* * * I feel that it would be impossible to ensure that there were the safeguards in place to protect society from your possible actions.” (victim parent, 2002). As empathetic starts, citizens will side with the victims of the defendant’s crimes because they belief the defendant’s crimes were out of evil and cruel torture and deserves all the punishment he can get and not get a break and let back to society where he has the ability to commit potential
For most people, only the person involved in the encounter are labeled as victims. The pain comes in from the view of one who feels the full effects of the ordeal. However, there is more to the scope of victims than the person directly involved in the crime. Debra narrates how much her family participates in events following up her kidnap and her husband’s murder. Family members would like to see the perpetrator get the death penalty.
At the local level, many ways that advocates are determined is based on the jurisdiction because it is common that at the local level that advocacy programs go through the court system. In South Carolina, the Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Office runs a program for Charleston and Berkley County. This program aims to aid in handling victims and the crimes they have gone through ("Victim & witness programs: Ninth judicial circuit office of the solicitor," n.d.). Whereas the Army dealt with a softer approach in aiding victims, this program’s main objective is to help the victim while going through the criminal justice system in courts. They aim to educate them in the process of court and stand by them to make sure they are treated justly with a familiarity and understanding of their rights ("Victim & witness programs: Ninth judicial circuit office of the solicitor," n.d.).
According to The University of Michigan's law education, African Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes due to their race (law.umich.edu). Bryan Stevenson who is a human rights lawyer and author wrote the memoir by the name of Just Mercy. This piece focuses on the idea that the criminal justice system is discriminatory. In this memoir, he defends and fights for citizens to protect their rights as a person. Bryan Stevenson beautifully utilizes strong word choice, repetition, and emotional appeal to emphasize and persuade the readers that the efforts to fight institutional cruelty and raise the most vulnerable to a “higher ground” is what matters most.
The Felony Murder Rule Haley Roemmich Peru State College The Felony Murder Rule INTRODUCTION The felony murder doctrine is the legal principle which provides that any death that occurs during the commission of a felony or attempted felony can be legally treated as a murder. This doctrine holds true regardless of whether there was intent to kill. The felony murder doctrine represents one the few instances in criminal law where the element of intent is waived (Garoupa & Klick, 2006).
The victim right’s movement of the 1980’s demonstrated a shift in the Judicial and Law Enforcement practices from Rights of the accused to rights of the victim. The fundamental right of the victim was to be represented equitably throughout the criminal justice process. There are four basic rights of the victims that are the right or information and notification, participation, the right to feel and be reasonably protected and
Aboriginal people continue to be victimized and incarcerated at much higher rates than non-Aboriginal people. The overrepresentation of Canadian Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system is a question that has not yet been answered. This research paper will focus on the risk factors experienced by many Aboriginal people, residential school experiences, and institutional racism, and their roles in the overrepresentation of Canadian Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. The Canadian government system has tried to deal with this issue, but looking at the high rates of overrepresentation, there approach has not been successful.
Victim witness programs are used by the government in order to provide support and assistance to those who fall victim to a crime. According to Victim Witness Program, the primary goals of such programs, include but are not limited to, encouraging victims to participate in any parole and supervised release processes of their offender, notify and facilitate victims in participation of any hearing or release dates in regards to their offender, provide options for supportive services, and advocate for crime victims (2015, para.1). The organization under which the victim-witness program is located is under a system, which has many internal constituencies, thus creating competing and conflicting purposes. The goals of the victim-witness program are quite simple and seek out to give the victim the right to be represented during the processing of the offender, however, given the multiple roles the court, for example, must serve, the goals of the victim-witness program can be both complex and conflicting.
Around 2 million Americans are currently residing in the jail system; around 5% of those inmates are believed to be innocent. With an estimate of around 230,000 innocent people currently living within the prison system, little action is taken to right these wrongs and assist them. The wrongfully accused often have little to no resources to aid them and they are stuck in prison for a crime they did not commit. These people face physical and mental abuse in prison alongside disbelief from those around them as they try to convince people of their innocence. Prisoners who are falsely accused faced impacts on both their mental and physical health.
Regardless of personnel’s educational background or prior advocacy experience, the LEV Program highlights the importance of providing regular training to all victim services staff. This practice ensures that all victim services personnel are operating within a uniform framework and providing quality, consistent services across the board. In recognition of the significant amount of time and resources needed to design a training program, the LEV Program has recently released Template Package V: Training. These customizable templates outline core victim services content and provide sample language for developing traini materials.
This examination of the criminal justice system is also done by Sir Keir Starmer as he traces the development of victims’ rights in the last 15 to 20 years and demonstrates the importance of human rights law in shaping that development in his article Human Rights, Victims and the Prosecution of Crime in the 21st Century. The basic thesis of that article is that “victims’ rights present a fundamental challenge to the basic criminal justice model which has been in place in most common law countries for decades if not centuries; that key developments in victims’ rights would not have taken place without the positive approach of human rights law (comparing here to the negative freedoms approach of the common law); and that the readjustment of our criminal justice arrangements to accommodate victims’ rights, whilst well and truly under way, is far from complete” . To help develop this thesis, he examined four aspects of the criminal justice arrangements which are of crucial importance to victims: the criminal law itself; the investigation of individual allegations of crime; the decision of the prosecutor whether or not to bring criminal charges against a suspect; the hearing before the
For the Application of the Criminal Justice System project of the Criminal Justice course, I chose the arrest of John Burke. This case is about the arrest and sentencing of John Burke who had shot and killed Joseph Ronan. Twenty-five year old John Burke agreed to meet with 22 year old Joseph Ronan at Ronans home, in Reading, Massachusetts on Monday, August 15, 2011 around 1pm, with the intent of purchasing Percocet pills. (Boston.com, 2013) However, shortly after entering Ronans home, Burke opened fire (News, 2011), and after shooting Joseph Ronan several times, with the belief that Ronan was involved in a robbery at Burkes apartment in April 2011 (Boston.com, 2013), fled the home.
Victims of rape receive support from several government bodies such as sexual assault referral centres (SARC) and there are also Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs). SARC is an organisation that provides services to the victims of rape or sexual assault regardless of whether the victim reports the offence to the police or not. They are designed to be comfortable and multi-functional, offering private spaces for interviews and examinations, and some may also offer counselling services for the victims. They hire specialist staff that are trained to help victims make informed decisions about what they wish to do next (The Survivors Trust, 2015). SARC is seen as a good organisation as it offers advice and support for both men and women
Victims Before and After Crimes Jenifer R. Roberts Brown Mackie College Victims Before and After Crimes The importance of this paper is to inform people of what the profile of a victim is (Hayes, & Jeffries, 2015. The objectives of the website National Crime Victimization Survey, The Routine Activities Theory, crime victims and some of their characteristic, the victims of different crimes’ characteristics, and statics on the rise and fall of crimes for 2013-2014 (Bureau of Justice, 2014)(Myers, Myers, & Samaha, 2010)(Department of Justice, 2014). There will be a lot of information from journals and the Criminal Justice in the United States book (Myers, Myers, & Samaha, 2010).
Today, as we speak there are still many of these issues that are not rectified. In this interview, I intend to relay the perspective of crime victim rights and its history trough the words of my interviewee. Interviewee Keith O'Rear This is the response from Keith O'Rear on his view point on Crime Victim Rights history and its present state.
