Overview of US Criminal Justice System

Overview of US Criminal Justice System The Ins and Outs of Corrections As far as I can remember as a child, when I thought of the corrections system, I thought it was doing something bad and going to jail. I never gave thought to how things really work. Little did I know that the process of corrections is comprised of different areas that make up a system known as the Criminal Justice System. The United States criminal justice system is made up of a network at the federal, state and local levels. Federal court jurisdiction is limited to certain types of cases listed in the U.S. Constitution (Comparing). For the most part, federal court jurisdictions only hear cases in which the United States is a party, cases involving violations of the Constitution or federal law, crimes on federal land, and bankruptcy cases. Federal courts also hear cases of disputes between two or more states. While federal courts handle fewer cases than most state courts, the cases heard tend to be of great importance and of great interest to the press and the public. State courts are also known as general jurisdiction (Comparing). They hear cases that are not selected for federal courts. 90% of all cases heard in the American court system happens at the state level. State court systems vary from state to state. Each state gets to make and interpret its own laws as long as they do not violate the constitution and they are all a little different. Some examples of cases heard at the state level are: state tax and law violations, real estate cases, custody and inheritance cases. Local courts are similar to state courts. They handle cases such as divorce, family courts, personal injury, minor drug violations and contract disputes. As with any mechanism, the criminal justice system involves the coordinated functioning of its distinct parts. It is made of three parts that process a case from inception, through trial to punishment. Throughout each stage of the process, constitutional protections exist to ensure that the rights of the accused and convicted re respected. Law Enforcement is the first component of the criminal justice system. It involves police officers, sheriffs, park rangers, federal agents, detectives and other agents that usually make first contact with criminals. These individuals are responsible for upholding the law, investigating crime and apprehending the individuals responsible for committing the crime. In this area is where criminals are read their Miranda rights. Cases are investigated, evidence is collected, witnesses are questioned and the cases are moved on to the courts. Courts make up the second component of the criminal justice system. The courts are a key piece of the puzzle known as the justice system. The courts are made up of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, bailiffs, jurors and court reporters. The individuals in the courts works to ensure an individuals rights are not violated and a fair trial takes place. Juries and judges play a part in sentencing individuals for crimes committed, but they must each follow guidelines established by state and federal statutes. The third component of criminal justice system is corrections. This component includes probation officers, parole officers and corrections officers. These individuals in the court component work together to ensure that a convicted offender serves his or her sentence as advised by the courts and supervises the convicts as they serve their sentence. Each of these three aspects of the criminal justice system is essential to the effective functioning of the larger system as a whole. Another key component of the criminal justice system that is constantly in the news are the prisons themselves. Prison transformation has been a big news topic in Alabama lately. One thing that has been left out is the system that runs these prisons. Prisons are made up of staff members with specific roles with the same goals. These goals are to provide for the security of the community by incarcerating those who break the law; promoting the smooth and effective functioning of the institution; ensuring that incarceration is secure but humane; and giving inmates the opportunity to develop a positive lifestyle while incarcerated and to gain the personal and employment skills they need for a positive lifestyle after release (Schmalleger 2015). The prisons staff is very extensive. It doesnt consist of warden and officers. The staff are arranged into a hierarchy which consists of: Warden: The chief executive, in charge of the prison, must adhere to programs created by the state and have enormous discretion within their institution. Each institution will also have several associate wardens that preside over specific programs within an institution (Staff). Executive Assistant: The Executive Assistant serves as the Wardens chief sycophant, and is also the only person other than the Warden who has authorization to speak with the media (Staff). Department Heads: A Department Head will oversee the day-to-day operations. Individuals who hold the role of a Department Head will have much more in the way of direct interaction with inmates (Staff). Unit Managers: In many ways, prisons are like communities. In the Bureau of Prisons, institutions hold anywhere from 100 to several thousand people. Administrators make use of a system they call Unit Management to keep a handle on operations. With the Unit Management system, administrators can more effectively keep track of all the people (Staff). These units are broken down into even smaller levels to include: Program staff (psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, nurses, medical aides, teachers, counselors, caseworkers and ministers); Custodial staff (majors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and correctional officers); Service and maintenance staff (kitchen workers, physical plant personnel and outside contractors); Volunteers (prison ministry, speakers, and other volunteers) (Schmalleger 2015). The American Criminal Justice system is very complex. It has a hierarchy of Court systems that trickles down to smaller systems that have their own hierarchy of systems also. Just like the justice system is made of components of federal, state and local courts, the prison system itself also has components. Every are of the justice system all work together with the same common goals: to enforce the laws, maintain peace and order in the communities and provide their constituencies safety and security. References Comparing Federal State Courts. (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2017, from www.us.courts.gov Schmalleger, F., PhD, Smykla, J. O., PhD. (2015). Corrections in the 21st Century (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Staff Hierarchy and Administrative Remedy. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2017, from https://www.prisonprofessor.com State Court vs Federal Courts. (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2017, from www.judiciallearningcenter.org The Difference Between Federal Courts and State/Local Courts. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2017, from www.civilrights.org United States District Court. (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2017, from www.us.courts.gov

