Posts Tagged ‘System’

Indeterminate Sentence System

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Indeterminate Sentence System

INDETERMINATE SENTENCE SYSTEM

The system of indeterminate sentence first began as an agency of correctional method for young offenders so that they could be released earlier if they responded favorably to the rehabilitative processes during the period of custody and control in the institution. The maximum limit of confinement in their case could be the age of attaining majority. The main object of indeterminate sentence is to inculcate hope rather than fear in the mind of inmate undergoing imprisonment .It also makes the inmate realize that his future lies in his own hands and he could secure an early release from the institution if he showed interest and sincerity in work and labour allotted to him. The greatest advantage of indeterminate sentence lies in the fact that it is aimed at correcting the inmate rather than ill-treating him.

ORIGIN OF INDETERMINATE SENTENCE

  

Historically, the system of indeterminate sentence is known to have originated from Spanish prisons in 1835.The practice of lodging young offenders in work-houses till the time they were completely reformed was, however, prevalent in certain American states even a century earlier. Under the Spanish system, the prisoners were organized into groups of 1000-1500 called a ‘company’. One of the prisoners was to lead the company and control and supervise the prisoners under him. He was called the commander of the company. Thus, the system was modeled on military pattern. Under this arrangement good behavior of the prisoner entitled him to proportionate reduction in his sentence to the extent of one-third.

The Irish penal system also preferred indeterminate sentence to determinate one. The inmates were kept in reformatories for an indeterminate period till they were reformed for normal life. The system was greatly appreciated in U.S.A. and subsequently it received statutory recognition in New York State in 1867.

Indeterminate sentence is applicable only to a few categories of offenders, mostly juveniles and the first offenders. The period of indeterminate sentence usually varied from 14-24 months. While in custody the inmates were to be kept under supervision and monthly report was to be submitted in each case .The report was to be attested by a clergy or a teacher. The period of indeterminate sentence prescribed for the first offenders varied from a minimum of one year to a maximum as fixed for particular crime under the state law.

The Indian penal law, however, does not provide for indeterminate sentence for the reason that similar objective is attained by resorting to certain other correctional techniques such as probation, parole and open air camp for prisoners. In fact the system of parole is itself a modified form of indeterminate sentence. Moreover, certain Indian penologists have expressed a view that adoption of the system of indeterminate sentence would extent the scope of discretion for the magistracy which might be detrimental to the interest of criminal justice. But it must be stated that this apprehension is rather misleading because the judges in India have accepted sentencing as a part of their solemn duty towards law and discharge their obligation in a realistic manner so as to attain the objective of social defense.

CRITICS

Despite the merits of the system, indeterminate sentence has been criticized on many counts. The main objections to this system are as follows:

The first and the most potential objections raised against this system is the uncertainty about the exactness of the sentence which in itself is a severe punishment from the psychological stand point. Most persons would definitely prefer a longer but a definite term of sentence rather than a shorter but uncertain period of anxiety and agony. Moreover prisoners with indeterminate sentence always suffer from a feeling of injustice about their sentence in absence of any specified pre-determined definite rules. During the term of their sentence, however short it may be, they remain completely in dark about the exact time of their release.

Secondly, mistaken judgment of the prison board about fitness of a particular offender for release is likely to result into his stay in the prison institution for a longer period than that actually necessary in this case.

Thirdly, in absence of any satisfactory method to gauge with accuracy the offender’s fitness for release, it might happen that a prisoner is released prematurely or conversely, he might be detained for a unduly longer period.

Fourthly, since the release under indeterminate sentence generally depends on the reports of the prison warden the prisoners who antagonize the wardens are likely to be held in prison for a longer time due to adverse reports against them. Conversely those who flatter the wardens manipulate an early release through favorable reports.

Fifthly, indeterminate sentence produces sycophancy among the prisoners thus making them to work for securing early release rather than to reform themselves sincerely for a normal life.

