Criminal Procedure: Target of Reform

Flashcards covering vocabulary from the Criminal Procedure: Target of Reform lecture notes.

Criminal Justice System

A collection of public organizations charged with convicting the guilty, protecting the innocent, ensuring fairness, and symbolizing justice in a democratic society.

Secondary Rules

Rules addressed to government officials that regulate how laws should be administered; also known as procedural rules.

Primary Rules

Laws such as the substantive criminal law, prohibiting or requiring certain behavior and addressed to all citizens; also known as rules of recognition.

Weberian Bureaucratic Model

An organizational structure characterized by hierarchy, task specialization, technical competence, record-keeping, income independent of clients, and administration by rules. Courts typically do not follow this model.

Adversarial System

A legal system where different organizational players (prosecutors, judges, police, defenders, probation workers) bring their own perspectives to criminal prosecution.

Ideology (Liberal)

An ideology where human beings are presumed inherently good, government helps those in need, and power (state, corporations, foreign governments) is distrusted as a potential abuser of individual freedoms.

Ideology (Conservative)

An ideology where human beings are presumed inherently bad, but government and powerful institutions (family, church, media) provide social control and educate about moral behavior.

Due Process

The most important value to liberals in the context of criminal procedure, stemming from concerns of justice and liberty.

Crime Control

The most important value to conservatives in the context of criminal procedure, stemming from concerns of order.

Proposition 8

A California ballot initiative in 1982 that constituted a major overhaul of criminal procedure, signaling a turn toward policies more favorable to prosecution.

Rehabilitation

The prevailing orthodoxy of the 1960s that crime was a manifestation of mental imbalance and that criminals could be reformed.

Incapacitation

An approach to punishment focused on the characteristics of the crimes committed and certainty of punishment, rather than rehabilitation.

Determinate Sentencing Law

A sentencing structure designed to assign a definite sentence length, or "base term," for each particular offense conviction.

Victims' Bill of Rights

A phrase that came into popular usage around the time the President's Task Force on Victims of Crime made its report, which included a call for a constitutional amendment for the rights of the victim.

Symbolic Politics

Political campaigns around highly emotional issues designed to arouse voters and then soothe them with new legislation, proving that "something is being done."

Racheting

laws can have significant impact, but the process of change is long term and incremental