Englishmen 17th century :: essays research papers

FIRST ESSAY: Thomas Hobbes described the life of most Englishmen in the 17th century as â€Å"nasty, brutish and short.† How far does the evidence presented in Past Speaks chpt. 2, suggest that little had changed by the mid 18th century?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Chapter two of Past Speaks, covers many different articles that discusses the many social classes that were present in Britain at that time. When Thomas Hobbes described the life of the Englishmen as â€Å"nasty, brutish and short.† he was partially correct. On the contrary he was also mistaken. Thomas Hobbes made a generalization of the Englishmen, and failed to mention some of the upper and profitable people of the British society. Obviously the wealthy and prosperous people were not included in this generalization that is made. Farmers from Norfolk were very successful, as stated in Past Speaks chapter 2, â€Å"Pointing out the practices which have succeeded so nobly here, may perhaps be of some use to other countries possessed of the same advantages, but unknowing in the art of them.† Arthur Young, a traveling one-man bureau, wrote about these farmers and successful cattle-breeding men. He speaks of a man by the name of Robert Bakewell, who turne d out to be a very wealthy man. Bakewell experimented in the breeding of cattle. He managed to breed a large amount of cattle that could produce more meat and less bone, in which he ended up shipping overseas to neighboring countries. Thomas Hobbes again, did not include these men in the comment he had made.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Henri Misson, visiting sportsmen to England did write on the sports and diversions of England. Misson writes â€Å"Anything that looks like fighting is delicious to an Englishman. If two little boys quarrel in the street, then passengers stop, make a ring round them in a moment, and set them against one another, that they may come to fisticuffs.† This piece does support Thomas Hobbes comment on the difference of Englishmen from the 17th to the 18th century. This seemed as little or nothing had changed with the society. Another quote from Past Speaks â€Å"these by-standers are not only other boys, porters and rabble, but all sorts of men of fashion; some thrusting by the mob that they may see plain†. This is evidence that not only the lower social class, but the upper class as well were enthused. This is evidence to Hobbes remark.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Thomas Hobbes however did not believe in Democracy.

My Gesellschaft Society Essay

Many young people in this day and age are tying to look act, and overall seem older. I deal with these struggles everyday in my life. Kids face many dilemmas in their trek to adulthood yet, they still try to obtain adulthood earlier by going through the â€Å"proper† rites of passage. These things create dilemmas, which can help or hinder lifetime goals. Two of the dilemmas that young people face today are peer pressure, and adult pressure. Kids today in the modern society encounter things such as smoking, drinking, and violence. In a Gemeinschaft society peer pressure is not going to be a really big issue in a teens life. All of the people in that society are probably going think and have the same ideal as everybody else in their community. Although in a Gesellschaft society, teens are going to struggle with different issues because no one thinks the same or follows the same ideas or trends. I know in my life it is very hard to stick to what I believe in. There is always going to be someone out there to tell you a different side of a situation. In some ways seeing two different views of a problem is good. It helps to weigh out the good and the bad. I live in a Gesellschaft society. The friends I hang around with have many different beliefs about everything. There is no way that we can all believe or follow the same ideas. Peer pressure is a very major dilemma when friends or peers try to get a person to do what they, the majority, like and not what the individual likes, or does not want to do. Peers create some of the so-called rites, when one follows, more start to follow, then it becomes the scenario of follow the leader. For example, some teens think that drinking is a passage into adulthood because the law states you must be 21 to drink. The logic of some teens indicates that if you drink you are considered an adult. Therefore if one teen tries it he/she is supposedly accepted as a more mature person, so more people will follow. Many adolescents fear their peers because of the fact that the peer group may  have set certain ideals, yet the individual may or may not have the resources to obtain the ideals. If there is a lack of resources then the individual may have a very low level of self-esteem. Many individuals do not care for the ideals yet they allow themselves to be converted to the majority and this can also create a problem with ones self-esteem. Peer pressure is not a bad thing. We all are influenced by our peers, both negatively and positively. It helps define who we are and how we feel about subjects in our lives. It is how we chose to react to peer pressure that defines who we are as an individual. Are we a leader or a follower? Both types of people are needed to make the world go round. Basically, the difference between negative and positive peer pressure is the outcome. The reverse of the situation above is negative peer pressure. The situation itself is positive peer pressure. For example, a teen really doesn’t like sports, but pushes himself to do it to please his friends or to be accepted. Therefore, he probably doesn’t do too well at it, and gets only criticism, which lowers his self-esteem from the very friends he is trying so hard to impress. That is a form of negative peer pressure. Another kind of pressure is adult pressure, adults create many dilemmas in a teens life. Adults tell teens what and what not to do. They make things harder by the fact that adults pressure teens into colleges, jobs, careers, and life over all. Adults also create self-esteem problems in teens by not respecting choices or decisions made by teens. For example, children are taught by their parents to supposedly know what is right or wrong. The child may not like their parents’ answer to a question or situation, and in some cases get furious at the decision and go and do the wrong thing. In a way this is a case of peer pressure because the child wants to do what his/her friends are doing which could be the wrong thing and the child gets mad at the parents because they say no. Adults pressure teens into not doing things also. Drugs, sex, and alcohol are some of the many things peers and adults disagree upon. The style of clothes one wears is also a big disagreement between the two groups. In a way adult pressure is worse than peer pressure. Adults control teens lives until they are eighteen years old or older. Adults may force a son or daughter to go to a certain college that the teen does not want to attend, or obtain a career that the teen does not want. Peer pressure is a normal aspect in a teen’s life. For example, if a parent doesn’t like the current teen fashion does not mean that a parent should have to fight it. When everyone at school is wearing jeans that are five times too big for them, and a teen wants to also, you can cut them some slack. But, if everyone is wearing these jeans down around their knees, you should have a battle. In conclusion the two pressures of peers, and adults are often conflicting. Sometimes neither is good, and other times both are good. Adult pressure is by far the worst creating many problems with youths today. Peer pressure may also create problems yet they are easier to deal with. The best thing to do is to respect one’s own decision for one’s self and no one else’s.

