scholarly journals After Trump: Restoring Legitimacy to the Pardon Power

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 285-292
Author(s):  
Margaret Colgate Love
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Meaningful Use ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Justice Department ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Presidential Policy ◽  
The Way

The guest editor’s introduction aims to provide an overview of Donald Trump’s extraordinary record of pardoning, and a road map to the essays in the Issue. Together the essays discuss ways to restore legitimacy to the pardon power and increase its usefulness to the presidency, by limiting some of the pardon power’s most extreme uses; supplementing the pardon power with statutory remedies so that the president is no longer personally responsible for so much routine criminal justice business; and managing the pardon power in a way that serves the presidency and not the parochial interests of federal prosecutors. All of these ideas and arguments together suggest that the way to restoring pardon’s democratic legitimacy and usefulness to the president lies in shrinking the portfolio of routine chores for which pardon is now exclusively responsible, and in restoring the independence and stature of the pardon advisory process within the Justice Department. It would be both fitting and deeply ironic if Donald Trump’s irregular and undemocratic pardoning led to a more coherent and meaningful use of the constitutional power in the service of an enlightened presidential policy agenda, to a renewed commitment to the historically close relationship between pardon and the justice system, and even to a transformation of the Justice Department’s unforgiving prosecutorial culture.

Seeing Justice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Angela Bock
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
The Way

Seeing Justice examines the way criminal justice in the United States is presented in visual media by focusing on the grounded practices of visual journalists in relationship with law enforcement. The book extends the concept of embodied gatekeeping, the corporeal and discursive practices connected to controlling visual media production and the complex ways social actors struggle over the construction of visual messages. Based on research that includes participant observation, extended interviews, and critical discourse analysis, the book provides a detailed examination of the way these practices shape media constructions and the way digitization is altering the relationships between media, citizens, and the criminal justice system. The project looks at contemporary cases that made the headlines through a theoretical lens based on the work of Michel Foucault, Walter Fisher, Stuart Hall, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Nick Couldry, and Roland Barthes. Its cases reveal the way powerful interests are able to shape representations of justice in ways that serve their purposes, occasionally at the expense of marginalized groups. Based on cases ranging from the last US public hanging to the proliferation of “Karen-shaming” videos, this monograph offers three observations. First, visual journalism’s physicality increases its reliance on those in power, making it easy for officials in the criminal justice system to shape its image. Second, image indexicality, even while it is subject to narrative negation, remains an essential affordance in the public sphere. Finally, participation in this visual public sphere must be considered as an essential human capability if not a human right.

scholarly journals Wife Assault, The Justice System and Professional Responsibility

1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 908
Author(s):  
Diana Ginn
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Battered Women ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Professional Responsibility ◽  
Wife Assault ◽  
The Past ◽  
Key Players ◽  
The Way

The author reviews the response of the criminal justice system to the problem of wife assault by focusing on the key players within the system. The way the criminal law applies to wife assault affects battered women's access to that area of law known as family law, with negative repercussions for them and their children. Several myths about the nature of wife assault help ensure an inappropriate response. These include the myths that the woman is to blame, that by just leaving the abusive situation she can resolve it, and that if she does not leave it is because she enjoys the abuse. The author reviews current methods used by police, prosecutors and judges for dealing with wife assault and discusses the inadequacies of those methods. She concludes that despite many recommendations for change, there have been no significant improvements in the way the criminal justice system deals with wife assault. It is incumbent upon the legal profession to demonstrate professional responsibility by ensuring that wife assault is taken more seriously than it is now and than it has been in the past. This is a necessary reform before battered women can rely on the criminal justice system.

Convicted and Condemned

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keesha M. Middlemass
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Felony Conviction ◽  
Disability Theory ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
The Way

Convicted and Condemned is a critical assessment of how a felony conviction operates as an integral part of prisoner reentry. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework and ethnographic data, the book advances knowledge about the connection among politics, racial animosity, history, public policies, and a felony conviction, which is rooted in historical notions of infamy and the political system of white supremacy. By applying social disability theory to the way a felony conviction functions outside of the criminal justice system, this book explores the evolution of a felony conviction, the common understanding of it, and the way it became shorthand for criminality and deviance specifically linked to black skin. On the basis of social practices, politicians took the common understanding of a felony conviction and extended its function beyond the boundaries of the criminal justice system so that a felony conviction is now embedded in policies that deny felons access to public housing, educational grants, and employment opportunities. Unique ethnographic and interview data reveal that because felons no longer can be physically exiled to faraway lands, a form of internal exile is performed when a felony conviction intersects with public policies, resulting in contemporary outlaws. The book argues that the punitive discourse around a felony conviction allows for the extension of the carceral state beyond the penitentiary to create socially disabled felons, and that the understanding of who and what a felon is shapes societal actions, reinforces the color line, and is a contributing factor undermining felons’ ability to reenter society successfully.

