Public Opinion Of The Criminal Justice System

Andrew Astudillo

CRIM:1447:0A01

18 October 2017

Homework Assignment #2

Part 1. Public opinion of Law Enforcement This article brought notice to the various public views on the current stance of the criminal justice system. It surveys various opinions of American citizens, categorizing individuals as African America, women, or white also taking into account education and salary level. The public believes that crime has increased and is caused out of a necessity; this is referred to as the rational actor model. The public believes that individuals who commit crimes often act due to a lack of education and career opportunities, which are offered in their communities. The public has significantly decided that crime is not a major priority,

Local and national media increasingly cover crime as if it is majority being committed by minority male figures. This blatant way of stereotyping shifts the public opinion to view minorities as “dangerous”. The public recognizes that preventative programs such as youth programs and counseling services should be offered in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods as a way to combat crime at its root. The public acknowledges that the current prison population is high, and is due to the “lack of accountability” for our current systems failures. Instead of developing effective social programs that offer education and employment we allow rational actors to commit crimes and serve prison sentences. This publication allows legal actors, such as police, to focus their attention on community needs. If the public discredits racial profiling, than the police will alter the ways in which they pursue criminal activity. Such publications are a

It allows police officers to deem necessary actions towards offenders of the law. This varies from the ability to arrest someone for a major crime, to issuing a ticket or warning for minor offenses. There are multiple factors that play into discretion, which may contribute to a specific action by an officer. The first is “personal disposition styles”, meaning the ability for an officer to discipline an offender based on whether the interaction was respectful or not. The second is “situation”; depending on the time and place of the interaction the police officer has the ability to decide whether the particular offense was harming the public. The last is “department rules”, which entails the rules, written and unwritten, that the particular department prides itself on. There are many cases in which discretion has been regulated to its present form today, the first being the Supreme Court case of Tennessee vs. Garner. This case decided that it is unconstitutional for a law enforcement officer to use deadly force against a fleeing suspect unless the officer determines there is probable cause that the suspect will cause harm to others while fleeing. This affects law enforcement activities because it controls their actions by prohibiting lethal force as a split second option. Officers will avoid negative sanctions, and will have to pursue the individual in a