Deck 18: Punishment and Correction

Question 1

Critics have called for change in the way federal sentencing guidelines are designed, because they punish crack possession more heavily than powdered cocaine possession. African Americans are more likely to use crack and whites to use powdered cocaine. Do you approve of such a sentencing change?

Answer 1

Racial sentencing discrimination:
Race is the segregation based on color, nationality, ethnicity, or immigrant status. Here, the discussion is about the prison population consisting maximum people who are not whites but consists of other minorities.
There are number of research specifying racial discrimination. Certain research indicates race of the defendant has direct impact over sentencing (punishments) and others influence sentencing with race on least clear-cut than anticipated. Hence, race of defendant decides the justice and plays important role of outcome with respect to adjudicatory process.
Racial sentencing for drugs:
Cocaine is the product of erythroxylon plant. Crack cocaine is a powder form of cocaine smoked mixing with water and baking soda dried into solid. The solid rock cracks into smaller forms.
However, cocaine is the base. The cracked cocaine is a form of the base that brings addiction on chronic usage. This drug relates systematic violence than its other counterpart (powder).
The case informs that whites use cocaine and blacks use crack. This cannot only determine the decision. The health hazards, violence factors, easy to use disasters, and youngster pollution have to be considered to make sentencing decisions. Hence, both are equally harmful and sentence has to be like or uneven with regard to crime caused.

Question 2

Because of the lingering problem of racial and class bias in the sentencing process, one primary goal of the criminal justice system has been to reduce disparity by creating new forms of criminal sentences that limit judicial discretion and are aimed at uniformity and fairness. Can such measures as sentencing guidelines and mandatory sentences reduce race-based disparity?

Answer 2

Prison entertaining sexual violence:
Violence and sexual coercion are routine threat in prison. This severe problem influenced government to enact a "Prison Rape Reduction Act" in 2003. The act provided three programs in justice department. They are:
1. Program for collection of national prison rape data, statistics, and to conduct research
2. Program devoted to information dissemination and procedures that combat prison rape
3. Program that assist state funding programs
The major targets are young males who are raped and are kept as sex slaves. A survey proves prison administrators downplay rape occurrences. However, self-report surveys specify 60,000 rape attacks occur every year. Regarding, violence against women prisoners many reports depict female prisoners are abused sexually and exploited through male correction officers using brutal force or psychological coercion.
Male guards in female prison:
Due to the number of complaints raised, male guards do not work for female prisoners. On considering, teacher, psychologist, doctor, and warden male members are not criminals they are allowed to work together and for women. However, jail cannot be co-educational facility. Hence, such limitations maintain societal dignity and individual security among jail population.

Question 3

All too often, government leaders jump on the incarceration bandwagon as a panacea for the nation's crime problem. Is it a "quick fix" whose long-term consequences may be devastating for the nation's cities, or are these problems counterbalanced by the crime-reducing effect of putting large numbers of high-rate offenders behind bars?

Answer 3

Problems that create reentry:
Recidivism is more frustrating thing in U.S. Here, criminal offenders fail easy apprehension and prosecution. This makes it foolish to grant an early release to them that leads to preying more victims.
Research indicated number of prisoners was not prepared for a reintegration and disconnected from the community-based society. The increase in risks related to reentry is tied with legal changes and ways people are released. In addition, fluctuations in sentencing laws have made extensive growth to mandatory releases and limits discretionary parole.
The employers remain hesitant to appoint former inmates into regular labor market. From growth of unionization, many unions do exclude ex-offenders. Hence, this chronic unemployment provides adequate treatment and unprepared life in a conventional society.
Counterbalancing government leader's panacea to solve national crime problem with placing high rate offenders behind bars:
The government leaders undergo incarceration or imprisonment as panacea to solve national crime though it may be devastating for the nation's cities. However, this may not quick fix the issue. Rather, the supporters of that politician will increase the crime rate through protesting against his/her arrest.
These crimes are reduced with large effect by placing high rate offenders behind bars. It is because they are the cause of the crime and they influence crime rate directly.

Question 4

Do you approve of mandatory sentencing laws? Should every convicted felon be given the option of community treatment?

Question 5

The Needs of the Many
The governor has contacted you, asking for your professional opinion. She has read a paper by criminologists William Bowers and Glenn Pierce, who argue that far from being a deterrent, capital punishment actually produces more violence than it prevents; they label this the "brutalization effect." Executions, they say, actually increase murder rates because they raise the general violence level in society and because violence-prone people identify with the executioner, not with the target of the death penalty. Consequently, when violence-prone people are confronted or their authority is challenged, they execute their challengers in the same manner that the state executes people who violate its rules. The state is just about to execute a notorious serial killer who has been convicted of the murder of 10 young women. On the one hand, the victims' families demand justice for the death of their loved ones and want this man dead. On the other hand, assuming that the "brutalization effect" is valid, the killer's execution will actually mean an increase in the state's murder rate.

The governor wants you to help her answer the age-old question: Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Address her problem in a three-page memo that she can use to bolster her final decision: let the execution take place or grant clemency, which would mean a life sentence for the killer.

Question 6

Considering the threat of prison rape and sexual coercion, would you allow male guards to work in a female prison? If you say no, what about male teachers, doctors, psychologists, wardens?

Question 7

Can you make an argument for segregating inmates on the basis of race and age-that is, to have prisons for young white males, young black males, older white males, and so on?

Question 8

If you agree that incarceration undermines neighborhoods, can you think of some other, indirect ways that high incarceration rates help increase crime rates?

Question 9

What rights should a probationer have before his community sentence is revoked? Is probation a privilege or a right? And if a privilege, would you recommend that it be revoked for the slightest rule violation?

Question 10

Should a convicted criminal make restitution to a wealthy victim who does not really need the money? When is restitution inappropriate?

Question 11

Should offenders be fined based on the severity of what they did or according to their ability to pay? Is it fair to gear fines to wages? Should some offenders be punished more severely because they are financially successful?

Question 12

Do house arrest and electronic monitoring involve a violation of personal freedom? Does wearing an ankle bracelet smack of Big Brother? Would you want the government monitoring your daily activities? Could this practice be expanded, for example, to monitor the whereabouts of AIDS patients or political protestors?

Question 13

Should private companies be allowed to run correctional institutions? What are the drawbacks to having a private company take on a sensitive and sometimes dangerous function such as administering prisons and jails?