Last but not the least, the prisoner undergoing a determinate sentence knows it for certain that after he completes the term of his sentence he has a right to claim release legitimately. The satisfaction of having completed the full term of sentence assures him that his guilt has been washed off and he no longer remains a guilty person. The element of self satisfaction is totally missing in case of indeterminate sentence

By

Roshni Manuel

Mailto- manuel.roshni@gmail.com

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Whether Crime Prevention Should Be A Priority In The Criminal Justice System

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Whether Crime Prevention Should Be A Priority In The Criminal Justice System

Introduction

The criminal justice system is evolving with time. Gone are the days when it simply focused on long prison sentences as the only way to deal with crime. Public opinion is changing and so should the criminal justice system. There is more emphasis on attacking underlying causes and not just surface issues. More and more experts agree that crime prevention is the way to go in this situation. They assert that prison sentences, especially for non-violent offenders, only deal with the problem temporarily. They also believe that crime prevention should be the centrepiece of the criminal justice system. (Pfeiffer, p 55, 2003)

Crime prevention should be the focus of the criminal justice system because it has overwhelming public support

A Research conducted by the Heart Research Associates Inc. on the perception of the public on crime prevention found that majority of the people believed in a more pro-active rather than reactive approach. This research was conducted in the year 2002. But ten years ago, when the public was asked about what they thought about crime prevention, 42% said the criminal justice system should focus on punitive action while 48% supported crime prevention. These statistics have changed drastically with time. In 2002, when a similar research was conducted by the same research company, it was found that 65% of the public believe in dealing with root causes while 32% wanted more severe measures to take precedence in the criminal justice system. The survey also indicated the following preferences.

Prevention

39-Yes

37-No

Punishment

21-Yes

20-No

Enforcement

18-Yes

19-No

Rehabilitation

17-Yes

17-No

Source; Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc (2002): Changing Public Attitudes toward

the Criminal Justice System; Journal for Open Society Institute

Crime prevention deals with root causes

It should be noted that most of the time, there are cases in which people break the law because they have no where else to turn to. Such people normally come from deteriorating neighbourhoods. They feel that there is not much that can be done about their situation and they opt to choose crime as their only means for survival. Most of these criminals normally have very low educational backgrounds. Consequently, their options in the formal employment sector are quite limited. They need to earn a source of livelihood and still have to meet their daily needs. However, the public only offers them temporary jobs that do not pay as much. Some individuals may feel the need to deal with this lack of necessities through crime. Overly, the underlying problem is education, if the government was to invest in education of such criminals then there would be no need to commit crimes and all the other issues will fall into place. (Maguire, p 207-265, 2000)

Most criminals commit their crimes because their neighbourhoods make it easy for them to do so. In most Cities, there are certain localities that have been ignored by the governing authorities of the day to such an extent that their buildings and other infrastructural facilities are simply deplorable. It is therefore easier for criminals to break into such systems and take what they would want without to much struggle. If some investments had been made into those neighbourhoods, then there would be better facilities and better security for its residents thus discouraging crime.

Certain criminals do not have a sense of moral values. Their environment has served a fertile ground for moral deterioration. They see no benefit in caring about what other people around them may feel as a result of their actions. Consequently, most of these criminals end up committing their crimes because they do not know what is expected from them form society. Crime prevention as a strategy for crime prevention could deal with this by targeting youth offenders. Most of them could be placed in community prevention centres where they could go taught a number of societal norms. (Kenney, p23, 1998)

Many of the neighbourhoods that some of these youth come from are usually associated wit low levels of family support. Some offenders may be tempted to commit crimes because they feel that they have nothing to loose. They do not feel loved and cared for and consequently have low self esteem. According to them, crime is a way of letting out some of their pent up anger and frustrations. It should be possible to prevent crimes of this nature if youth were targeted. The reason why it is useful to target the youth is because they are not yet that far gone; they are still at a point when they can be moulded and transformed. At their age, they have not hardened already. Such youth can be taught fundamental truths in and their psychological problems can be addressed adequately in community centres.

Since the issue of employment contributes to many criminal cases, crime prevention strategies can deal with that issue and eliminate the need to commit crimes due to that reason. This can be achieved through the process of instilling potential offenders with job skills. Consequently, such people will have no need to result to crime as a means of earning a living since they have other alternatives available

Failure in past approaches

Crime prevention should take precedence within the criminal justice system because the punitive approach has failed. Most psychologists argue that when criminals are simply arrested and taken into prisons for a certain period of time, they may not feel the need to reform. They actually claim that this serves to reinforce certain criminal activities. This is because they get to interact with fellow criminal and even learn more tricks to the trade and by the time they leave their prison cells, they are worse of than when they came in. What this means is that the criminal justice system is just going around in circles; criminals commit crimes, stay in prison, then go back to where they started from. When criminals go back to their neighbourhood, the very reason why they committed their crimes in the first place still exists. They will still be faced with family problems, lack of employment and other social evils. These circumstances will propel them into crime and they will end up going back to prison. This is the reason why drug related cases still continue. Psychologists believe that criminals perform criminal behaviour because of these social pressures and they need to be addressed if the criminal justice system hopes to be effective in the future. The ultimate solution would therefore be crime prevention. (Austin, p 34, 2001)

Crime prevention would be quite favourable in drug related cases instead of punitive actions. For example, those caught should be placed in mandatory drug treatment centres. They could also be subjected to community service instead of locking them up in prison cells. There was some sort of disparity in the way the criminal justice system has been handling perpetrators. A person who has committed a burglary and another who has been caught using drugs are given more or less the same treatment through prison sentencing. This is not a fair or effective way of going about the crime problem.

