And Values ◽

Recent Trends

‘How do we control crime?’ discusses the formal and less formal means thought to control crime. The formal means refer to the use of the criminal justice system: the police, courts, and prison system. Arising from what we know to be the limitations of organized criminal justice in relation to crime control, the less formal means to control crime are considered as the processes of socialization, whereby social norms and values are learned, reinforced by what is often referred to as informal social control. Recent trends in the use of punishment, from incarceration in prisons to the use of non-custodial, community-based penalties are also discussed.

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A kaupapa Māori analysis of the use of Māori cultural identity in the prison system

10.26686/wgtn.17009219 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Riki Mihaere

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

Cultural Identity ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Prison Population ◽

Prison System ◽

Policy And Practice ◽

The Status ◽

Kaupapa Māori

Māori are 15% of the New Zealand population, and yet are 45.3% of annual police apprehensions and 51% of the prison population. This status of Māori ‘over-representation’ in the criminal justice system has remained steady for the last 34 years. One principle explanation of this status is that Māori have limited access to a secure Māori cultural identity. As a result, criminal justice authorities, especially the Department of Corrections, have progressively focused policies and programmes towards the perceived Māori cultural related needs of Māori offenders and prisoners. This focus is undertaken not only to reduce rates of recidivism but also to provide culturally relevant environments for Māori prisoners and increased opportunities for successful rehabilitation. The result is that New Zealand’s prison system now contains a number of unique strategies such as the Māori Therapeutic Programme, the New Life Akoranga Programme and Māori Focus Units. Despite these developments, there remains a dearth of clearly articulated descriptions of how, why or even if Māori cultural identity has a positive effect on reducing Māori offending and imprisonment. This thesis is designed to address this gap in the research. The thesis pursues a kaupapa Māori methodology, using in-depth interviews with key Māori associated with the development of the theory, policy and practice of Māori cultural identity in the criminal justice system. This focus provides an opportunity for those Māori whose careers or, in some cases, life works have been dedicated to the development and implementation of cultural responses to crime to speak for themselves. This approach allows a full exploration of the underlying rationale and meaning of the Māori cultural identity policies and resultant programmes sprinkled throughout New Zealand’s system. The thesis develops two key arguments. Firstly, despite strongly held criminal justice beliefs about the potential validity of Māori cultural identity in relation to reducing Māori offending and imprisonment, the broader context regarding the status of Māori as the most marginalised population in New Zealand is largely ignored. Rather than accepting that Māori offending is likely to be ignited by a broad array of socio-economic factors which are the result of generations of colonising Pākehā practices, the Correctional response has been to individualise Māori offending by focusing on the degree of Māori cultural identity inherent in specific Māori offenders. Secondly, that the authenticity of Māori cultural identity policies and programmes designed and delivered by Corrections is questionable. While the Department argues that Māori cultural identity nestles comfortably within western-based therapeutic programmes, professional Māori disagree. In their view, the Māori cultural identity programmes delivered in New Zealand’s prisons do not resemble Māori culture at all. Given these two arguments, the thesis questions whether the criminal justice use of Māori cultural identity is more a measure of official attempts to meet ‘Treaty’ obligations rather than a genuine effort to reduce Māori offending and imprisonment.

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"Infinity Goes up on Trial": Sanism, Pretextuality, and the Representation of Defendants with Mental Disabilities

QUT Law Review ◽

10.5204/qutlr.v16i3.689 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 106

Author(s):