This fictional short story has a bent on mystery a Essays

This fictional short story has a bent on mystery a Essays This fictional short story has a bent on mystery as it doesn't portray many details as how the character is hurt, or how the lady in the painting was dying. Its in first person narration, thereby giving the readers only the exact feels and thoughts about the main character. The tone of the writer was rather astonished , by the beauty or by the numerous number of spiritual modern paintings' that were hung on the walls of the apartment. The purpose of the writer was to discus the history about one particular painting the oval portrait' was of a young girl that attracted the attention of the narrator at his very first glance. When the narrator turns to the page discussing this painting and its history it talks about a "passionate, wild and moody man", taking glory in his work, an artist who painted day and night over many weeks and who "took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task". However, the artist's obsession to his painting has a price: the more alive and vital his painting, the more life is drained from his young wife, a process the artist completely fails to register. with the final brush stroke the painting comes fully alive at the exact moment of his young wife's death. The narrator was quoting directly from the book about the portrait during the last part of the story. He uses some similes like the spirit .lamp' where he was perhaps trying to compare the lady's spirit to a flame ,and she was also described as she a maiden.fawn' thereby trying to portray or compare her to a young deer. He also uses a metaphor in the beginning ,'tonguescandelabrum' maybe trying to showcase how the candle wicks were similar to tongues. Her artist husband has already "a bride in his Art" and this metaphor becomes something far more literal as the story progresses, the artist drawing tints of colour for the portrait from the very cheeks of the woman he paints, oblivious of the harm it caused her. the climax occurs when the account in the book reveals that the lifelike portrait of the young lady is absorbing her vitality.

White Light

White Light ‚“Marley get back here‚” a shout after my dog who has just broken another leash and is now running through the forest after a squirrel. ‚“Marley‚” I shout again but it‚s no use I guess the chase is on. As run after him, I trip over a root protruding from the ground. The last thing I see before hitting the ground is Marley looking at me tail wagging. I sit up slowly my head is killing me. I can‚t see straight never mind think straight. As the world slowly stops spinning. I try to figure out where I am. The light is dim and I can‚t see much more than trees. Then I remember chasing after Marley. ‚“Crack‚”, I turn in the direction of the noise but I can‚t see anything. ‚“Marley is that you‚” my voice comes out as a small whisper. I listen for the noise again but I hear nothing but an eerie silence, I can‚t even hear my heartbeat.English: Paddock near Marley House.

