scholarly journals Nigerian Criminal Justice System and Victims of Crime Neglect in Enugu Urban

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-53
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Elastic Limit ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Multi Stage ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Depth Interviews

As essentialareaof criminology, crime victims have really never been accorded due recognition in Nigeria. It is in this regard that this paper discusses the Nigerian criminal justice system and the issue of victim neglect in Enugu urban. Using qualitative and quantitative research approaches, a sample of 604 respondents were drawn from Enugu urban. Multi-stage and purposive sampling techniques were used to reach the respondents. Data from both questionnaires andin-depth interviews were collected. We found that most crime victims are highly neglected and there is a lack of cordial relationship between the police and crime victims in Enugu urban. The study recommends the need to consider civil aspect of cases whenpassing judgments so that crime victims would not lose on two folds, but get partially compensated for their losses. The study also calls for judges to speed up adjudication processes in order not to draw cases to elastic limit where crime victims lose faith in the criminal justice system.

scholarly journals Ameliorating the Plight of Awaiting-trial Inmates in Ebonyi State, Nigeria Through Reasonable Bail Conditions

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Okorie Ajah ◽  
Emmanuel Ekeoma Uwakwe ◽  
Bonaventure N. Nwokeoma ◽  
Cyril O. Ugwuoke ◽  
Rebecca Ginikanwa Nnamani
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Sampling Techniques ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Multi Stage ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Economic Capacity

Bail is a privilege granted to suspects at the discretion of a court. The court exercises this discretion to give temporary freedom to crime suspects pending the conclusion of court trial. Where the bail conditions become stringent, unattainable or out of reach for suspects, suspects overreach themselves and this defeats the moral intentions of ‘bailing’ and the law. This paper discusses how awaiting-trial inmates are the most victimized by the challenges of the criminal justice system in Ebonyi State and how easing bail conditions for awaiting-trial inmates could reduce suspects’ costs of victimization. Using qualitative and quantitative research approaches, a sample of 1498 respondents comprising 623 awaiting-trial inmates, 617 police officers, 145 prison officers and 113 court staff was drawn from Ebonyi State. Multi-stage and purposive sampling techniques were used to reach the respondents. Questionnaire and in-depth interviews were instruments for data collection. Findings confirmed that keeping suspects in prisons longer than necessary is traumatic to suspects. Key recommendations include easing of bail conditions for awaiting-trial inmates by cutting the high bail prices to match the economic capacity of Ebonyi State’s neighborhood or relaxing bail terms that could enable inmates to meet bail requirements.

Mandatory Compensation Orders for Crime Victims and the Rhetoric of Restorative Justice

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Warner ◽  
Jenny Gawlik
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Legislative Measures

Increased recognition of the need for victims of crime to be integrated into the criminal justice system and to receive adequate reparation has led, in a number of jurisdictions, to legislative measures to encourage the greater use of compensation orders. The Sentencing Act 1997 (Tas) (which came into force on 1 August 1998) went further and made compensation orders compulsory for property damage or loss resulting from certain crimes. This article shows that this measure has failed victims and argues that they have been used in the service of other ends. Mandatory compensation orders are a token gesture repackaged as restorative justice to gain public support for the administration of the criminal justice system.Ways in which compensation orders could be made more effective and the possibilities of accommodating restorative compensation into a conventional criminal justice system are explored.

scholarly journals Constitutional Protection For Crime Victims And Witnesses In Indonesia And Its Problems

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
John Kenedi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
Unfair Treatment ◽  
Criminal Offenses ◽  
Constitutional Protections

The constitutional protections toward crime witnesses in Indonesia are indisputably inevitable. As an effort to uphold justice, Indonesia relies on the formal mechanism of criminal law known as the criminal justice system. The system starts from reports by the police, prosecution by the prosecutor, to the stage of a trial in a court, and execution in a prison. Throughout its development, the criminal justice system seemed to focus more on protecting criminal offenses (criminal oriented) rather than paying attention to the rights of witnesses and victims (witness and victim-oriented). Therefore, the studies that concern the rights of witnesses and victims are highly needed in order to figure out ways to balance the treatment between the suspects/defendants and the witnesses and victims. Through the use of the statue approach and conceptual approach, the positions and the rights of legal protection for witnesses and victims are thoroughly captured and described in this current research. Besides, the factors causing uneven attention and unfair treatment toward crime victims are also specifically identified.

scholarly journals Trust Toward the Criminal Justice System Among Swedish Roma: A Mixed-Methodology Approach

2020 ◽  
pp. 215336872093040
Author(s):  
Simon Wallengren ◽  
Anders Wigerfelt ◽  
Berit Wigerfelt ◽  
Caroline Mellgren
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Mixed Methodology ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
Cultural Effects ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
System 2 ◽  
Willingness To Report ◽  
Depth Interviews