Michael L Perlin

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Mental Disability ◽

Public Defender ◽

Mental Disabilities ◽

Font Size ◽

Maximum Security ◽

Us Supreme Court ◽

Two Factors

I begin by sharing a bit about my past. Before I became a professor, I spent 13 years as a lawyer representing persons with mental disabilities, including three years in which my focus was primarily on such individuals charged with crime. In this role, when I was Deputy Public Defender in Mercer County (Trenton) NJ, I represented several hundred individuals at the maximum security hospital for the criminally insane in New Jersey, both in individual cases, and in a class action that implemented the then-recent US Supreme Court case of Jackson v Indiana, that had declared unconstitutional state policy that allowed for the indefinite commitment of pre-trial detainees in maximum security forensic facilities if it were unlikely he would regain his capacity to stand trial in the ‘foreseeable future.’I continued to represent this population for a decade in my later positions as Director of the NJ Division of Mental Health Advocacy and Special Counsel to the NJ Public Advocate. Also, as a Public Defender, I represented at trial many defendants who were incompetent to stand trial, and others who, although competent, pled not guilty by reason of insanity. Finally, during the time that I directed the Federal Litigation Clinic at New York Law School, I filed a brief on behalf of appellant in Ake v Oklahoma, on the right of an indigent defendant to an independent psychiatrist to aid in the presentation of an insanity defence. I have appeared in courts at every level from police court to the US Supreme Court, in the latter ‘second-seating’ Strickland v Washington. I raise all this not to offer a short form of my biography, but to underscore that this article draws on my experiences of years in trial courts and appellate courts as well as from decades of teaching and of writing books and articles about the relationship between mental disability and the criminal trial process. And it was those experiences that have formed my opinions and my thoughts about how society’s views of mental disability have poisoned the criminal justice system, all leading directly to this paper, that will mostly be about what I call ‘sanism’ and what I call ‘pretextuality’. The paper will also consider how these factors drive the behaviour of judges, jurors, prosecutors, witnesses, and defence lawyers, whenever a person with a mental disability is charged with crime, and about a potential remedy that might help eradicate this poison.It is essential that lawyers representing criminal defendants with mental disabilities understand the meanings and contexts of sanism and pretextuality and to show how these two factors infect all aspects of the criminal process, and offer some thoughts as to how they may be remediated. I believe – and I have been doing this work for over 40 years – that an understanding of these two factors is absolutely essential to any understanding of how our criminal justice system works in the context of this population, and how it is essential that criminal defence lawyers be in the front lines of those seeking to eradicate the contamination of these poisons from our system. *Please note this is an invited paper - ie. not peer reviewed*

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How Effective is Criminal Fine Enforcement in the Israeli Criminal Justice System?

Israel Law Review ◽

10.1017/s0021223700016009 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 322-338 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Tomer Einat

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Community Service ◽

Justice System ◽

Prison System ◽

Penal System ◽

Prison Sentence ◽

Intermediate Sanctions ◽

Penal Sanctions ◽

Severity Of Punishment

Over-burdening of the prison system and serious reservations as to the usefulness of the prison sentence as a means of reducing crimes rates have led penologists and policymakers to seek ways to broaden the repertoire of criminal punishments available to the courts. In the search for effective and affordable sentencing policies, there has been increasing interest in the development and elaboration of intermediate sanctions as part of a menu of sentencing choices that match the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the crime.This trend is clearly reflected in the development of the penal system in Israel. In elaborating alternatives to imprisonment, an integrated model, incorporating welfare and rehabilitation considerations, has emerged. Nevertheless, Israeli judges have remarkably few sentencing alternatives at their disposal, and the penal sanctions available to them can be counted on the fingers of one hand, namely, imprisonment, suspended prison sentence, probation, community service, and the fine.

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A kaupapa Māori analysis of the use of Māori cultural identity in the prison system

10.26686/wgtn.17009219.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Riki Mihaere

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

Cultural Identity ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Prison Population ◽

