(Douglas, Burgess, 1986) Criminal profiling started way back in the 1960’s and became more popular as the years went by. Homicide rates were extremely high back then and tended to increase at numerous rates. Criminal profiling presented a way to understand who is capable of what crime. What do the surveys prove? To answer this question, many people think that criminal profiling is solely based on race, age, and gender but it becomes much more than that.
The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes in that, it may be the only evidence present for identifying criminals in certain cases (Wells & Olson, 2002). The strong weight given to eye witness identifications is nonetheless a matter of concern as it eye witness identifications have been demonstrated to be flawed, even when witness confidence is high. Experience has shown that the convincing and sincere witness can often be mistaken. Memon (2008) explains where eye-witness testimonies have been greatly unreliable; where Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by police as a result of mistaken identity. According to eye-witnesses he was described as suspicious, jumped over a ticket barrier and was wearing a wearing a bulky jack supposedly concealing a device.
While it can be hard to understand why someone would falsely confess to a crime, psychological research has provided some answers and DNA exonerations have proven that the problem is more widespread than many people think. In approximately 25% of the wrongful convictions overturned with DNA evidence, defendants made false confessions, admissions or statements to law enforcement officials. In some false confession cases, details of the crime are inadvertently communicated to a suspect by police during questioning. Later, when a suspect knows these details, the police take the knowledge as evidence of guilt. Often, threats or promises are made to the suspect off camera and then the camera is turned on for a false confession.
These individuals are given the task of how to move the trial along and what types of sentences should be asked to the judge after the trial has taken place. There are several methods that prosecutors should employ to deal with crimes. One of these methods could be implementing diversion programs for criminals. Again, by placing such a program on the books this would put society more in charge of what is happening to criminals in their communities. Misconduct of Court Room Players In the courtroom, just as outside of the courtroom, there are always times in which misconduct of a courtroom player takes place.
A Critical Review of the NCVS and UCR in Criminological Research Timothy Wayne Johnson, M.S.S. American Military University Dr. Charles Russo Table of Contents Introduction 3 The Basics of the NCVS and UCR 3 Criticisms of the NCVS and UCR 5 Conclusion 7 References 9 Introduction Gauging crime has been a challenge for criminal justice researchers since we have started collecting crime statistics. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system is the most popular crime gauge used by researchers and public officials. However, almost all people who use its data recognize the many boundaries of UCR measurements. Other methods like the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), improve on several characteristics of the UCR but have their own errors and are subject to limited use (Maxfield, 1999).
The Ministry of Justice states that members of the black communities are seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched , three and a half times more likely to be arrested, and five times more like to be sent to prison. However, such statistics do not tell us whether members of one ethnic group are more likely than members of another group to commit an offence in the first place – they simply tell us about involvement with the criminal justice system. For example, differences in stop and search or arrest rates may simply be due to policing strategies or to discrimination by individual officers, while differences in rates of imprisonment may be the result of courts handing down harsher sentences to minorities. In addition to statistics on the ethnicity of those individuals who are involved with the criminal justice system, we can call on two other important sources of statistics
The officer may be called into court later to testify to the facts of the case. Police organizations are essential to the legal process because without this there would be nobody caught to pay for their crimes. There are thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country. Based on where the law enforcement agencies derive their power, there are two main groups. The federal government empowered agencies and the state government empowered agencies.
Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain? Official criminal statistics are defined as “Statistical data compiled by the police and the courts and routinely published by governments as indices of the extent of crime” (Munchie, 2001, p194). “The working class, the young males, and members of some ethnic minorities are all more likely to commit crimes than the middle class, the elderly, females and whites – according to official statistics”. (Haralambos and Holborn, 2004, p338). In assessing the question “Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain?” several factors will be considered: including how the statistics are collected, the divide between males and females in crime statistics, the over representation of ethnic minorities and any problems in looking at the true extent of crime using statistics as an indicator for this.
In schools cheating has become so socially acceptable that students think that it is okay to cheat. Schools lack a strong moral code that makes the student’s feel that they need to abide by it. With more people doing it, more people think it might be justified to cheat because others are doing it. Students “cheat because they see others who cheat and they think that they will be unfairly disadvantaged. The cheaters are getting 100 on the exam, while non-cheaters may only get 90’s”.
Indictable offences are the more serious crimes such as murder, armed robbery, sexual assault, drug trafficking and arson. These offences are tried by a judge and jury in District or Supreme Courts. A preliminary (committal) hearing is held in Local Court before a magistrate to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for a ‘prima facie’ case. The prosecution is required to produce evidence and witnesses. The process of criminal prosecution begins when a person (usually a police officer) lays information before a court or a justice of the peace.