Chapter 1

1. Chapter 1
Crime
and
Criminal
Justice

2. Define the Concept of
Criminal Justice
Criminal justice refers to the agencies
that dispense justice and the process
by which justice is carried out
© Reuters/Landov

3. Define the Concept of
Criminal Justice
Criminal justice refers to the agencies
that dispense justice and the process
by which justice is carried out

4. Is Crime a Recent
Development?
Crime and violence have been
common since the nation was first
formed
 Crime in the Old West
 Crime in the Cities
From 1900 to 1935, the nation experienced a
sustained increase in criminal activity
 First Police Agency – Not in the U.S.
London Metropolitan Police

5. Creating Criminal Justice
Chicago Crime Commission
 Created in 1919
 It was a professional association funded
by private contributions, which was
integral in getting agencies of justice to
work together, and getting the work of the
criminal justice system recognized.

6. Creating Criminal Justice
Federal Involvement
 The LEAA provided technical assistance
and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid
to state and local justice agencies
between 1969 and 1982
Evidence-Based Justice
 Determining through the use of the
scientific method whether criminal justice
programs actually reduce crime rates and
offender recidivism

7. The Contemporary
Criminal Justice System
Today’s instrument of social control
 Social control is a society’s ability to
control individual behavior in order to
serve the best interests and welfare of the
society as a whole
Divided into three main components:
a. Law enforcement agencies (cops)
b. Court system (courts)
c. Correctional system (corrections)

8. Video: Questions
• Please introduce yourself
• How led you towards a career in law enforcement
• Why do you want to be a police officer
• What education do you have
• What do you do on a daily basis
• What are some of the skills/traits you need to be a good officer
• What skill/trait has helped you the most on the job
• Who do you try to have a positive impact on
• What was a exciting case you worked on
• What is a common issue or cause you see in your calls, give us
an example of this in a call you have handled
• What advise do you have for people looking at a career in law
enforcement

9. Video: Police Officer –
SFPD
Careers in Criminal Justice:
Police Officer

10. Video: Discussion
Questions
How did what the officer said
about his job as a police
officer compare to your initial
conceptions of police work?
Did anything said by the
officer result in you thinking
differently about police work?

11. Scope of the System
 The contemporary criminal justice system in
the United States is monumental in size
 It now costs federal, state, and local governments
about $200 billion per year for civil and criminal
justice
 It is massive because it must process, treat, and
care for millions of people
 Although the crime rate has declined in the past
decade, more than 13 million people are still being
arrested each year
 More than 7 million people are under some form of
correctional supervision

12. Direct Expenditure By
Level of Government
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/exptyp.cfm (accessed June 6, 2012).

13. Direct Expenditure by
Criminal Justice Function
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/exptyp.cfm (accessed June 6, 2012).

14. The Formal Criminal
Justice Process
The process consists of the actual
steps the offender takes from the
initial investigation through trial,
sentencing, and appeal
 The justice process contains 15 stages,
each of which is a decision point through
which cases flow
Extralegal factors such as the suspect’s
race, gender, class, and age may influence
decision outcomes

15. The Formal Criminal
Justice Process
 Arraignment
 Bail/Detention
 Plea Bargaining
 Trial/Adjudication
 Sentencing/Disposition
 Appeal/Postconviction
Remedies
 Correctional Treatment
 Release
 Postrelease
 Formal procedures:
 Initial Contact
 Investigation
 Arrest
 Custody
(first four are the role
of police officers)
 Charging
 Preliminary
Hearing/Grand Jury

16. The Formal Criminal
Justice Process - Myths
Miranda Warnings
 There is a myth that Miranda Warnings
must be read to all suspects
In Custody
Interrogation
Grand Juries
 Open to the public
Closed and secret
 Hard to indict
Indict a ham sandwich

17. The Criminal Justice
Assembly Line - Herber t
Packer
The criminal justice system can be
viewed as an assembly-line conveyor
belt, down which moves an endless
stream of cases
 Each stage is a decision point through
which cases flow
 Each decision can have a critical effect on
the defendant, the justice system, and
society
If an error is made, an innocent person may
suffer or a dangerous individual may be
released to continue to prey on society

18. The Criminal Justice
Assembly Line
The system acts as a “funnel”:
 Most people who commit crime escape
detention, and of those who do not,
relatively few are bound over trial,
convicted, and eventually sentenced to
prison
(most people are NOT punished for their crimes)

19. Criminal
Justice
Funnel
Sources: Thomas H. Cohen and Tracey Kyckelhahn, Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 2006 (Washington, DC:
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2010; Matthew Durose, Donald Farole, and Sean Rosenmerkel, Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006
(Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2009).