Minority populations’ trust toward the criminal justice system is understudied in many parts of Europe, including Sweden. This article will contribute to this field by examining the trust in the criminal justice system among the Roma community in Sweden. The aim of the study was to (1) estimate the Roma community’s trust toward the criminal justice system, (2) examine what factors influence the community’s trust toward the criminal justice system, and (3) analyze whether trust toward the authorities influences the Roma community’s willingness to report victimization. The study used a mixed-methodology design in combining survey data ( n = 610) with in-depth interviews ( N = 30). The findings show that the respondents have a low level of trust in the criminal justice system authorities. According to the regression analysis, the strongest predictor of trust was shown to be explained by the respondent’s perception of procedural unfairness. Qualitative findings supported these results while also highlighting cultural effects and historical processes that explain the community’s lack of trust. Finally, trust in the authorities seems to be an important factor that influences crime reporting.

scholarly journals Unravelling the ‘crimmigration knot’: Penal subjectivities, punishment and the censure machine

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonora Di Molfetta ◽  
Jelmer Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Foreign National ◽  
Migration Policies ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Hybrid Forms

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.

scholarly journals The Cyclical Nature of Poverty: Evicting the Poor

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 839-856
Author(s):  
Andrew Roesch-Knapp
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Multiple Processes ◽  
The Law

From the medical field to the housing market to the criminal justice system, poor people must navigate labyrinthian organizations that often perpetuate social and economic inequality. Arguably it is through these social institutions, and through multiple processes embedded within each of these institutions, that the governance of urban poverty is effectively maintained. This essay revolves around one such process, examining how Matthew Desmondʼs Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016) points to the eviction process as an important producer of urban poverty in and of itself. After delving into housing law and Desmondʼs ethnographic and quantitative research methodologies, the essay examines four sites where the law is at work in eviction: the eviction court; the “law-on-the-books” versus the “law-in-action”; practices in the shadow of the law; and the relationship between the criminal justice system and the housing market. One goal of the essay is to place eviction within the law, punishment, and social inequality literatures.

A Preliminary Assessment of Police Officers' Knowledge and Perceptions of Persons With Disabilities

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott J. Modell ◽  
Suzanna Mak
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Preliminary Assessment ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Number Of Factors

Abstract Individuals with developmental disabilities are 4 to 10 times more likely to become crime victims than individuals without disabilities (D. Sobsey, D. Wells, R. Lucardie, & S. Mansell, 1995). Victimization rates for persons with disabilities is highest for sexual assault (more than 10 times as high) and robbery (more than 12 times as high). There are a number of factors related to individuals' with disabilities susceptibility to interactions with the criminal justice system. In addition to these factors, many significant barriers exist, both real and perceived, that limit investigation and prosecution of these cases. How police officers perceive and understand disability play significant roles in how these cases develop and evolve. The purpose of this study was to assess police officer knowledge and perceptions of persons with disabilities.

Impediments to the Recovery of Restitution by Crime Victims

1990 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan T. Harland ◽  
Cathryn J. Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Actual Case ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Technical Data ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Case Dispositions

Restitution is unique among criminal justice policies by virtue of the widespread support it has attained from many diverse constituencies. Restitution has received such universal praise as a panacea for victims of crime that in recent years a number of American jurisdictions have adopted legislation that creates a presumptive norm that restitution be awarded in appropriate cases. Despite popular support for its increased use and enactment of enabling legislation, restitution continues to be underutilized in actual case dispositions. The authors suggest that the underuse problem will not be cured and the powerful potential that restitution holds as a criminal justice sanction will not be realized until a consensus regarding the definition of restitution is achieved, significant gaps in the technical data about how restitution is effectuated are closed, and practical impediments to awarding and collecting restitution are dissolved. These goals, in turn, cannot be met until policy makers confront and begin to resolve the inherent conflicts posed when a restorative sanction, such as restitution, is pursued in a criminal justice system that is primarily punitive in nature.

The Psychological Adjustment of Recent Crime Victims in the Criminal Justice System

1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 450-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN R. FREEDY ◽  
HEIDI S. RESNICK ◽  
DEAN G. KILPATRICK ◽  
BONNIE S. DANSKY ◽  
RITCHIE P. TIDWELL
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Psychological Adjustment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crime Victims

Crime Victims’ Perceptions of Restitution: The Importance of Payment and Understanding

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 697-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry R. Ruback ◽  
Alison C. Cares ◽  
Stacy N. Hoskins
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Fair Process ◽  
The Future ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
Willingness To Report

The Office for Victims of Crime recommends that victims should be informed, consulted, respected, and made whole, rights that relate to informational, procedural, interpersonal, and distributive justice. We surveyed 238 victims in two Pennsylvania counties to test whether crime victims’ satisfaction with the criminal justice system was related to their perceptions of the fairness of the process and of their outcomes in their case, particularly with regard to restitution. Results indicated that payment of restitution, perception of fair process, and good interpersonal treatment were positively related to victims’ willingness to report crimes in the future but that satisfaction with information about the process was not. Victims’ understanding of the restitution process was a significant predictor of willingness to report in a multivariate analysis.

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