Criminal behavior, the Legal Consequences that Follow and the Causes of Crime

Criminal behavior
Criminal behavior

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Criminal behavior, the Legal Consequences that Follow and the Causes of Crime

In the criminal justice system, deterrence refers to the lawful act of taking peoples’ ability to commit a crime in order to prevent them from committing it. Rehabilitation is on the other hand aimed at ending an individual’s desire to commit a crime by curing him/her from the desire and habits that incline them to felony (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). In that sense, deterrence is seen as a consequence that involves the punishment of the offenders, while rehabilitation involves practices that changes their perspectives and personalities in such a way that their criminal tendencies are eliminated.

The main objective therefore rests on the development of effective measures that prevent crime from happening, as such, it is necessary to understand the reasons why people are inclined to committing crimes. There are many theories that have been advanced in order to understand, explain and find solutions to criminal activities, and as such, they form the basis on which criminal psychology and forensic science operates in the criminal justice system.

The main theories that have been developed to explain criminal activity are the Psychological, Biological and Sociological theories. Each one or a combination of all the theories is used to understand criminal behavior, and the information obtained is used to determine the best ways to control crime.

According to Psychologists, there are three theories or approaches that could be used to explain criminal tendencies and behavior. These are; the biological approaches; the psychological approaches; and the sociological approaches (Bartol & Bartol, 2014). The psychological approach is based on the assumption that an individual bears the responsibility of his or her actions, and as such, prevention of criminal activity is focused on specific persons through programs that educate, train, rehabilitate or change the social and psychological perspective of the individual. However, this is based on the premise that the past behavior of an individual can be used to predict their future behavior (Bartol & Bartol, 2014).

The biological approaches are based on the assumption that people commit crimes because of some problem in their biological make up that could be hereditary or caused by trauma. As a result, crime prevention through biological approaches is usually achieved through un-natural interference in an individual’s body through initiatives such as psychosurgery, stimulation of the nervous system, and the use of chemical therapy among many others (Bartol & Bartol, 2014).

On the other hand, the sociological approach looks at crime from a broader perspective. It focuses on societal aspects that influence the environment in which the criminal lives in, and as such, does not directly hold an individual as being entirely responsible for his actions, but rather having acted from the pressure exerted on them by the social environment (Bartol & Bartol, 2014). Consequently, the sociological approach focuses on positioning how political and economic factors in the environment contribute to the occurrence of crime in a particular society.

Deterrence vs Rehabilitation

Deterrence as an approach that is aimed at preventing criminal activities takes place prior to the occurrence of criminal activity. Therefore, deterrence works towards preventing a crime from occurring and if done effectively, there would be zero cases of crime, and this because deterrence makes the subjects fear committing crime or takes away their physical ability to commit crime (Stein & Levi 2015).

It is therefore easy to argue that deterrence is less costly when compared to rehabilitation since is it is effectively done, loses from crime would not be incurred, and that the state would have not prisons to run or criminals to secure and incapacitate. Rehabilitation as an approach that is aimed at preventing crime may be effective in that; it works towards taking away an individual’s desire to commit a crime.

The approach is therefore taken into consideration after an individual has committed a crime as a means of eliminating the desire to re-commit the crime in the future (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). Therefore, it can be argued that rehabilitation is more costly to the state when compared to deterrence since costs associated with the loss that result from criminal activity coupled with those of rehabilitating the criminal are shouldered by the state at the same time. In other words, deterrence may be seen as a preventive approach and rehabilitation as a curative one.

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Deterrence is effective in that it prevents anyone from committing a crime regardless of their inclination towards it, while on the other hand, rehabilitation only focuses on those who participate criminal activities with the intention of changing their behavior (Stein & Levi 2015). This implies that while deterrence is a sure way to preventing crime, rehabilitation depends on the individual’s willingness to avoid crime in the future.

In the criminal justice system, deterrence has proved to be more effective in preventing crime as compared to rehabilitation, which is mainly because most individuals who attend rehabilitation programs only do it to be given early release. The state would therefore find it more effective to adopt deterrence as a fundamental approach and maybe integrate rehabilitation programs in the system for those individuals who wish to benefit from the service (Stein & Levi 2015).

The fact that deterrence takes the individual’s physical ability to commit crime is satisfactory in as far as prevention of crime is concerned. However, the individual’s desire to commit crime may still be present, implying that the individual may revert to criminal activities whenever he or she is released (Stein & Levi 2015). In contracts to deterrence, rehabilitation would prevent the individual from desiring to commit a crime even when supervision is withdrawn. As such, it would be more effective to provide rehabilitation services to in mates so as to discourage them from reverting to crime when they are released from prison (Andrews & Bonta, 2010).

References

Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2010). Rehabilitating criminal justice policy and practice. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 16(1), 39.

Bartol, A. M., & Bartol, C. R. (2014). Criminal behavior: A psychological approach. Boston: Pearson, c2014. xxiii, 644 pages: illustrations; 24 cm.

