Criminal Justice in America (10th Ed) - Chapters 1, 2, 3 Key Terms

Crimes

Actions that violate laws defining which socially harmful behaviors will be subject to the government’s power to impose punishments.

Mala In Se

Offenses that are wrong by their very nature.

Mala Prohibita

Offenses prohibited by law but not necessarily wrong in themselves.

Evidence-Based Practices

Policies developed through guidance from research studies that demonstrate which approaches are most useful and cost-effective for advancing desired goals.

Federalism

A system of government in which power is divided between a central (national) government and regional (state) governments.

System

A complex whole consisting of interdependent parts whose actions are directed toward goals and are influenced by the environment in which they function.

Exchange

A mutual transfer of resources; a balance of benefits and deficits that flow from behavior based on decisions about the values and costs of alternative courses of action.

Plea Bargain

A defendant’s plea of guilty to a criminal charge with the reasonable expectation of receiving some consideration from the state for doing so, usually a reduction of the charge. The defendant’s ultimate goal is a penalty lighter than the one formally warranted by the charged offense.

Discretion

The authority to make decisions without reference to specific rules or facts, using instead one’s own judgment; allows for individualization and informality in the administration of justice.

Filtering Process

A screening operation; a process by which criminal justice officials screen out some cases while advancing others to the next level of decision making.

Dual Court System

A system consisting of a separate judicial system for each state in addition to a national system. Each case is tried in a court of the same jurisdiction as that of the law or laws broken.

Adjudication

The process of determining whether the defendant is guilty.

Arrest

The physical taking of a person into custody on the grounds that there is reason to believe that the individual has committed a criminal offense. Police are limited to using only reasonable physical force in making an arrest. The purpose of the arrest is to hold the accused for a court proceeding.

Warrant

A court order authorizing police officers to take certain actions—for example, to arrest suspects or to search premises.

Information

A document charging an individual with a specific crime. It is prepared by a prosecuting attorney and presented to a court at a preliminary hearing.

Indictment

A document returned by a grand jury as a “true bill” charging an individual with a specific crime on the basis of a determination of probable cause as presented by a prosecuting attorney.

Felonies

Serious crimes carrying a penalty of death or of incarceration for more than one year.

Misdemeanors

Offenses less serious than felonies and usually punishable by incarceration of no more than one year in jail, or by probation or intermediate sanctions.

Crime Control Model

A model of the criminal justice system that assumes freedom for the public to live without fear is so important that every effort must be made to repress crime; it emphasizes efficiency, speed, finality, and the capacity to apprehend, try, convict, and dispose of a high proportion of people facing criminal charges.

Due Process Model

A model of the criminal justice system that assumes freedom for individuals who are wrongly accused and risk unjust punishment is so important that every effort must be made to ensure that criminal justice decisions are based on reliable information; it emphasizes the adversarial process, the rights of defendants, and formal decision-making procedures.

Disparity

A difference between groups that may be explained either by legitimate factors or by discrimination.

Discrimination

Differential treatment of individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or economic status, instead of on their behavior or qualifications.

Implicit Bias

Unknowingly associating individuals with stereotyped characteristics of a demographic group and potentially using these stereotyped assumptions in reacting to these people.

Visible Crime

An offense against persons or property. Often referred to as “street

crime” or “ordinary crime,” this type of offense is especially feared by the public.

Occupational Crimes

Criminal offenses committed through opportunities created in a legal business or occupation.

Organized Crime

A framework for the perpetration of criminal acts—usually in fields such as gambling, drugs, and prostitution—providing illegal services that are in great demand.

Money Laundering

Moving the proceeds of criminal activities through a maze of businesses, banks, and brokerage accounts so as to disguise their origin.

Transactional Crime

Profit-seeking criminal activities that involve planning or execution across national borders.

Victimless Crimes

Offenses involving a willing and private exchange of illegal goods or services that are in strong demand. Participants do not feel they are being harmed, but these crimes are prosecuted on the grounds that society as a whole is being injured.

Political Crime

An act, usually done for ideological purposes, that constitutes a threat against the state (such as treason, sedition, or espionage); or a criminal act by the state.

Cybercrimes

Offenses that involve the use of one or more computers.

Dark Figure of Crime

A metaphor that emphasizes the dangerous dimension of crimes that are never reported to the police.

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

An annually published statistical summary of crimes reported to the police, based on voluntary reports to the FBI by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

A reporting system in which the police describe each offense in a crime incident, together with data describing the offender, victim, and property.

National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS)

Interviews of samples of the U.S. population conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to determine the number and types of criminal victimizations and thus the extent of unreported as well as reported crime.

Victimology

A field of criminology that examines the role the victim plays in precipitating a criminal incident and also examines the impact of crimes on victims.

Lifestyle-Exposure Theory

Approach to understanding the unequal distribution of crime and victimization that examines the differential exposure to crime of demographic groups, such as the young or the poor, based on where they live, work, and engage in leisure activities.

