Category: Criminal Justice Essay Examples
See our collection of criminal justice essay examples. These examples are to help you understanding how to write essays on crime-related topics. Contemporary study of criminology and criminal justice is also increasingly interdisciplinary and thus features a broad variety of topics on the causes, effects, and responses to crime. Also, see our list of criminal justice essay topics to find the one that interests you.
Digital evidence is digital data that may be used as evidence within the criminal justice system. At a crime scene investigators should follow procedures and guidelines in the collection and analysis of digital information and evidence aimed at ensuring the integrity of the evidence. Anything that can store …
The word dignity can mean bearing, conduct, or speech indicative of self-respect or appreciation of the formality of the occasion. It is also associated with elevated character, worthiness, or a sign of respect as found with popes, queens, presidents, chiefs, or prime ministers. But dignity is also found …
Police may face a conflict between the demand that they should act to bring about just outcomes and the requirement that they uphold the law. Carl B. Klockars called this kind of situation the “Dirty Harry” problem. While Klockars believed that it was at least possible that police …
Within the criminal justice system, the word discretion is most often used to refer to the authority and power to make decisions while drawing upon one’s own experience without immediate oversight but within the confines of the law and organizational/agency regulations. Each of the major components of the …
Discrimination is one of the most frequently used terms to condemn or express disproval of many types of unjust treatments viewed either from a legal or moral perspective. Yet, it is among the most frequently misunderstood and abused judicial or moral terms in use today. This concept should …
Distributive justice is a normative philosophical principle concerned with the fair allocation of resources (rights, goods, wealth, and other assets) to members of a society. There are two terms of contentions and confusion in this definition. First, the term distribution ordinarily means that some powerful entity has control …
One method of justifying laws is to show that they have tangible benefits that improve the lives of citizens governed by those laws. However, many people believe that God commanded them to obey a certain set of laws, and the legal system is just if and only if …
DNA profiling involves comparing genetic material culled from a crime scene with genetic material taken from an individual suspected of the crime. The greater the degree of overlap between the two sets of genetic materials the greater the probability that the suspected individual is the perpetrator of the …
Double jeopardy is a long-standing procedural defense and legal principle that originated in Athens in 355 B.C.E. In its principal form double jeopardy protects an individual from being prosecuted on more than one occasion for the same offense. It also prohibits the application of multiple punishments for the …
Over the past few decades, the debate over how to handle the growing number of illegal immigrants in the United States has dominated the political scene. While the United States has been built as a melting pot, its citizens have not always reacted positively to the large influx …
People worldwide are familiar with the term drones—unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs are in use today for patrol, search and rescue, and domestic surveillance by domestic U.S. law enforcement. Because of the advancements in the technology, privacy concerns are arising among many Americans. One of the first aircraft …
The United States has not always prohibited the use, sale, manufacturing, and distribution of psychoactive drugs. Rather, the enforcement of drug prohibition, both domestically and abroad, has changed over the past 100 years depending on state and federal legislation and public opinion. And, it is still changing. Americans …
Marijuana is the most frequently used illicit drug in the United States. According to the 2011 National Household Study on Drug Abuse and Health, 18.1 million Americans are current (i.e., past month) users. In the year 2011, an estimated 3.1 million persons aged 12 or older used an …
Due process is mentioned twice in the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment states that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property by the federal government “without due process of law.” Similarly, the Fourteenth Amendment states in part that no state shall “deprive any person of …
Approximately every 20 minutes in the United States someone is either hurt or killed in a vehicular crash involving alcohol, and each day in the United States, 27 people are killed by drunk drivers. In 2011, 9,878 people were killed by drivers who were legally impaired and approximately …
Coercion has been at the center of many recent debates in normative philosophy primarily because of the role acting under duress plays in determining an agent’s moral responsibility for her actions. Many believe that an agent who acts under duress is less morally responsible for her actions than …
A duty is a responsibility or obligation to act (i.e., a positive or affirmative duty) or refrain from acting (i.e., a negative duty) certain ways in certain kinds of situations. Keeping promises, avoiding dishonesty and deception, and refraining from intentionally causing harm to others are examples of actions …
Inmates commonly serve much less time behind bars than the periods of incarceration to which they are originally sentenced. There are three main explanations for why inmates may be released early: (1) inmates have earned “good time credit,” (2) states or counties use emergency release procedures to alleviate …
Attorneys, like all professionals, must master a certain base of knowledge. Thus, attorneys must successfully complete law school and must pass a state bar exam to demonstrate mastery of that base of knowledge before they are granted an attorney’s license and are then permitted to practice law. But …
Excessive regard for oneself and deficient regard for others can lead to criminal behavior, from spousal abuse to serial murder. It can also motivate criminal justice practitioners to abuse their authority by engaging in graft or using excessive force when making arrests. Even so, some, but not many, …
