Opioids and the Criminal Justice System: New Challenges Posed by the Modern Opioid Epidemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan P. Caulkins ◽  
Anne Gould ◽  
Bryce Pardo ◽  
Peter Reuter ◽  
Bradley D. Stein

The traditional US heroin market has transformed into a broader illegal opioid market, dominated first by prescription opioids (PO) and now also by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids (FOSO). Understanding of opioid-use disorder (OUD) has also transformed from being seen as a driver of crime to a medical condition whose sufferers deserve treatment. This creates new challenges and opportunities for the criminal justice system (CJS). Addressing inmates’ OUD is a core responsibility, including preventing overdose after release. Treatment can be supported by diversion programs (e.g., drug courts, among others) and by providing medication-assisted treatment in prison, not only as a crime-control strategy but also because of ethical and legal responsibilities to provide appropriate healthcare. The CJS also has opportunities to alter supply that were not relevant in the past, including deterring pill-mill doctors and disrupting web sites used to distribute FOSO. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 4 is January 13, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon R. Graham ◽  
Michael D. Makowsky

Revenue generated through the criminal justice system has become a key component of local government budgets across the United States. Although numerous restrictions exist to constrain traditional sources of revenue, only recently have legislators introduced checks on the fiscal profitability of fines, fees, forfeitures, and asset seizures. Left unrestricted, fiscal incentives have demonstrably manifested in the enforcement patterns and discretionary decisions of police. The transformation of officers into agents of revenue creation leads to increased targeting of minority populations and out-of-towners, with emphasis on arrests that yield potential property seizure, with negative consequences for both community trust and the provision of public safety. Those burdened with legal financial obligations are disproportionately poor, positioning the criminal justice system as a pointedly regressive form of taxation. We discuss the mechanisms behind criminal justice revenue generation, the consequences to law enforcement outcomes, and policies designed to reform and mitigate revenue-driven law enforcement. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 4 is January 13, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


Author(s):  
Paul H. Robinson

Crime-control utilitarians and retributivist philosophers have long been at war over the appropriate distributive principle for criminal liability and punishment, with little apparent possibility of reconciliation between the two. In the utilitarians’ view, the imposition of punishment can be justified only by the practical benefit that it provides: avoiding future crime. In the retributivists’ view, doing justice for past wrongs is a value in itself that requires no further justification. The competing approaches simply use different currencies: fighting future crime versus doing justice for past wrongs. It is argued here that the two are in fact reconcilable, in a fashion. We cannot declare a winner in the distributive principle wars but something more like a truce. Specifically, good utilitarians ought to support a distributive principle based upon desert because the empirical evidence suggests that doing justice for past wrongdoing is likely the most effective and efficient means of controlling future crime. A criminal justice system perceived by the community as conflicting with its principles of justice provokes resistance and subversion, whereas a criminal justice system that earns a reputation for reliably doing justice is one whose moral credibility inspires deference, assistance, and acquiescence, and is more likely to have citizens internalize its norms of what is truly condemnable conduct. Retributivists ought to support empirical desert as a distributive principle because, while it is indeed distinct from deontological desert, there exists an enormous overlap between the two, and it seems likely that empirical desert may be the best practical approximation of deontological desert. Indeed, some philosophers would argue that the two are necessarily the same.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonora Di Molfetta ◽  
Jelmer Brouwer

This article explores the challenges that (cr)immigration practices pose to draw the boundaries of punishment by examining foreign national prisoners’ penal subjectivities. More exclusionary and draconian migration policies have blurred the boundaries between border control and crime control, creating hybrid forms of punishment that, even if officially claimed as measures outside the criminal justice realm, inflict pain and communicate censure. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews with foreign national prisoners facing expulsion in the Dutch penitentiary facility of Ter Apel, we detail how hybrid (cr)immigration practices are capable of imposing and delivering meanings that go well behind rooted significances and aims of administrative measures. Traditionally designed with preventive purposes, administrative measures have now become part of a project of social exclusion and reaffirmation of the worth of citizenship. This circumstance raises problematic questions for the legitimacy of the criminal justice system in dealing with non-citizens.


1997 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Fenwick

This paper draws attention to the interests of the victim in the criminal justice system in relation to the use of charge bargaining and the sentence discount in UK law. The paper argues that debate in this area tends to assume that these practices, particularly use of the graded sentence discount, are in harmony with the needs of crime control and with the interests of victims, but that they may infringe due process rights. Debate tends to concentrate on the due process implications of such practices, while the ready association of victims' interests with those of crime control tends to preclude consideration of a distinctive victim's perspective. This paper therefore seeks to identify the impact of charge bargaining and the sentence discount on victims in order to identify a particular victim's perspective. It goes on to evaluate measures which would afford it expression including the introduction of victim consultation and participation in charge bargains and discount decisions as proposed under the 1996 Victim's Charter. It will be argued, however, that while this possibility has value, victims' interests might be more clearly served by limiting or abandoning the use of these practices.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Le Lan Chi

The court exercises the judicial power, thereby plays an important role in protecting human rights. However, such role varies across nations and models of criminal procedure. Vietnam, the country has been following the model of crime control, has its corresponding approach to the role of the court in protecting human rights. Notwithstanding, the current context of improving the rule of law and human rights has posed challenges and raised questions of changing the approach. Keywords The Court, adjudication, human rights, model, due-process, crime-control, the accused References [1] Herbert L. Packer, Two models of the criminal process, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1964, 1 (http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/penn_law_review/vol113/iss1/1) [2] Joycelyn M. Pollock, Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice, Cengage Learning, Boston, 2015, p.116 [3] https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/criminal-justice/the-criminal-justice-system/which-model-crime-control-or-due-process [4] Fairchild, E. and Dammer, H. R., Comparative Criminal Justice System, 2nd ed. Belmont, Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2001, p. 146 [5] Fairchild, E. and Dammer, H. R., Comparative Criminal Justice System, 2nd ed. Belmont, Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2001, p. 148 [6] Đào Trí Úc, Hệ thống những nguyên tắc cơ bản của tố tụng hình sự Việt Nam theo Bộ luật tố tụng hình sự năm 2015 (in trong sách chuyên khảo “Những nội dung mới trong Bộ luật tố tụng hình sự năm 2015”, Nguyễn Hoà Bình (chủ biên), Nxb. Chính trị quốc gia – Sự thật, Hà Nội, 2016, trang 59.


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