It should also be noted that there may be certain individuals who lack the ability to move on with their lives because the way the criminal justice system has been in the past is that it condemns and segregates offenders. For expel, when one has been convicted to serve a prison term and they complete their term, they not allowed to drive a car even if they have a driving licence. Besides this, they are not allowed to own houses or get certain jobs. What this does is that it frustrates them the more. Such individuals have no room to have fresh start because most of them lack public goodwill. What this does is that it encourages them to continue with a life of crime because they feel that society is already biased towards them. One can therefore conclude that the criminal justice system has not been very effective in the process of dealing with future crime incidences. Crime prevention is the only alternative to this endless cycle of crime. (Oxford Handbook of Criminology, p13, 2003)

Nipping crime at the bud

Many experts have argued that crime prevention will be more successful since most hard core criminals started out as youthful vandals who were shown the right direction. Some people have argued that the countries that have implemented crime prevention strategies have been very effective in crime stoppage. A case in point is the battle against alcohol and drug abuse in Sweden. The campaign was started by psychologist and criminologist Nils Bejerot. He believed that the drug control system used in Sweden before his reforms was quite inadequate. He asserted that if the new carriers of the drug taking habit were dealt with before hand, then there would be chances of preventing them from becoming ambassadors for the drug taking problem. He conducted an experiment in the year 1965 at Stockholm.

This psychiatrist suggested that those who had been caught by police using small amounts of drugs should be placed in treatment program that is mandatory in nature. This would go along way in ensuring that all the future cases of drug dealing were taken care of. In line with the program, local authorities should conduct follow ups to ensure that those particular candidates stay committed to the prevention program. This has gone along way in eliminating drug abuse cases in Sweden. Statistics testify to the effectiveness of this strategy. In Sweden only one in 1,400 may be imprisoned for possession of illegal drugs. This is such an achievement given the fcat that other countries like the United States arrest about one in very 136 people or the possession of illegal drugs. It was also found that due to crime prevention in Sweden, there are much fewer chances of getting students with drugs in comparison to the seventies. Statistics have also shown that in Sweden there are less chances of drug abuse in the entire continent of Europe. This also applies to cases of drug abuse recently and five years ago. Their crime prevention strategy has received more enforcement from the criminal justice system over the past years ago and this corresponds to less cases. Sweden does not apply its drug policy to new offenders only, it also has a follow up program for convicted offenders.

Accidents that occur due to alcohol abuse or drunk driving are quite common in countries that have not implemented certain crime prevention strategies. Local authorities should go out of their way to ensure that crimes resulting from alcohol intake are eliminated. This can be achieved by introduction of breath-testers. Drivers who exceed allowable limits should be prevented from driving by placing them into rehabilitation centres. Such a proactive approach will ensure that there will be limited cases in the future. (Cox & Wade, p 105, 1998)

Gang violence can also be prevented through the use of the overall community. The police can work hand in hand with local residents to monitor the activities of these gangs and these collaborative efforts will help police during the prevention of such kinds of offences.

There should be more emphasis on the youth in order to ensure that future crimes are not committed. Crime prevention efforts need to be directed to the youth because they account for about twenty percent of all the cases reported to the police. It was also found that those who happened to be caught once were less likely to get caught again. However, there are cases of persistent offenders that would be arrested more than once. A research conducted among these repeat offenders found that there were certain characteristics common to most of these offenders. They are as follows;

aggressiveness and anger
impulsiveness
alcohol and drug abuse
anti-social peer pressure
no vocational skills
lack of parental supervision(Sherman, p 54, 1997)

The research also identified the fact that these behavioural traits could be prevented by a strategy called early intervention. Most of these youth had potential o become worse but with the right approach more could be done to ensure that this did not continue again. Crime prevention among the youth can be made in such a way that there are coordinated efforts towards dealing with youth offenders. First of all, there can be creation of bodies to coordinate work done towards these efforts. On top of this, there should be greater involvement of other stakeholders. The police should cooperate with the departments of children and youth affairs.

