scholarly journals "Case Study 7.2 Data to Bring Justice: Addressing Disparities in the Criminal Justice System"

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Oliver

Pamela Oliver "Case Study 7.2 Data to Bring Justice: Addressing Disparities in the Criminal Justice System" Preprint of chapter in Philip Nyden. Leslie Hossfelt, and Gwen Nyden (eds.) 2011 Public Sociology: Research Action and Change. Pine Forge Press. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/public-sociology/book234763 This is a case study of my racial disparities work that overlaps somewhat with other presentations I have made of the same material. My work has involved doing descriptive statistical analyses of racial patterns of imprisonment and making public presentations on these patterns, as participating in many meetings of boards and committees working on these issues. Part 1 of this article describes the background of my work and how I got involved, partly through connections with community groups and partly through luck. Part 2 describes my public engagement, including giving talks and participating in many meetings as well as doing analyses at the request of community groups. Part 3 is reflections on the differences and tensions between public and professional sociology.

2021 ◽  
pp. 273-307
Author(s):  
Neena Samota

This chapter explores the broader context and history of race-related issues in the UK, considering why racial disparities persist in diverse societies like the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK, before narrowing the focus to race and ethnicity in the sphere of crime and criminal justice. The concepts of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ have long played major roles in both classroom and broader societal discussions about crime, punishment, and justice, but they have arguably never been more present and visible than today. The chapter looks at the problems with the statistics available on race, ethnicity, and crime, noting the ways in which they may not tell the whole story, before considering the statistics themselves as the chapter discusses the relationships between ethnicity and victimisation and offending. It then moves on to how ethnic minorities experience the various elements of the criminal justice system and the disadvantages they often face, before outlining the attempts that have been made to address these disparities at a state level. Finally, the chapter discusses critical race theory, a key theory in modern criminological examinations of race and its relationship to crime and justice, which grew out of the US but has much broader value and relevance as a framework of analysis.


Author(s):  
Martin Partington

This chapter focuses on the criminal justice system. It contains summaries of the different social theories that underpin both the criminal justice system and the fundamental principles relating to sentencing policy. The system is examined in three segments: pre-trial stages, trial stage, and post-trial stages. Each is discussed in turn. This chapter emphasizes the holistic approach by looking not only at what happens in courts, but also the police station and in post-trial contexts such as parole and criminal cases review. The place of the victim in the system is also considered. Particular emphasis is placed on how the current system is changing in the quest for improved efficiency.


Author(s):  
David DeMatteo ◽  
Kirk Heilbrun ◽  
Alice Thornewill ◽  
Shelby Arnold

This chapter provides an introduction to the scope of the problems facing the criminal justice system, with a specific focus on the overrepresentation of mental illness and substance abuse among justice-involved individuals. After discussing the “revolving door” and increased incarceration and recidivism rates among mentally ill and drug-involved offenders, the authors introduce therapeutic jurisprudence and the other foundational principles and common themes of problem-solving courts. This discussion illustrates the paradigm shift away from punishment and toward rehabilitation and increased collaboration among different entities within the criminal justice system. The chapter concludes with a brief review of the contents of the volume.


Author(s):  
Martin Partington

This chapter focuses on the criminal justice system. The chapter contains a summary of the different social theories that underpin the system as well as the fundamental principles relating to sentencing policy. The system is examined in three segments: pre-trial stages, trial stage, and post-trial stages. Each is discussed in turn. Particular emphasis is placed on how the current system is changing.


Incarceration ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 263266632093644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian O’Donnell ◽  
Eoin O’Sullivan

This article argues in favour of ‘coercive confinement’ as a useful addition to the criminological lexicon. It suggests that to properly understand a country’s level of punitiveness requires consideration of a range of institutions that fall outside the remit of the formal criminal justice system. It also requires a generous longitudinal focus. Using Ireland as a case study, such an approach reveals that since the foundation of the state, the prison has gradually become ascendant. This might be read to imply a punitive turn. But when a broader view is taken to include involuntary detention in psychiatric hospitals, confinement in Magdalen homes and mother and baby homes, and detention in industrial and reformatory schools, the trajectory is strongly downward. This might be read to imply a national programme of decarceration. (In recent years, asylum seekers have been held in congregate settings that are experienced as prison-like and they must be factored into the analysis.) While some of these institutions may have been used with peculiar enthusiasm in Ireland, none are Irish inventions. It would be profitable to extend the idea of ‘coercive confinement’ to other nations with a view to adding some necessary nuance to our understanding of the reach and grip of the carceral state.


Author(s):  
Alisdair Gillespie ◽  
Siobhan Weare

The English Legal System presents the main areas of the legal system and encourages a critique of the wider aspects of how law is made and reformed. The book is structured in five parts. Part I looks at the sources of law including domestic and international sources. Part II looks at the courts and the practitioners. It considers the structure of the courts and tribunals, judges and judicial independence, the legal professions, and funding legal services. Part III examines the criminal justice system. It describes issues related to lay justice, trials, and criminal appeals. The next part is about the civil justice system. It looks at civil litigation, remedies, appeals and alternative dispute resolution. The final part looks to the future.


Author(s):  
Fiona Gabbert ◽  
Lorraine Hope

Due to the constructive nature of memory, recollections for events are easily contaminated or distorted by information encountered after the event took place. People can therefore mistakenly report information that has been suggested to them, but that they have not in reality experienced. In light of this well-documented memory fallibility, the current chapter explores how memory can be distorted during the investigative and legal process. Key factors affecting the reliability of eyewitness statements are discussed, including stress and arousal, intoxication, and individual differences in vulnerability to suggestion. The chapter examines when people are most likely to be vulnerable to suggestion and focuses, in particular, on how memory can be distorted during the investigative process as a result of poor interviewing practice and co-witness contamination. The chapter concludes with consideration of how best to minimize the negative effects of suggestibility for the criminal justice system


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fransiska Novita Eleanora

Prisoners are persons who undergoing punishment for committed crimes. According to the verdict, a criminal shall be sentenced in prison. However, the rights of the prisoners are protected by the correctional system, and keep them as human being as a whole. They are rehabilitated, guided, and nurtured which the aims is to make them back to community after the sentencing is finished. From the point of view of human rights, are correctional system was made to protect the rights of criminal, where the criminal remains a priority for the government within the criminal justice system.


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