Assignment : Improving Corrections Facilities

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Go to the Department of Corrections’ website for your state, and research two of your state’s correctional facilities. Next, use the Internet and Strayer University Online Library (https://research.strayer.edu) to research the budgetary constraints that correctional officials must adhere to in order to operate correctional facilities.

Write a 4-5 page paper in which you:

  • Identify and discuss at least two diversion programs and determine whether the diversion programs are only beneficial to offenders charged with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies or whether they are also beneficial to offenders charged with felonies and violent crimes. Discuss whether or not the two correctional facilities that you researched would benefit from diversion programs. Provide a rationale for your response.
  • Discuss the pros and cons of privatized correctional facilities and discuss whether or not privatized correctional facilities are better alternatives for reaching the goal of preparing inmates for reentry into society. Support your position with one example from within the last three years to support your position of the better correctional facility alternative.
  • Correctional officials are tasked with maintaining public safety with reduced resources while maintaining effective operations. The targets of cost reductions typically include the following:  staffing, inmate medical and mental health services, and inmate/offender supervision. With this in mind, recommend a cost reduction strategy to reduce cost while maintaining public safety and effective operations (i.e. targeted reductions, business practice changes, the use of new technology, reduction in inmate population, or community supervision). Provide a rationale for your response.
  • Use at least four peer-reviewed sources. Note: Wikipedia and similar websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

  • Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
  • This course requires that citations and references follow the Strayer Writing Standards (SWS). The format is different than others Strayer University courses. Please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details.
  • Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The Legislature And Crime Control Policy

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Crime control policy goes back to the founding principles laid out in the Constitution and the debate over federal versus state rights. In preparation for this discussion, review the crime control policies and initiatives that your congressman, congresswoman, or senator supports. Visit the congressional websites of the United States Senate (Links to an external site.) and the United States House of Representatives (Links to an external site.) for a wealth of information. There are a wide range of opinions on several crime control issues stemming from terrorism attacks (e.g., personal freedoms, surveillance, militarizing the police, etc.), response to school shootings (e.g., gun control, etc.), and gang and drug trafficking (e.g., Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, etc.).

Initial Post: Explain the key elements of your representative’s crime control policy. As you examine the Congressional policy process, how effective is your Senator or Representative’s policy on the overall state criminal justice system or one of the components? Are the state policies in alignment with the national policy? Support your claims with examples from the required materials and/or other scholarly sources, and properly cite your references with both in-text and APA citation at the end of your post. Your initial post is due by Day 3 (Thursday) and should be at least 400 words in length.

Guided Response: Review your peers’ posts, and compare and contrast the crime control initiatives of your representative substantively to at least two of your peers. Respond to at least one Instructor Response. How do the initiatives of your representatives align with your classmate’s representative and your understanding of the crime problem? Are the initiatives symbolic or substantive in nature? Will the initiatives serve the intended purpose? What will be the long term impact of these initiatives? Continue to monitor the discussion forum u

Discuss how it meets the requirements of a moral panic.

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CJ 240 Deviance and Social Control

Moral Panics Mary deYoung

 

What is a moral panic?

Term “moral panic” – coined by Stanley Cohen (1972)

Collective response,

generated by unsettling social strain

and incited and spread by interest groups,

towards ppl who are actively transformed into folk devils

and then treated as threats to dominant social interests and values

 

Features of a Moral Panic

use highly emotive claims and fear based appeals

Orchestrates cultural consent

“something must be done quickly”

This results in a call for increased social control

preserves and reasserts the values and interests that are being undermined by the folk devils

Moral panic – serves a distinct stabilizing function at a time of unsettling social strain

 

Deviancy Amplification Spiral

increasing cycle of media reporting on a category of antisocial behavior or other undesirable events

Deviance Amplification Spiral

Begins with deviant act

Mass media reports on this newsworthy act

New focus on the issue uncovers borderline instances that would not be newsworthy EXCEPT that they “prove” the pattern

Info (like stats) that would show the general public that the issue is less common or harmful tends to be ignored

Minor problems begin to look serious and rare events appear common

Public concern about the crime forces LE and CJS to devote more resources (than warranted) to the act

Judges and lawmakers pass stiffer sentences in response to public pressure

All of this tends to convince the public that any fear was justified

Media continue to profit by reporting on police and LE activity

 

Examples of Moral Panics

Backmasking

Dungeons and Dragons

Myspace and predators

Jelly Bracelets

McCarthyism

Rainbow parties

Witch-hunt

 

 

 

 

SRA

80s – day care providers charged with satanic ritual abuse (SRA)

Abusing their young charges in satanic rituals

Blood drinking, cannibalism, human sacrifices

All the characteristics of a moral panic –

Widespread, reactive, hostile and largely irrational

The Satanic Day Care Moral Panic

 

Timing of the Moral Panic

80s – growing cultural anxiety about satanic menaces to children

Concerns about demonic influences in:

Heavy metal music

Fantasy role play games

Tarot cards and Ouija boards

Urban legends about mysterious Satanists abducting fair haired, blue eyed children from malls

Rumors of covert satanic cults filming child porn

Tales of child sex rings

Target and Triggers of the Moral Panic

Economic strains make participation in work forces necessary

Puts more women with children into the work force

1980 – record 45% of women with kids working outside the home

Many parents considered day care a worse alternative to the stay at home child care of their parents generation

Deep cuts in federal funding had closed many centers

Left remaining centers with high fees, too many kids and due to low wages – few providers and high turn over

Still a spark was needed to ignite the panic

1983 McMartin Preschool – 2 ½ yo made statements vaguely suggestive of sexual abuse

Eventually worked into an allegation of SRA by social workers who already had some experience as claims makers

