Criminal Sentencing

This paper discusses three critical issues in the criminal justice system. It touches on the general issues of punishment philosophies, sentence decision making, and prison overcrowding and focused more specifically on the negative effects of each. Highlighted in this informational paper is the interrelated nature of the issues; each issue affects and is affected by the others. Data and information has been gathered from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Amnesty International, the NAACP Legal Defense

I agree that rehabilitation should be the primary goal in sentencing. Rehabilitation teaches a criminal how to interact with the community after being away for a set amount of time. Days in prison and jail can hinder the positive thoughts in one’s mind. Anger and depression can build up, and make the criminals want to act out again. The rehabilitation process can even mend burnt bridges with family and friends.

After legal challenges began on behalf of defendants disputing the constitutionality of the Sentencing Reform Act and the Guidelines, the Commission was given the task of monitoring the effects of federal sentencing practices and revising amendments to the Guidelines if problems arose for congressional approval. In 1990, Congress directed the Commission to respond to a series of questions raised in regards to the Guidelines, the effects of mandatory minimums and options and options for Congress to exercise its legislative power in statutory directive and organization (1991 U.S.S.C. Report). The 1991 report was a “preliminary assessment of short-tem effects” of the Guidelines on federal sentencing practice (1991 U.S.S.C. Report). The report conducted empirical research study requested by Congress to “assess the effect of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions on the eliminating unwarranted sentencing disparity as well as description of the interaction between mandatory minimum sentencing provisions and plea agreements” (1991 U.S.S.C. Report).

As the 21st century continues, there will possibly be a developing public policy dilemma between firm determinate sentencing structures that have been recently developed in many states and the evolving social movement reemphasizing offender-based sentencing options. If the growth of alternative and restorative sentencing options continues on its existing path, the future will likely witness a growing separation between existing determinate sentencing systems and progressively individualized sentencing movements. Therefore, it will be the task of future generations to successfully balance the goals of justice and consistency within structured sentencing bases with the evolving emphasis on individualized rehabilitative methods to routine and

Crime and punishment is a large part of society today as well as the most ignored. Robert Ferguson’s book, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment describes the topic of crime and punishments in the American justice system. In his explanation, Ferguson also goes into detail on the topic of the “Punishment Regime.” The punishment regime can be described as a legal process to which a person in society is punished. The groups that part of the punishment regime include jurors, police officers, prosecutors, judges, and correctional officers. All the members of the punishment regime have a specific job in administrating a punishment to an individual. The main focus in this essay will be how the punishment regime has administered punishment in

Rehabilitation is another utilitarian rationale for punishment. The goal of rehabilitation is to prevent future crime by providing offenders with the resources and abilities to succeed within the confines of the law. Rehabilitative requirements for criminal offenders usually include treatment for handicaps such as mental illness, chemical dependency, and chronic violent behavior. Rehabilitation also includes the use of public educational programs that offer the offenders the knowledge and skills needed to feel confident enough get out and compete in the job

The goals of correction are retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation and restoration. The correction system restricts the freedom of those found guilty of a crime for the safety of society and prepares those imprisoned to re-enter back into society. The Rehabilitative Era and medical model offer the most appropriate means to accomplish correction.

Most stages of the criminal justice system revolve around the sentencing process, in that the primary focus is determining the guilt or innocence of the accused (Neubauer & Pradella, 2011). As a result, numerous laws, policies, and practices have been implemented throughout the system as a means to make sentencing procedures less complex. However, most of these sentencing laws have produced an adverse effect, and generated barriers during this stage of the justice process. Therefore, the purpose of this analysis is to provide further insight on challenges within the sentencing process in regard to sentencing laws. More specifically, three strikes laws are discussed in-detail as a means to present the positive and negative impacts they have

Punishments for an individual’s criminal actions, such as the possession of illicit drugs, have been in place for centuries. However, many people wonder why certain punishments are more severe than others and how a judge makes the final decision of what a sentence may be. In Federal Courts, a sentencing guideline is determined by the individual’s criminal history, severity of the crime, and mitigating factors.1

Today we see five prevalent goals of corrections including retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and restorative justice. Goals employed in corrections change over time depending on several factors including the trends of thought in society and issues within the prison system. Politics as well as prison overcrowding also factor into determining which goal dominates. Retribution has a long-standing history as the most culturally accepted goal because people fended for themselves prior to organized law enforcement (Bartollas, 2002, p. 71). Incapacitation, the dominant goal currently, eliminates the threat by placing the criminal outside society, typically through incarceration, and preventing the criminal from having the ability to commit additional crimes. Deterrence, like retribution, has continued as a goal throughout history. In an effort to reduce the risk of crime, law enforcement attempt to deter criminals from committing crimes. Rehabilitation gained enormous strength with an attempt at moral redemption of the offender. Reformists believed corrections needed a makeover as they worked towards rehabilitation. Rehabilitation places more focus on the individual rather than the act in an attempt to rehabilitate the person. America did not begin to look at the corrections system more substantially until the 1970s as the idea of rehabilitation fell (Bartollas, 2002, p. 75). Restorative justice promises to restore the victim as the offender

Alternative sentencing has always been a consent debate due to the rise of corporation run prisons; many agencies argue that with our current prison system is void of human rights, promotes detrimental social impacts and the cost of imprisonment. Since the 1970's offering parole and probation options as an alternative helped reduce prison overcrowding. Lawmakers needed to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders and enforce alternative correction programs, that would provide local courts, state departments of corrections, and state parole boards with a broad range of correctional options for offenders. When lawmakers discussed alternatives to incarceration they noted that there was a need to achieve the following goals rehabilitation,

Within the past decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of heinous crimes committed, causing some of the laws to significantly change. During the 1970s, some dramatic changes occurred when laws shifted from one extreme to another: rehabilitation to retribution. Such circumstances created an additional emphasis on the offense rather than on the offender. During the 1980s, the “get-tough-on-crime” era began; thus, radical changes in laws continued up until the late 1990s. Throughout the period of the Industrial Society, the United States had two bipolar types of punishment: harsh and lenient. Today, the main focus of the Criminal Justice System is about retribution and punishment.

Over many years there has been great debate about whether rehabilitation reduces the rate of recidivism in criminal offenders. There has been great controversy over whether anything works to reduce recidivism and great hope that rehabilitation would offer a reduction in those rates. In this paper I will introduce information and views on the reality of whether rehabilitation does indeed reduce recidivism. Proposed is a quasi-experiment, using a group of offenders that received rehabilitation services and an ex post facto group that did not? I intend to prove that rehabilitation services do

Rehabilitation is more of a therapeutic method to help the criminal ditch crime and become a constructive member in society. “Rehabilitation involves teaching inmates silks and trades that will, hopefully, give them a chance to become law-abiding citizens once they are released from prison” (Long). This method is looked at as more of a treatment than a punishment, to guide the criminal to make better choices and live a better life.

To begin with, it is necessary to say that punishment is an integral part of modern countries’ legal systems, because countries have a duty to protect society from wrongdoers and authorities could reach success in it by punishing offenders. Oxford English Dictionary defines punishment as the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offence. There are four main purposes of punishment – incapacitation, deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation – and the aim of this paper is to