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.
Vice, from the Latin vitium meaning a defect or fault, is a form of voluntary conduct, practice, or habit that one’s local moral community or wider society deems to be immoral. Vice, however, is not merely a synonym for immorality. Sometimes vice denotes particular categories of conduct of …
A victim impact statement (VIS) gives crime victims, or their survivors in the case of homicides, the opportunity to tell the judge or jury how the crime has affected their lives. Depending on the crime and the jurisdiction, a VIS may be offered in evidence during the trail …
The role of the victim in the criminal justice system has evolved over the past 30 to 40 years. Historically, victims of a crime have held no special place in the criminal justice process other than as witnesses to the event. Thus, as witnesses they have not received …
Victim–offender mediation and reconciliation programs are processes through which victims of crimes, the perpetrators of crimes, and in some cases affected community members attempt to work through the effects of criminal incidents. As opposed to many modern-day criminal justice systems, which may emphasize the punishment of criminals, application …
Victims’ assistance programs are meant to respond to the people harmed in some way by crime, usually helping those who are directly affected by criminal activities. These programs are variable across states, counties, and other jurisdictions and address the particular concepts of “assistance” and “victim” defined by the …
Although the term vigilantism is commonly used without much qualification, it is useful to discuss just what the term means. It generally refers to a group activity performed by private individuals that uses violence or the threat of violence to enforce values in absence of effective state intervention. …
Rates and consequences of interpersonal violence differ according to gender. Crime statistics indicate that although males are generally more likely to be victims of physical violence, females are disproportionately affected by intimate partner violence, sexual violence and harassment, and human trafficking. Women and girls are also more likely …
The desire to enhance public safety and protect the innocent has appeared in various forms throughout the centuries. Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the 1970s increased the need for clinical prediction of dangerousness. In the 1980s, researchers began to develop specialized tools, or risk-assessment instruments, for prediction …
Virginia v. Black (2003) pitted two fundamental values against one another: a citizen’s right to free expression of ideas and society’s interest in curbing a pernicious form of hate crime. The U.S. Supreme Court had to determine whether a state statute that banned cross burning violated the free …
Conceptions of virtue have a long history in ethical thought, extending all the way to the ancient roots of Western philosophy. Plato and Aristotle are especially important thinkers in the early history of thought concerning virtue, as are the Stoics. Overall, Aristotle’s ethical thought remains the most influential …
The term volition may refer most simply to a presumed human ability to freely choose one’s actions, or to the ability to freely choose one’s goals and then to act upon achieving those goals, or to the act of exercising free will. The existence of volition is the …
Very few academics have influenced the field of political ethics and justice as much as Michael Walzer. With an academic career spanning over 50 years, Walzer has studied and lectured at some of the premier universities in the United States, teaching at Princeton University (1962–66), Harvard University (1966–80), …
The criminal law paradigm shifts dramatically in the context of war. Combatants are effectively immunized from liability for a range of conduct—from criminal trespass or destruction of property all the way to homicide—that would trigger criminal liability during peacetime. War crimes, then, are not simply crimes that occur …
The War on Drugs refers to an international, United States-led campaign to prohibit specific psychoactive substances. Although the terminology and scope of the current War on Drugs are relatively new, prohibition of psychoactive substances can be traced to antiquity. The current iteration of the War on Drugs began …
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and …
White-collar crime (WCC) can be defined as theft by deception and similar types of criminal wrongdoing (e.g., corruption schemes such as those characterized by bribery, kickbacks, illegal gratuities, etc.) committed by natural persons, whether individually or in concert, for their personal benefit. WCC overlaps to some extent with …
It is no longer the dawn of wireless communications; indeed, wireless communications is simultaneously a mature industry and in its infancy. There are numerous ethical issues associated with criminal law and wireless communications in the Digital Age, among them ethical issues arising from wireless communications in criminalizing conduct, …
Computers’ transmission is either wired or wireless. Wired transmission involves more hardware than wireless, such as optical fiber connectors, jacks, and wall plates. Wireless transmission involves radio waves, satellite messages, infrared, microwave, and laser beam transmits. With a proliferation of wireless devices such as smartphones, netbooks, and gaming …
Wiretapping is one form of electronic eavesdropping and specifically references the monitoring of phone (landline or cellular) conversations by a third party. The term wiretap came about because historically it was an actual electrical tap placed on the physical telephone line that would allow conversations to be overheard. …
Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) raised the question of whether Wisconsin violated the U.S. Constitution by enhancing criminal sentences in cases where the victim was selected because of his or her race. This case exemplifies the clash between citizens’ rights to freedom of thought and expression and society’s interest …
