Diversion in the Criminal Justice System

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mueller-Smith ◽  
Kevin T. Schnepel
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Harris County ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
First Time ◽  
Second Chance

Abstract This article provides the first causal estimates on the popular, cost-saving practice of diversion in the criminal justice system, an intervention that provides offenders with a second chance to avoid a criminal record. We exploit two natural experiments in Harris County, Texas where first-time felony defendants faced abrupt changes in the probability of diversion. Using administrative data and regression discontinuity methods, we find robust evidence across both experiments that diversion cuts reoffending rates in half and grows quarterly employment rates by nearly 50% over 10 years. The change in trajectory persists even 20 years out and is concentrated among young black men. An investigation of mechanisms strongly suggests that stigma associated with a felony conviction plays a key role in generating these results. Other possible mechanisms including changes in incarceration, other universal adjustments in policy or practice, and differences in criminal processing are ruled out empirically.

A Real Second Chance

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 272-275
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Coping Skills ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Recidivism Rates ◽  
Federal Inmates ◽  
Older Inmates ◽  
Returning Citizens ◽  
Second Chance

Amendments to the compassionate release provisions of the federal First Step Act and Second Chance Acts provide some opportunity for release for elderly and infirm federal inmates. This article examines the reentry successes of three Pennsylvania state inmates, all convicted of homicide, who won their release as re-sentenced juvenile lifers or through commutation. The author came to know them through a reentry group affiliated with a Pittsburgh university. Their success and scholarship about the low recidivism rates for violent offenders over the age fifty suggest that the criminal justice system should abolish the imposition of life sentences. More than avoid recidivism, each of these returning citizens has made positive contributions to their communities, both in and out of prison. They are working, obtaining educations, engaging in charitable work and political advocacy, and writing about their experiences. Their example and their description of many similarly-situated older inmates still in prison teach that society should not rest the argument for their release solely on compassion and pity. Rather, older inmates have learned coping skills that can help restore the communities that their crimes harmed and that they were taken from during their incarceration. For these reasons, the author suggests that prison sentences generally should provide for release after an inmate serves twenty-five years and attains the age of fifty.

Justice-Based OT: A Scoping Review and Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. 7512510227p1-7512510227p1
Author(s):  
Jaime P. Muñoz ◽  
Yinao Wang ◽  
Abigail Catalano
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Practice Guidelines ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
Primary Author ◽  
Distinct Role

Abstract Date Presented 04/13/21 This scoping review analyzed OT practice in justice-based systems as depicted in 140 sources appearing in publications between 1943 and 2019. This analysis may inform students, practitioners, and researchers and support efforts to define a distinct role for OTs in justice-based systems. Results may help define competencies or practice guidelines and inform the development of practices, programs, and research addressing the needs of individuals involved in the criminal justice system. Primary Author and Speaker: Jaime P. Muñoz Additional Authors and Speakers: Mimi Stroud, Suzanne Walter, Courtney Stonesifer, Yk Liao, and Samantha Marrah

Deferring felony prosecution: a process evaluation of an innovative Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office program

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 261-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Cossyleon ◽  
John Orwat ◽  
Christine George ◽  
Don Stemen ◽  
Whitney Key
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Cook County ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Felony Conviction ◽  
Content Type ◽  
First Time

