Category: Criminal Justice Essay Examples

The ability to form intentions allows people to commit themselves to actions in advance and to make complex decisions about circumstances they might face in the future in which there would be no time to deliberate. It also allows individuals to engage in long-term planning and implementation of …

Internal review practices ensure timely information, provide guidance, and promote confidence about whether an organization’s activities are well designed and effectively carried out. Internal controls must be selected for appropriateness and consistently applied to protect against malfeasance and inefficiency. With appropriate standards established, performance audits determine whether programs …

International criminal courts are judicial bodies used to try individuals for violations of international law, most often crimes committed during wartime. Traditionally, such tribunals were set up on an ad hoc basis, designed to try political and military leaders for offenses committed during particular armed conflicts. In 2002, …

The Internet provides tremendous opportunities for gathering information. However, it also can be a vehicle for information that is based in criminal sexual materials and activities. Modern society has struggled with regulating many areas of the Internet, particularly criminal behavior. It has been reported that pornography in the …

Involuntary outpatient commitment is a civil procedure in which those who have been deemed in need of mental health services are court-ordered to engage in them in the community. Currently, 42 states and the District of Columbia have laws that permit some form of involuntary outpatient commitment for …

Judicial corruption occurs when judges are unwilling or unable to act as independent and neutral arbiters. Corrupt judges abuse their authority for personal gain, accepting bribes from parties before the court, or embezzling court funds. Alternately, judicial corruption may result from the politicization of the judiciary, with powerful …

Judicial discretion helps make sense of the law. When cases are vague, a judge’s interpretation may be needed to bring closure to a criminal or civil proceeding. Judicial discretion may be needed to address a procedural error. A judge’s discretion is far reaching and has impact upon many …

Almost all legal systems have mechanisms to remove members of the judiciary by impeachment, legislative address, recall election, and/or judicial conduct commissions. Judicial conduct commissions have the authority to remove or reprimand a member of the judiciary through a process that includes formally filing charges, having a hearing …

Jurors play a unique and somewhat paradoxical role in the U.S. criminal justice system. Most criminal justice actors, such as police, prosecutors and defense attorneys, and trial judges, are paid professionals whose ethical responsibilities are exhaustively delineated in state and federal statutes and administrative rules, professional codes of …

Jury nullification is the term used to describe a jury’s acquittal of a criminal defendant in a case in which the evidence and law strongly support a conviction. Jury nullification has sometimes been called “a verdict according to conscience” and defined expansively as any verdict that better satisfies …

In the U.S. criminal legal procedure, the voir dire process of selecting jury members has been the focus of intense scrutiny by those concerned about procedural fairness in the criminal justice system. Jury selection (or “profiling,” as it is often referred to) is the attempt to exclude certain …

Many theories of punishment are prospective and consequentialist in their orientation and employ punishment to secure the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation are examples of utilitarian punishments. On the other hand, “just deserts” theory (sometimes called simply “desert” or “retributivism”) is …

Courts, and by extension society, must deal with how to bring justice properly to those who commit harmful acts but are at the same time free of some level of culpability. Although a defendant has confessed or has otherwise been found to have committed a criminal act, he …

Until about the mid-19th century, the concept of a “juvenile offender” was not in regular use, and children in Western countries were subject to much the same criminal justice processes and penalties as adults. In the 21st century, however, juvenile offenders are most commonly detained in jails specifically …

Gangs have become a fact of life in both large and small cities across the United States. Research indicates that youth who choose to become members of a gang tend to participate in more delinquent activities than their counterparts who do not join gangs. But in order to …

The creation and proliferation of a separate youth justice system in the United States has not been without debate. How youth are sentenced has changed considerably over time. Many of these changes relate to how people understand the purposes of a separate youth justice system and what sentencing …

Waiver, or transfer, to adult court refers to the various legal mechanisms through which juvenile offenders can have their cases moved from juvenile court jurisdiction to criminal courts. There are several types of waiver laws and they differ from state to state. Once transferred to adult courts, young …

It is estimated that more than 200,000 youth under the age of 18 are prosecuted as adults in criminal courts each year in the United States. Youth under the age of 18 enter adult courts through two main pathways—because they are older than the age of jurisdiction set …

Whether juvenile offenders should be incarcerated in adult jails—to deter them from offending or to hold them accountable and protect the community—or in special detention facilities for juveniles—which recognize the immaturity and vulnerability of young people—has long been debated. The term juveniles—often used interchangeably with youth and young …

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Kansas v. Hendricks. This case involved a challenge to a Kansas law, the Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVPA), which permitted the state to indefinitely confine repeat sex offenders who the state deemed a threat to society. In this case, Hendricks argued …