Stein, J. G., & Levi, R. (2015). In Partnership with the Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law and the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute: Navigating Deterrence: Law, Strategy,     & Security in the Twenty-First Century: The Social Psychology Of Denial: Deterring Terrorism. NYUJ Int’l L. & Pol., 47, 409-855.

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ISSUES IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

Correctional facilities
Correctional facilities

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ISSUES IN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES

Introduction

Correctional facilities like prisons and youth development centers in the California state, are tasked with the responsibility of rehabilitating, deterring, retribution and total incapacitation of individuals who act against social rules and norms (Brust & Ford, 2015). However, this task has often proven to be a challenge to those responsible in the management of these facilities, some of these challenges revolve around resource and budgetary constraints, and are manifested in the rampant cases of overcrowding in facilities, policies that are a threat to public safety, ineffective juvenile rehabilitation programs, and many ethical issues that regard the operation and management of corrections in the state of California (Ouss, 2015).

Due to these and other issues that will be discussed herein, issues of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of corrections are increasingly becoming a concern to many (Brust & Ford, 2015).

Issues in Correctional Facilities in the State of California

The onset of this decade has seen a rise in the number of challenges faced by the authorities of both state and county jails in the state of California, among which includes the prisons of Avenal, Corcoran and kings county jail. The high fluctuation in the number of inmates has for instance been a major issue in Avenal and Corcoran prisons, for example, Avenal prison is reported to have an approximated population of 3216 inmates, which as per the its holding capacity exceeds by around 10%.

This issue has resulted in overcrowding in the facility, and as such, the authorities have been finding difficulty in their efforts to accommodate inmates (Latessa & Smith, 2015). The prison is also reported to have had a case of a population influx that hit 8000, leading to shortage of bed and other accommodation facilities in the prison (Altschuler et al., 2016). Despite the premise that having a high population attracts more state funding, most of these facilities still suffer from poor allocation of these funds (Latessa & Smith, 2015).

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 A worst case scenario in the correctional facilities often occurs during the drought periods, which are marked with limited water supply, this adds on to resource constraints that compels the authorities to give early releases as an alternative (Brust & Ford, 2015). Cases of the early releases are often due to population increase, especially in county prisons, for instance, the criminal justice realignment program sees more inmates being driven from state to county jails, which is done to ease the high population influx by relocating less crime offenders (Ouss, 2015).

On the long run, this results to overcrowding in county jails. This situation is even worsened by the provisions of the Assembly bill 900, which tasks counties with the responsibility of running county prisons (Altschuler et al., 2016).

Early release programs are often adopted to complement the budgetary cuts effected by the state, this result of state and county authorities receiving less funds to run correctional facilities. These early releases have been reported to cause a rise in crime rates in California, as more and more non rehabilitated individuals are released into the streets (Altschuler et al., 2016).

The incapacitation of correction’s authorities has also been a precursor to the ineffective nature of rehabilitation programs, this is primarily because the authorities have a limited ability to provide incentives to prisoners, which is necessary in order to encourage them to subscribe to those programs. The rise in the cases of prison escape may also be attributed to this incapacitation (Brust & Ford, 2015).

Ethical issues in prisons are also a major concern in the running of corrections, for instance, cases of disease outbreak and abuse of prisoners have also been reported to plague the facilities. The outbreak of the valley fever in Pleasant valley and Avenal state prison is an example of the poor ethical consideration in the management of these facilities, the case of sexual abuse in Woodland Hills by authorities is another (Altschuler et al., 2016). The limited ability of the authorities to manage these facilities may also be seen in the high number of drug abuse cases, a good example is that of the 19 prisoners who died from a drug overdose (Brust & Ford, 2015).

Conclusion

Corrections in the state of California are plagued with many Issues and challenges that are becoming a great concern to the public, the ability of these facilities to meet their objectives is also under question (Brust & Ford, 2015). This has mainly been due to the emerging cases of resource constraint, poor ethical considerations, ineffective rehabilitation programs, policies that pose a threat to public safety among many others. It is hoped that a lasting solution will be found to restore the effectiveness and efficiency of the correctional facilities (Latessa & Smith, 2015).

References

Altschuler, D. M., Hussemann, J., Zweig, J., Bañuelos, I., Ross, C., & Liberman, A. (2016). The Sustainability of Juvenile Programs beyond Second Chance Act Funding. Retrieved from http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000611-The-Sustainability-of-Juvenile-Programs-beyond-Second-Chance-Act-Funding-The-Case-of-Two-Grantees.pdf

Brust, A., & Ford, S. (2015). Speculating on Gold: A Narrative of Private Corrections in California. Writing. Retrieved from http://sites.duke.edu/bakerscholars/files/2015/04/Speculating-on-Gold-A-Narrative-of-Private-Corrections-in-California.pdf

Latessa, E. J., & Smith, P. (2015). Corrections in the Community. Routledge. Retrieved from http://216.69.13.12/faculty/Academics/Syllabi%20Spring%202014/CRJ%20203%2045T1%20WSmith%20Spring%202014.pdf

Ouss, A. (2015). Incentives Structures and Criminal Justice. Available at SSRN 2685952: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2685952 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2685952

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