Purpose The Cook County State Attorneys’ Deferred Prosecution Program (DPP) is a pre-trial diversionary program that accepts first-time, non-violent defendants charged with a felony crime. The purpose of this paper is to document the development, implementation, and program patterns of the DPP to better understand the program’s scope and reach in diverting defendants from traditional criminal prosecution. Design/methodology/approach The approach to evaluating Cook County’s DPP is primarily qualitative. Through interviews with program administrators and current and former participants, the authors document the process of creating and implementing such DPP that aims to avoid a felony conviction altogether. The authors provide program participant patterns to shed light on the program’s scope and reach in diverting defendants from traditional felony prosecution. Findings Using data from staff, administrators, and program participants, the authors found that the DPP was developed and implemented through supportive leadership who instilled a culture of collaboration and buy-in. Expanding the program could include increasing the capacity of DPP to include additional participants or having a DPP incorporated into each branch court, instead of the centralized system under which it currently operates. Increasing the capacity and scope of the program could both further decrease criminal court caseloads and most importantly avoid a higher number of stigmatizing felony convictions for first-time non-violent defendants. Practical implications DPPs are cost effective and can be easily implemented within existing systems. Collaboration and buy-in from all stakeholders are crucial to the program’s success. DPP offers opportunities for expansion. Increasing the capacity and scope of the program could both further decrease criminal court caseloads and most importantly avoid a higher number of stigmatizing felony convictions for first-time non-violent felony defendants. Originality/value The main goals of DPP were two-fold. The first was to minimize the level of resources allocated for non-violent offenders in the criminal justice system by diverting such defendants out of the criminal justice system early in the process and reducing the recidivism rates of program participants. The second aimed to provide an option for eligible defendants to avoid a felony conviction, thereby avoiding the collateral consequences associating with a felony conviction.

M

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samm Deighan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
German Society ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Serial Killer ◽  
German Expressionism ◽  
First Sound ◽  
To Come ◽  
First Time

Fritz Lang's first sound feature, M (1931), is one of the earliest serial killer films in cinema history and laid the foundation for future horror movies and thrillers, particularly those with a disturbed killer as protagonist. Peter Lorre's child killer, Hans Beckert, is presented as monstrous, yet sympathetic, building on themes presented in the earlier German Expressionist horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac. Lang eerily foreshadowed the rising fascist horrors in German society, and transforms his cinematic Berlin into a place of urban terror and paranoia. This book explores the way Lang uses horror and thriller tropes in M, particularly in terms of how it functions as a bridge between German Expressionism and Hollywood's growing fixation on sympathetic killers in the 1940s. The book also examines how Lang made use of developments within forensic science and the criminal justice system to portray a somewhat realistic serial killer on screen for the first time, at once capturing how society in the 1930s and 1940s viewed such individuals and their crimes and shaping how they would be portrayed on screen in the horror films to come.

The Corfu Criminal Court Archive: Recording, Impressing and Studying the Phenomenon of Violence and Justice in the Ionian State (1815-1864)

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-65
Author(s):  
Yanna Dimitriou ◽  
◽  
Eleni Socratus ◽  
Emmanuil Drakakis
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
First Time

This article examines the encounters of the Ionian people with criminal justice system during the period from 1815 to 1864, when the Ionian Islands were a British protectorate. Drawing on data from cases of the Criminal Court Archives of Corfu for the first time, it argues that criminality mostly concerned the lower social classes and was not very common. Using violence as a lens, the paper primarily focuses on Corfu’s criminal justice system and offers quantitative and qualitative evidence on which further comparative studies of the history of law and crime in Greece and Europe at that time may be based.

Criminal Justice System Outcomes for Buyers, Sellers, and Facilitators of Commercial Sex in Houston, Texas

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (11) ◽  
pp. 1596-1618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander H. Updegrove ◽  
Lisa R. Muftic ◽  
Nicole Niebuhr
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Harris County ◽  
Sex Trade ◽  
The Relationship

This study draws upon the economic model of prostitution to explore the relationship between gender, prostitution role, and criminal justice system outcomes. Official court data for 1,027 prostitution arrestees from Harris County (Houston), Texas, were used to differentiate participants by their role in the commercial sex trade (buyer, facilitator, or seller). Logistic regression results indicate that gender differences persist for case dismissal and plea deal acceptance among prostitution arrestees even after controlling for their criminality and role in the prostitution offense. Although gender does not influence the likelihood of conviction, buyers are significantly less likely to be convicted than sellers. Implications from these findings, as well as limitations and suggestions for further research, are discussed.

Due Process: The Myth of the Criminal Justice System

1983 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 304-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Kalinich
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Due Process
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