Routine Activities Theory

A variation of the lifestyle approach that sees crime arise in times and places where there is a convergence of specific elements: motivated offenders, suitable victims, and a lack of capable guardians to prevent or deter criminal acts.

Classical Criminology

A school of criminology that views behavior as stemming from free will, demands responsibility and accountability of all perpetrators, and stresses the need for punishments severe enough to deter others.

Positivist Criminology

A school of criminology that views behavior as stemming from social, biological, and psychological factors. It argues that punishment should be tailored to the individual needs of the lawbreaker.

Criminogenic

Having factors thought to bring about criminal behavior in an individual.

Biological Explanations

Explanations of crime that emphasize physiological and neurological factors that may predispose a person to commit crimes.

Psychological Explanations

Explanations of crime that emphasize mental processes and behavior.

Sociological Explanations

Explanations of crime that emphasize as causes of criminal behavior the social conditions that bear on the individual.

Social Structure Theories

Theories that blame crime on the existence of a powerless lower class that lives with poverty and deprivation and often turns to crime in response.

Anomie

A breakdown or disappearance of the rules of social behavior.

Social Process Theories

Theories that see criminality as normal behavior. Everyone has the potential to become a criminal, depending on (1) the influences that impel one toward or away from crime and (2) how one is regarded by others.

Learning Theories

Theories that see criminal behavior as learned, just as legal behavior is learned.

Theory of Differential Association

The theory that people become lawbreakers because they encounter more influences that view criminal behavior as normal and acceptable than they do influences that are hostile to criminal behavior.

Control Theories

Theories holding that criminal behavior occurs when the bonds that tie an individual to society are broken or weakened.

Labeling Theories

Theories emphasizing that the causes of criminal behavior are found not in the individual but in the social process that labels certain acts as deviant or criminal.

Critical Criminology

Theories that assume criminal law and the criminal justice system are primarily a means of controlling the lower classes, women, and minorities.

Social Conflict Theories

Theories that view crime as the result of conflict in society, such as conflict between economic classes caused by elites using law as a means to maintain power.

Feminist Theories

Theories that criticize existing theories for ignoring or undervaluing women’s experiences as lawbreakers, victims, and people subjected to decision making by criminal justice officials. These theories seek to incorporate an understanding of differences between the experiences and treatment of men and women while also integrating consideration of other factors, such as race and social class.

Life Course Theories

Theories that identify factors affecting the start, duration, nature, and end of criminal behavior over the life of a person who has committed crimes.

Integrated Theories

Theories that combine differing theoretical perspectives into a larger model.

Legal Responsibility

The accountability of an individual for a crime because of the perpetrator’s actions and the circumstances of the illegal act.

Civil Law

Law regulating the relationships between or among individuals, usually involving property, contracts, or business disputes.

Substantive Criminal Law

Law that defines acts that are subject to punishment and specifies the punishments for such offenses.

Procedural Criminal Law

Law defining the procedures that criminal justice officials must follow in enforcement, adjudication, and corrections.

Felonies

Serious crimes usually carrying a penalty of death or of incarceration for more than one year in prison.

Misdemeanors

Offenses less serious than felonies and usually punishable by incarceration of no more than one year in jail, or by probation or intermediate sanctions.

Civil Infractions

Minor offenses that are typically punishable by small fines and produce no criminal record for the offender.

Inchoate or Incomplete Offenses

Conduct that is criminal even though the harm that the law seeks to prevent has not been done, but merely planned or attempted.

Men’s Rea

“Guilty mind,” or blameworthy state of mind, necessary for legal responsibility for a criminal offense; criminal intent, as distinguished from innocent intent.

Entrapment

The defense that the individual was induced by the police to commit the criminal act.

Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments added to the U.S. Constitution to provide specific rights for individuals, including criminal justice rights concerning searches, trials, and punishments.

Self-Incrimination

The act of exposing oneself to prosecution by being pressured to respond to questions when the answers may reveal that one has committed a crime. The Fifth Amendment protects defendants against compelled self-incrimination.

Double Jeopardy

The subjecting of a person to prosecution more than once in the same jurisdiction for the same criminal act; prohibited by the Fifth Amendment.

Barron v. Baltimore (1833)

Case deciding that the protections of the Bill of Rights apply only to actions of the federal government.

Powell v. Alabama (1932)

Case deciding that an attorney must be provided to a poor defendant facing the death penalty.

Fundamental Fairness

A legal doctrine supporting the idea that so long as a state’s conduct maintains basic standards of fairness, the Constitution has not been violated.

Incorporation

The extension of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to make binding on state governments many of the rights guaranteed in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution (the Bill of Rights).

Grand Jury

Body of citizens drawn from the community to hear evidence presented by the prosecutor in order to decide whether enough evidence exists to file charges against a defendant.

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

Case deciding that indigent defendants have a right to counsel when charged with serious crimes for which they could face six or more months of incarceration.