Early intervention needs to be conducted in cases where families seem particularly vulnerable to future crimes. Such families are normally characterised by the traits that were listed above. These are efforts that can be conducted by the policing unit in conjunction with other local authorities. However, there may be instances when some youth are at higher risks than others. Those at higher risks need to be placed under closer and more severe programs.

Prevention of crime needs to be done through the involvement of families too. In case youth offenders have been caught, their family members need to be consulted on what they feel could be the best methods to use when tackling their child. This can be achieved through the conduction of conferences that involve law enforcement officers, social workers and the parents. This will help in unveiling some of the underlying problems and will also help in the customisation of solutions to suite specific cases. (Sherman, p 54, 1997)

Conclusion

Crime prevention should take the greatest precedence in the criminal justice system because it has overwhelming public support. A survey asking people what the law enforcement authorities need to prioritise indicated that there was a need to place more emphasis on crime prevention rather than other strategies. The second reason why crime prevention should take up priority in the criminal justice system is the fact that most crimes are committed as a result of certain social problems. Crime prevention identifies those problems and deals with them thereby eliminating future cases of crime. It should also be noted that past systems have not been effective in the criminal justice system. They have only enforced criminal behaviour; crime prevention is a better approach because it tackles the problem from the inside out. Lastly, countries that have prioritised crime prevention have shown statistically, that this is an effective method; their crime rates have reduced. With all this backing, crime prevention should be made top priority.

References

Austin, J. (2001): Sentencing Guidelines: A State Perspective; Ph.D., Executive Vice-President, journal for the National Council on Crime & Delinquency, Vol. 3, No. 8, p 34

Cox, S. & Wade, J. (1998): The Criminal Justice Network: An Introduction; New York: McGraw-Hill, p 105

Kenney, D. (1998): Crime in the Schools: A Problem-Solving Approach. Police Executive

Research Forum Journal, Vol. 8, No. 13, pp. 23

Maguire, E. (2000): Have Changes in Policing Reduced Violent Crime? Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000. pp. 207-265

Oxford Handbook of Criminology (2003); Oxford University Press, p 13

Pfeiffer, C. (2003): Trends in Juvenile Violence in European Countries; McMillan Publishers, p. 55

Sherman, L. et al (1997): Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising; Routledge Publishers, p 54

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Terapija A Treatment For Disorders In Musculoskeletal System

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Terapija A Treatment For Disorders In Musculoskeletal System

Terapija is a health care session which involves the implementation of different curative strategies for taking care of different muscular disorders. It consists of the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of the patient who is suffering from any therapeutic disorder. It is helpful in the cure of patients who have any neurological, cardiovascular, muscular or orthopedic illness. It is in fact a great way to treat slight muscular injuries which may occur during any sport activity or accident. The patients who are unable to take work from any of their body parts can get a lot of benefit from the implementation of Terapija. This medical treatment is only taken by the physicians or health care professionals who have acquired a licensed degree for practicing as a physical therapist.

Different types of physical therapies include Orthopedic, Geriatric, Neurological, Cardiovascular and pediatric. Orthopedic terapija is implemented for the treatment of acute sport injuries, joint operations, arthritis and other muscular problems. Different methods are used to treat the orthopedic patients like hot/cold packs, electric shocks, joint movement and muscle strength exercises. Geriatric therapist normally focuses on the problems which are observed with the aging of an adult. It is specially required during the old age. It involves the treatment of the diseases consisting of cancer, balance disorders, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, hip and joint replacement and vice versa. It helps patients in restoration of their movements, pain reduction, joint exercises, fitness improvement and many others.

Neurological terapija aims at curing patients who have neurological disorders like paralysis, poor balance, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, strokes, schizophrenia and many more. Therapists toil to treat these patients through different brain exercises, electric stimulations and so on. Cardiovascular therapists treat the patients who have gone through some pulmonary surgery, heart attacks, heart transplantations and several others. They try to boost the endurance levels of patients with increase in their functional independence. Finally the pediatric therapist is the healthcare professional who specializes in the diagnosis of patients with delay in development skills, neuromuscular problems, spina bifida and so forth.

The duration for the terapija can vary depending upon the severity of illness. It is mutual process which needs the two way cooperation of the patient and the therapist. Setting the rehabilitation goals for achieving desired results is the best method to note the fitness level of patient. If you are in a situation where you feel the need of a physical therapist then you must choose your physician with a lot of care. You must firstly figure out the nature of your problem and then consult the appropriate physician.