Evaluation of the Company's Strategy Coursework - 1

Evaluation of the Company's Strategy - Coursework Example The company operates in two segments that include retail and financial services. Its financial services include personal banking mainly mortgages, credit cards, personal loans, and savings (Tesco Plc, 2013). Analysis and critical evaluation of Tesco’s strategic position In the first assignment, the SWOT analysis, Porter’s five forces model and PESTEL framework have been used to analyze the external environment surrounding Tesco Plc. Its opportunities include opening up of its stores within the country and outside it, the building up of its clients around the world, and its strategy to expand to the Indian market. In 2009 the company opened up 620 stores out of which 435 were international thereby creating a network of commercial stores which would help Tesco benefit economically and reduce systemic threats. Its 1 million clients in 2010 provided an excellent opportunity for it to attract customers. Also its expansion in the Indian market would enable Tesco to maintain a nd grow. This will result in the strengthening of Tesco’s position in the global market. However threats continue to surround Tesco as the economical conditions are changing continuously economic recession and the financial crisis has to lead to unemployment and a decrease in sales. Moreover, as new giant departmental stores are emerging in the retail business Tesco is facing stiff competition as a result. Due to the financial crisis in the UK and the subsequent contraction of the economy, Tesco has faced problems in consolidating its position in the UK market. A decrease in sales has resulted due to low income and unemployment that people face and are therefore changing their buyer habits. As a result consumers are changing their behavior so as to allow them to spend on products and... As Tesco continues to explore its opportunities to expand in countries where there exist high returns, it also aims to be competitive by realizing its customer demands and needs so that they are able to provide them with a great experience. For that it needs to conduct frequent market reviews to analyze customer satisfaction. Also due to inflation the price setting should be done such that it attracts customers thereby creating a greater competitive environment. The focus is also on improve the performance of its current markets to maintain and grow its market share. The implementation of strategies that focus on customer reviews to tackle competition and grow could lead to better performance as most of the threats and weaknesses Tesco is as a result of rivals and the economic conditions. Sustainable growth is one of Tesco’s strategies. This means that profits are not the only governing factor in expanding but growing with responsibility thereby creating a sustainable operatin g environment. Knowledge Hub was started by Tesco for its suppliers to encourage the sharing of environmentally friendly ideas. Tesco wants to create a sustainable supply chain and by 2020 it aims to cut down emissions by twenty to thirty percents.

The Class and television in the UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Class and television in the UK - Essay Example On the other hand, commercial television was to be regulated more firmly (especially in regard to advertising and content) and the game shows that had won ITV high ratings over the last few years were to have their prize monies slashed. The disparity between Pilkington's judgements of the two channels was quite clear. This disparity was firmly and inextricably interwoven with the class structure of Britain at the time of the report, and television's place in that structure. By 1962 the working class was becoming increasingly affluent, riding the post-war industrial boom and supported by the new welfare provision put in place by Clement Attlee's reforming government of 1945-51. Between 1951 and 1958 real wages rose by 20% (Curran, 204), this growth favouring principally the lower middle classes. This increased prosperity naturally converted into an increase in the number of television sets bought: in 1951 there were 586,000 licences, which grew by nearly twenty-fold to 11,659,000 (Sendall, 1982, 370). This increase was almost certainly driven by the availability of the new ITV. As well as greater prosperity for the working class, there was also increased social mobility, again due to the Attlee government and the grammar school system it had put in place in the late 1940s. An example of this new t rend was a member of the Pilkington Committee itself, Richard Hoggart, who has been characterised by Andrew Crisell as "a working class beneficiary of higher education and celebrated historian of popular culture." (109). I will argue that it was the personality type and, more importantly, class position, of people like Richard Hoggard, that gave the Pilkington Report its particular tenor. One of the main reasons the BBC outperformed ITV in the Pilkington report's findings was that the report was driven by so-called 'Reithian' values (after the first Director General of the BBC). Both channels were judged on their merits as public service broadcasting, as Sendall has said, "the assumption was consistently made that entertainment needed to be 'balanced' by a suitable proportion of improving material" (Sendall, 1983, 88). The viewers of television had to be improved in some way; that is, television took on a moral and social function. The report said so itself, the committee being quite adamant that, "television is and will be a main factor in influencing the values and moral standards of our society." (Crisell, 111). Judged in this way, ITV - which was subject to market pressures in a way that the licence-fee funded BBC wasn't - was almost certain to fall short of the committee's criteria. In the main, ITV produced entertainment, and all indications seemed to suggest t hat the mass majority of people (mainly from the working class) watching ITV preferred this type of output to that which might 'improve' them. However, Pilkington was less concerned with what the democratic public wanted, and more with what they should have, seeing broadcasting as a vehicle for an elite class to educate and better those moraly (which usually also means economically) beneath them, rather than a product, which is chosen by the democratic individual