20. The Informal Criminal
Justice System
Courtroom Work Group
 Implies that all parties in the justice
process work together in a cooperative
effort to settle cases efficiently, rather
than to engage in a true adversarial
procedure
Defense Attorney – Judge – Prosecutor

21. The Informal Criminal
Justice System
 The Wedding Cake Model of Justice
 In many instances, the criminal justice system
works informally to expedite the disposal of cases
 Criminal acts that are very serious or notorious
may receive the full complement of criminal
justice processes, from arrest to trial
 Less serious cases are
often settled when a
bargain is reached
between the prosecution
and the defense
© Earl Gurlock/Landov

22. The Wedding Cake
Model
Source: Based on Samuel Walker’s Sense and Nonsense about Crime (Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1983).

23. Thinking Point
• According to the wedding cake
model, high-profile cases receive
the most attention from the justice
system and the media.
Discuss why you believe sexual offenses are
considered by the criminal justice system and
the media to be high profile cases and
therefore at the top of the wedding cake
model?
Find an example of a recent sexual offense
and discuss it in terms of the wedding cake
model.

24. Video: Teen Charged
with Killing Her Parents
PART I

25. Video: Discussion
Questions
In terms of the wedding
cake model of informal
justice, where do you believe
this case would be located?
Why?
What makes these types of
cases of interest to the
public?

26. Perspectives on Justice
The role of criminal justice can be
interpreted in many ways
 There are a number of different
perspectives on criminal justice
People who study the field, or work in its
agencies, bring their own ideas and feelings
to bear when they try to decide on the right
course of action to take or recommend

27. Perspective on Justice
The Crime Control Perspective
 Oriented toward deterring criminal
behavior and incapacitating serious
criminal offenders
The Rehabilitation Perspective
 Views the justice system as a treatment
agency focused on helping offenders
 Counseling programs are stressed over
punishment and deterrence strategies

28. Perspectives on Justice
The Due Process Perspective
 Sees the justice system as a legal process
 The concern in this view is that every
defendant receive the
full share of legal rights
granted under law
AP Photo/The Southern, Joel Hawksley

29. Perspective on Justice
The Nonintervention Perspective
 Concerned about stigma and helping
defendants avoid a widening net of justice
 These advocates call for the least
intrusive methods possible
AP Photo/Summit Daily, Mark Fox

30. Perspectives on Justice
 The Equal Justice Perspective
 Concerned with making the system equitable
 The arrest, sentencing, and correctional process
should be structured so that every person is
treated equally
 The Restorative Justice Perspective
 Focuses on finding peaceful and
humanitarian solutions to crime
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

31. Perspectives
on Justice

32. Ethics in Criminal Justice
The justice system must deal with
many ethical issues
 The challenge is to determine what is fair
and just, and balance that with the need to
protect the public
Photo/Hutchinson News, Jon Ruhlen

33. Thinking Points
• Read the Evidence-Based Justice
box on page 30 of your text,
regarding monitoring of sexual
offenders
Do you believe monitoring sex offenders
is an effective way to lower recidivism?
• Evidence suggests that these
laws are not especially effective
at lowering recidivism
If these studies are accurate, why does
such monitoring continue?

34. Ethics in Criminal Justice
Ethics and Law Enforcement
 Particularly important because police have
the ability to deprive people of their liberty
 Considerable discretion
 Various national organizations have
produced model codes of conduct for law
enforcement that can serve as behavioral
guides

35. Ethics in Criminal Justice
Ethics and the Court Process
 Prosecutorial ethics may be tested when
the dual role of a prosecutor causes one
to experience role conflict
 The defense attorney, in a dual role of
being both an advocate for defendants
and an officer of the court, may
experience conflicting obligations to client
and profession

36. Ethics in Criminal
Justice
• Ethics and Corrections
Is it fair and ethical to execute a criminal?
Can capital punishment ever be
considered as a moral choice?
Should people be given different
punishments for the same criminal law
violation?
Is it fair and just when some convicted
murderers and rapists receive probation
for their crimes while others are
sentenced to prison for the same offense?

37. Video: Dead Men
Talking
Ethics and Cor rections

38. Video: Discussion
Questions
 Is it ethically permissible to
implement a punishment that
cannot be undone should the
defendant later be found not
guilty?
 Did the statistics provided in the
video surprise you? Why or why
not?
 How can the system balance the
need to implement a serious
punishment with the concern for

39. Discussion Question
Police officers must continually balance their need to protect
public security with the ethical requirement that they protect
citizens’ legal rights.
You are a police officer and you stop a car for a traffic
violation. You realize that you conducted an illegal search of
the vehicle and found a weapon that was used in a particularly
heinous shooting in which three children were killed.
Would it be ethical for you to lie on the witness stand and say
you noticed the gun on the car seat in plain sight (and hence
subject to legal and proper seizure)? Or should you tell the
truth and risk having the charges against the suspect
dismissed, leaving the offender free to kill again?