Spread of the Moral Panic

News media emerged as a major interest group

Case was complex enough to warrant daily coverage

Intolerable horrors to evoke and sustain intense emotional responses

Enough familiarity in terms of location, key claims makers and even prime suspects to spark interest

Enough real folk devils in role of day care providers to demonize

Sufficient exigency to elicits feelings that “something must be done”

In national news – tempered considerably and quelled completely in a few investigative reports

Social workers, mental health professionals, attorneys, LEOs are chief moral entrepreneurs (eventually become a target themselves)

Burgeoning sexual abuse industry

Lecture circuit, addressed child protection conferences, conduct workshops, consulted professionals involved in other cases and testified as expert witnesses

SW who interviewed most of the kids testified before Congress of an organized operation of child predators using day care centers as a ruse for a large unthinkable network of crimes against children

Rhetoric like that may be enough to ignite a moral panic

Backed up with facts is more combustible

Professionals developed and disseminated a synthetic diabolism out of materials haphazardly borrowed from eclectic sources on Satanism, occult, mysticism, paganism and witchcraft

Indicator lists/ symptom lists

Little was the result of well designed and controlled studies

Parents of the allegedly abused victims were unabashed believers

CLOUT – legislative group – Child friendly testifying procedures:

Shield witnesses by allowing to testify on video, CCTV, behind screens or with their backs to the defendants

Denouement of the Moral Panic

Moral panic effectively ended in 1991

Several factors contributed to its demise:

Cultural anxiety had been largely debunked

Most vocal claims makers had retreated into silence

More women in work force – more use of day care – more mainstream

Tightened day care regulations

More teeth to enforce them

Significant day care reforms on state level

Day care providers took steps to protect themselves from allegations

Video cameras, opened up private spaces, kept PC to a minimum, open door policies, parents drop in

Schism within the claims making professional groups that widened over the years of the moral panics

Criminal Justice Ethics – Assignment Official Misconduct

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Prologue:

Today at noon, an undercover, Federal Agent, Hans Cuff arranged a briefing at the sheriff’s department.  All the ATF agents, Grantham County Deputies, and University City Officers involved in the drug investigation regarding the large shipment of meth were present for this meeting.

Cuff informed the officers that the confidential informant, Mookie, called him this morning to fill him in on the details of the shipment of meth.  Mookie told Cuff to be at 123 Elm Street, University City, at 3:00 p.m.; this is when and where the delivery of meth will take place. After the briefing, Cuff was fitted with a wire so the other officers could hear what was transpiring in the house. All the officers received their instructions on where to post around the house and down the street so as not to draw attention to themselves.  At 2:45 p.m., Agent Cuff arrived at 123 Elm Street and knocked at the door.

Mookie answered the door and told Cuff to come inside; once Cuff stepped into the house, Mookie shut the door behind him.  All of a sudden, Dreadford grabbed Cuff’s right arm and another male who Cuff did not know grabbed his left arm. Mookie put a gun to the back of Cuff’s head and told him to kneel.

 Cuff slowly kneeled to the floor; he said, “The same thing happened to me in Vegas” (This was the safe phrase to alert the other officers that Cuff was in trouble).  In no time at all, several officers kicked in the front and back doors, entered the house, and held all three suspects at gunpoint.  The officers arrested Mookie, Dreadford, and the other male identified as Pedro Ramirez without incident. After reading the suspects Miranda warnings, both Dreadford and Ramirez asked for an attorney, so the officers booked these two into the county jail.

Mookie was the only one who agreed to talk but only if he could get a deal.  Detective Stubblefield said he would speak to the county prosecutor and see what he could do.  However, the deal was dependent on the value of the information.  Mookie told Detective Stubblefield that the dispatcher dating Dreadford is the one who gave them all the confidential information on the city and county’s drug investigations.  Mookie asked Detective Stubblefield if the information was good enough to get a deal.

 Detective Stubblefield said, “I believe it is.”  Detective Stubblefield put Mookie into protective custody and booked him in the county jail where the correctional officers will make sure to segregate Mookie from other inmates.

Based on the information Mookie provided, Stubblefield received a warrant to search Badpenny’s house.  When the officers served the warrant, and arrested and charged Imogene Badpenny with possession of methamphetamines (felony), possession of drug paraphernalia (misdemeanor), and official misconduct (misdemeanor) (using her position at the sheriff’s office to access confidential information for personal gain).  While at Badpenny’s house, the officers’ uncovered evidence to collaborate Mookie’s story about the documents Badpenny obtained for Dreadford regarding the drug investigations.

After Badpenny’s arrest, the sheriff fired her, and with the loss of her job, Badpenny did not have enough money to hire an attorney.  During Badpenny’s arraignment, Judge Noble Hands had Badpenny fill out indigent paperwork to request a public defender and set her bond at $50,000.  Badpenny was not able to post bond given her financial situation, so she returned to the jail where Badpenny will stay until her next court appearance.

Assignment:

This week use the information in chapters 8 and 9 to complete a 2 to 3 – page paper, discussing the ethical system that explains why Badpenny’s gave Dreadford confidential information, and how indigency affects an offender’s ability to receive competent council.  Also, analyze how conflicts of interest may occur with attorneys (both prosecution and defense) along with the judge in the above scenario.

*Hint: remember, Badpenny has worked for the sheriff’s department for years and lives in the community; she probably knows all of the attorneys and judges.

Type all papers in Times New Roman 12pt font – include the header, title page, and reference page; APA formatting is required in this course.  Use at least two scholarly reference sources such as the textbook and scholarly peer-reviewed articles obtained from the Grantham Library. Additional references may be procured from the Internet. Citing your references by using parenthetical citations (in-text citations) is a skill that each student must demonstrate in this course.