Prison System ◽

Policy And Practice ◽

The Status ◽

Kaupapa Māori

Māori are 15% of the New Zealand population, and yet are 45.3% of annual police apprehensions and 51% of the prison population. This status of Māori ‘over-representation’ in the criminal justice system has remained steady for the last 34 years. One principle explanation of this status is that Māori have limited access to a secure Māori cultural identity. As a result, criminal justice authorities, especially the Department of Corrections, have progressively focused policies and programmes towards the perceived Māori cultural related needs of Māori offenders and prisoners. This focus is undertaken not only to reduce rates of recidivism but also to provide culturally relevant environments for Māori prisoners and increased opportunities for successful rehabilitation. The result is that New Zealand’s prison system now contains a number of unique strategies such as the Māori Therapeutic Programme, the New Life Akoranga Programme and Māori Focus Units. Despite these developments, there remains a dearth of clearly articulated descriptions of how, why or even if Māori cultural identity has a positive effect on reducing Māori offending and imprisonment. This thesis is designed to address this gap in the research. The thesis pursues a kaupapa Māori methodology, using in-depth interviews with key Māori associated with the development of the theory, policy and practice of Māori cultural identity in the criminal justice system. This focus provides an opportunity for those Māori whose careers or, in some cases, life works have been dedicated to the development and implementation of cultural responses to crime to speak for themselves. This approach allows a full exploration of the underlying rationale and meaning of the Māori cultural identity policies and resultant programmes sprinkled throughout New Zealand’s system. The thesis develops two key arguments. Firstly, despite strongly held criminal justice beliefs about the potential validity of Māori cultural identity in relation to reducing Māori offending and imprisonment, the broader context regarding the status of Māori as the most marginalised population in New Zealand is largely ignored. Rather than accepting that Māori offending is likely to be ignited by a broad array of socio-economic factors which are the result of generations of colonising Pākehā practices, the Correctional response has been to individualise Māori offending by focusing on the degree of Māori cultural identity inherent in specific Māori offenders. Secondly, that the authenticity of Māori cultural identity policies and programmes designed and delivered by Corrections is questionable. While the Department argues that Māori cultural identity nestles comfortably within western-based therapeutic programmes, professional Māori disagree. In their view, the Māori cultural identity programmes delivered in New Zealand’s prisons do not resemble Māori culture at all. Given these two arguments, the thesis questions whether the criminal justice use of Māori cultural identity is more a measure of official attempts to meet ‘Treaty’ obligations rather than a genuine effort to reduce Māori offending and imprisonment.

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Imagining an Aotearoa/New Zealand Without Prisons

Counterfutures ◽

10.26686/cf.v3i0.6419 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 99

Author(s):

John Buttle

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Racial Bias ◽

Prison System ◽

Human Potential ◽

Effective Response ◽

Aotearoa New Zealand ◽

High Level

It is hard to remember a time when New Zealand has not been draconian in its attitudes towards punishment. A national desire seemingly exists for a high level of incarceration whose effect, at the very least, is a systemic and needless waste of human potential. This desire sees a rising number of prisoners locked within a dehumanising and persistently expensive prison system. An effective response to this problem requires that the prevailing ‘populist’ understanding of punishment be abandoned. Ultimately, it will require imagining a society that is without prisons. Prior to that stage being reached, however, an interim strategy of ‘decarceration’ is needed, one which reduces the levels of imprisonment such that the abolition of prisons becomes feasible. This involves the reform of elements within New Zealand’s criminal justice system that proceed incarceration: the police, the courts, and sentencing in particular. Reforming these elements requires a serious engagement with the well-documented racial bias that characterises the operation of those fields.

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What Münsterberg Got Right, What He Missed, and What We’re Missing Now

Hugo Münsterberg's Psychology and Law ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190696344.003.0011 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 235-256

Author(s):

Brian H. Bornstein ◽

Jeffrey S. Neuschatz

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Clinical Psychology ◽

Justice System ◽

Medical Practitioners ◽

Psychology And Law ◽

Forensic Psychologists ◽

The Law

As the preceding chapters show, Münsterberg was incredibly prescient in his view of what psychology could offer the law. Nonetheless, he neglected to include a number of topics that are currently of great concern to forensic psychologists, the criminal justice system, and policymakers. For example, at the time Münsterberg wrote On the Witness Stand, clinical psychology did not exist as a fully formed field; such matters were left largely to medical practitioners. This chapter summarizes what Münsterberg got right and what he missed, and it attempts to foretell where the field of psychology and law is heading by discussing what we are missing now.

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Overcrowding: Nobody's fault? When some struggle to survive waiting for everyone to take responsibility

International Review of the Red Cross ◽

10.1017/s1816383117000583 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 98 (903) ◽

pp. 831-843

Author(s):

Vincent Ballon

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Human Dignity ◽

Justice System ◽

Coping Mechanisms ◽

Prison System ◽

Private Life ◽

The Senses ◽

Survival Mechanisms

AbstractVisiting an overcrowded prison is a journey into the private life of each person deprived of his or her freedom, into the community of the detainees and of the staff working in such a place. Using the senses of sight, hearing, smell and touch, combined with empathy and time for observation, helps ICRC delegates to explore vulnerabilities, discover how detainees and staff cope, and grasp the intricate complexity of such a prison system. Beyond what is left of human dignity in these places of detention, when coping mechanisms become survival mechanisms, the suffering shows that overcrowding is wrong. It follows that if overcrowding is “nobody's fault”, it is the responsibility of every individual and every institution of the criminal justice system to create solutions.

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