scholarly journals POLICING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: The enthusiasm gap

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Altbeker
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Way

Those monitoring the Domestic Violence Act generally conclude that it is poorly understood and badly implemented by officials in the criminal justice system. But a project aimed at understanding how ordinary cops police South Africa’s streets concludes that part of the problem with this conclusion is a failure to grasp the real limitations – legal, logistical and emotional – under which policing operates. These limitations, combined with the sheer volume of cases, affect the way in which ordinary officers handle these incidents.

Attribution, Salience, and Attitudes toward Criminal Sanctioning

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANCIS T. CULLEN ◽  
GREGORY A. CLARK ◽  
JOHN B. CULLEN ◽  
RICHARD A. MATHERS
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Attributional Processes ◽  
The Way

Building upon the work of Stinchcombe, Taylor et al., the present research attempts to assess the impact of victimization, salience, and attribution on four measures of criminal sanctioning: general punishment, rehabilitation, capital punishment, and the punishment of white-collar crime. Utilizing a sample drawn from Galesburg, Illinois, our analysis revealed that attitudes were not significantly influenced by being a victim or by crime salience. In contrast, our measure of attribution (what a person “attributed” the cause of crime to) had consistent effects across the scales, with those having a positivist orientation being less punitive and more in favor of rehabilitation. When members of criminal justice related occupations were included in the analysis, these results generally continued to persist. These findings thus suggest that attributional processes and, in particular, the way in which people explain crime may be important determinants of the attitudes that those both inside and outside the criminal justice system hold toward sanctioning policy.

The Future of Correction: A Defense Attorney's View

1971 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-270
Author(s):  
Michael Meltsner
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
National Program ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

The author, former legal director of an organization conducting a national program of test litigation in the correctional area, describes a variety of cases that have led him to take a pessimistic view of the future of correction. He states that (1) a defendant cannot put much faith in a criminal justice system which makes his pretrial freedom dependent on the amount of money he has; (2) considering the lack of resources provided for those in jail but presumably innocent pending trial, one can expect little in the way of correctional resources for convicts; (3) longstanding prison abuses are still widespread; (4) judges and administrators ignore the failures of experimental programs in order that they may continue to require inmates to participate in them; and (5) the correctional process is perhaps most dangerous when it justifies itself as acting in the defendant's best interests. In conclusion, the author suggests that correctional personnel should play a more active role in exposing negative aspects of imprisonment to the public.

scholarly journals What once was sick is now bad: The shift from victim to deviant identity for those diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Dej
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Fetal Alcohol ◽  
Adult Identity ◽  
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum ◽  
The Way

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is constituted by different networks and institutions. I demonstrate that while the symptoms associated with FASD do not differ from childhood to adulthood, their conceptualization and thus societal and governmental responses to individuals with FASD changes dramatically. This work is theoretically grounded in Rose’s work on psy-identities and Hacking’s concept of a looping effect, which suggests that the way an individual and their associates make sense of an identity manipulates the identity itself. In order to unpack the reconstruction of the FASD identity in adulthood, I have identified two linked but distinctive loops – that of the promising child and the deviant adult. These two loops help conceptualize the different institutions, stakeholders and knowledges that take interest in the ‘FASD child’ and those that constitute the ‘FASD adult’ identity within the criminal justice system.

The Impact of Victimology on Criminal Justice Policy

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edna Erez
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
International Level ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
Unanticipated Consequences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

The emergence of victimology and the renewed interest in victims of crime led to many changes in the way the criminal justice system responds to victims. This article assesses the impact of victimology on criminal justice policy and examines some of the anticipated and unanticipated consequences of activities on behalf of victims. It addresses the various victims' needs, evaluates efforts by criminal justice agencies to meet them, and identifies barriers to implementing the programs. Proposals for constitutional amendments and activities on behalf of victims on the international level are also discussed. The article concludes with some of the problems emerging from activities on behalf of victims, and implications for criminal justice policy.

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