Terapija is also very beneficial for the treatment of bol u ledjima. In today’s progressive world, the work of most professionals involves continuous sittings for long hours hence causing lack of usage of joints. IT Professionals being most vulnerable to such conditions often suffer from the pain in back and joints. If you suffering from such an issue then a physical therapist can help you out in retaining you energy and strength by the use of some simple muscular exercises.

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Juvenile Court System

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Juvenile Court System

The Houses of Refuge were the first institutions that dealt with juveniles in terms of transforming them and putting them back on the right path in life. These houses were the prototypes of the modern juvenile courts as we know it today in the United States. 1823 was the year when the idea of creation such a construction appeared, that was when the government considered taking charge in cleaning up the city streets from loitering youth and acquainting them with moral principles of the society. In the mid of 1800’s special reform schools began opening in the Massachusetts area, this in time led to the formation of a new and separate juvenile system in the US that wasn’t known before. These schools not only educated delinquent youth but also set rules for the rest of the society, in case when those rules were not followed it automatically meant that the law was broken. The Crouse case was the formal foundation of the modern juvenile justice system, the government legitimized the notion of the state taking custody over child for the first time. The Juvenile Court Act of 1899 was the first official court of its type in the US that outlined the cases that it could have jurisdiction over and that separated it from the adult courts.

From the very creation of the juvenile courts and the ideal model of it to the present time, society has been dealing with a huge gap between this ideal and the reality. Before the 1960’s there was no legal rights that juveniles had, thus due processes were introduced and system moved away from the idea of child being somebody’s property: either of state or of the parents. After the 1980’s and to the present moment the initial idea of protecting children from bad influences and helping to rehabilitate, shifted to a more dramatic and strict system of identifying measure of harm for the society by a specific crime. The “punitive model” now serves for detection of harm level and accordingly assigning punishment for it. Numerous social factors have results in such changes; massive paranoia of increased number of violent crimes, abuse of drugs by the young, mass formation of the gangs. All of that coupled with the failure to accomplish the purpose of juvenile schools as they were intended to, led to the current punitive system that seeks to punish severely. “Mens rea”- guilty mind is not the prerogative of the adult offenders as was supposed in the early history of the American juvenile system; it became an essential part of today’s juvenile criminals’ portrait.

There are number of theories that support the idea of an individual making a choice to commit a delinquent act. Those theories are: the choice theory, the deterrence theory- supporting classical school of criminology. On the other side there are biological theories that were based on the positive school. Morphological approach, Lombrozo’s atavism theory, Sheldon’s somatotype theory are theories proving the existence of the biological factor in forming of the delinquent individual. They are also influence by the genetic and inherited factors, such as criminals in the family-learning of the young to behave in the same way; delinquent twins are also more likely to both commit a crime than a regular person. Sarnoff Mednick’s studies on the adopted children made clear that the highest percentage of delinquent behavior was observed when both environmental and biological factors were combined. Conclusion could be drawn that none on two separate causes can fully be responsible for the amount of juvenile criminals nowadays.

Apart from the theories described above, there are numerous theories that study criminal behavior and origins from the point of societal position and economic condition of the individual. Famous Chicago project by McKay and Shaw proved that depending on what part of the city and neighborhood one grew up, a person was influenced accordingly. Thus children from the interstitial zone with cultural heterogeneity and high mobility and poverty were the ones under particularly bad influence that could result in future crimes. Strain theory is another support of the fact that people with unequal opportunities to achieve success in society would most likely commit crime while adopting their lives to the rest of the society. Cloward and Ohlin on the other side argued that juveniles do not just commit crimes if they cannot reach the middle class status by regular means, they claim that illegitimate opportunity structure in certain neighborhoods works as a unique society on its own. It gives opportunity of growth and learning as in educational institution with similar rewards, although on illegal terms.

The study of delinquencies and social impact led researches to the realization the social processes are of the great importance when studying the nature of the crimes. Social process theories, learning and social control theories, are dealing with the connection between socialization and delinquencies. Learning theory explains how and why juvenile commit crimes in terms of school and learning. In the process of learning, they get to see and know what it is and how crimes are performed and because of other multiple facts they choose to do it. In contrast, the social control theory states that some people choose a wrong path because they are not tied to any important part of their life such as family, friends, or job. Clearly they have not much to lose and having no bonds with society, they are most likely to commit a crime.

With the emergence of innovative technology and social classes inequality people were faced with numerous choices of behavior. Behavior of an individual is formed by multiple factors, outer and inner ones that are very hard to track and can never be studied and evaluated precisely. Therefore the driving forces of the crime are yet not studied well enough and the punishment measures cannot help prevent from future crimes. The gap between the two is ever-growing nowadays.

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