Contrastingly whites are underrepresented. However such statistics do not tell us whether members of one ethnic group are more likely than members of another ethnic group to commit an offence in the first place; they just tell us about involvement in the criminal justice system. For example differences in stop and search or arrest rates may be due to police racism, while differences in rates of imprisonment may be the result of courts handing down harsher sentences on minorities. There are other sources of statistics to reveal link of ethnicity and offending. Victim surveys ask individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of.
According to Terry Lenamon, expert Criminal Trial Attorney, the first, and most popular, is the “M’Naghten test.” Lenamon says, “Under M’Naghten, the determining factor is whether or not the defendant was (1) able to understand what he (or she) was doing at the time of the crime due to some “defect of reason or disease of the mind” or, (2) if he (or she) was aware of what they were doing, that he (or she) nevertheless failed to comprehend or understand that what they were doing was wrong” (Lenamon). With that in mind, think about how many inmates have not taken that test and have been wrongly convicted. The American Civil Liberties Union states, “Mental Health America, estimates that five to ten percent of all death row inmates suffer from a severe mental illness.” Furthermore, if these people could get tested, they would realize how many people are legally insane and do not deserve to be in jail, but rather a hospital. Consequently, some of the individuals sitting on death row may
Juvenile offenders are still very impressionable and interacting with the violent and hardened criminals does not give them the tools to survive in normal society and become productive citizens. My contention has been that if we catch these offenders soon enough we can prevent them from committing more serious crimes. Many states have implemented the death penalty, hoping that it would be a deterrent against crime. I do not think it works either. Many prosecutors use the threat of the death penalty as a way of getting a plea deal to get the offender off the streets.
For the vast majority of these individuals, there will be no bail and dream teams to defend them. Being poor can be a defining issue in whether these people will receive the same treatment as their white or rich counterparts. Gender: In viewing many arrests in my lifetime, there seemed to be an overwhelming silent principle to arrest the ‘man’ rather than the women in abuse cases. Females are believed to not be the aggressor in the relationship, which simply isn’t the case in many instances. A spokesman for the SAVE foundation, Carl Starling, states, “Predominant aggressor laws pressure police officers to arrest the man regardless of who called the police or what person instigated the abuse," according to SAVE spokesman Carl Starling.
First of all, if the crime is as terrible as murder, and it was fully intentional, the privilege should be fully stripped. Some of the criminals in prison lost their right to vote because the crimes they committed were mainly unlawful instead of unjust. Lastly, there could be a series of tests to be given to the prisoners to determine if they are in the right state of mind to vote. When a person commits a crime, the crime will be either as small as fleeing police by motor vehicle, to as big as committing a murder. This is a strong difference in the types of crimes being committed.
Ashlyn Smith Capital Punishment Spring 08 Capital punishment should not exist in America. Punishment by death serves no purpose or benefit to society and is an unethical practice. It simply restricts the ability to grow as a nation and as human beings. Implementing capital punishment in society is denying basic human rights, as well as, expressing the idea of a double standard: If killing is wrong, then why punish by killing? What message does this send?
Contemporary Issues: The Death Penalty Contemporary Issues: The Death Penalty The death penalty is said to be the greatest deterrent to crime in the United States. However, in recent years those states, which still use the death penalty, have seen a marked increase in crimes where death is a punishment. Is the threat of being put to death still an effective deterrent? According to FBI statistics (2008), the national murder rate per capita was 5.4 in 2008. With a national population of over 304 million people, that is around 16,000 murders for 2008 alone.
Hannah Mr. Elenbaas Advanced Composition 8 January 2014 Should Minors be Tried as Adults? There is much controversy over the issue of whether a child should be tried as an adult if convicted of a violent crime. Minors are starting to watch adults who are doing violent crimes, and they think it might be okay if they do it too. But does this mean we can punish minors like adults? Minors should not be tried as adults because they have not experienced the world like adults have, and they are not competent enough to go through or understand a trial.
The "deterrent" theory is debatable. Serial killers, rapists, molesters etc. would rarely consider their potential demise via Capital Punishment prior to committing crimes. Criminals usually operate with the belief they will not be caught. 3.
Prisons were at capacity with prisoners arrested for alcohol related crimes. There was just simply not enough room to hold all that were arrested for violating the Volstead Act. The fact of the matter is that there not enough resources to uphold the law. This is when several groups finally realized that Prohibition was creating more difficulties than one would have anticipated. The amendment that was meant to prevent alcohol abuse and the negatives that went along with it.