CCJS quiz 1

4 Primary Goals of Punishment

Deterrence (preventing future crime)

Retribution (payback/revenge)

Incapacitation (physically removing ability to commit crime)

Rehabilitation (addressing underlying causes)

Deterrence

preventing future crime

Retribution

payback/revenge

Incapacitation

physically removing ability to commit crime

Rehabilitation

addressing underlying causes

Deterrence Theory (Beccaria, 1764)

Philosophy that people are rational and hedonistic (pain vs. pleasure). Punishment must be swift, certain, and proportional to outweigh the pleasure of committing crime.

Émile Durkheim’s view on crime & punishment

Functionalism: Crime violates the "collective conscience." Punishment satisfies society's emotional need for retribution, reinforcing shared values and maintaining social solidarity.

Collective Conscience (Durkheim)

The totality of shared beliefs, morals, and sentiments common to average citizens in a society. Laws directly reflect this.

Wayward Puritans (Erikson, 1966)

Case study showing that when a community's social solidarity is threatened, it draws moral boundaries more rigidly and enforces them more harshly (e.g., Puritan response to Quakers in 1656).

Colonial America Punishment Methods

Focused on public shaming, repentance, and corporal punishment (whipping, pillory, stocks, branding) to enforce moral order in small communities.

The Great Law (William Penn, 1682)

Shifted Pennsylvania’s system away from corporal punishment toward fines and jail time with hard labor; limited the death penalty strictly to murder.

3 Historical Shifts in Incarceration (Late 1700s+)

1. Pain → Loss of liberty

2. Public punishment → Private confinement

3. Body → Soul (reforming mind/morals instead of physical torture)

Pennsylvania System (Eastern State Penitentiary)

Total isolation 24/7 so prisoners could repent and connect with God. Failed due to severe mental illness among prisoners ("buried alive").

Auburn System (New York, 1816)

Group hard labor during the day under strict silence; solitary confinement at night. Adopted nationwide because it was economically profitable.

Convict Lease System

Post-Civil War practice (mostly in the South) where prisons leased inmate labor to private contractors/farmers for profit; widely regarded as "legal slavery."

Industrial Prison Era (1890s–1920s)

Prisons functioned as factories making goods for market profit. Ended by federal acts (Hawes-Cooper, Ashurst-Sumners) restricting interstate trade of prison goods.

Medical Model of Corrections (1950s)

Treated crime as an individual "pathology" or illness. Used indeterminate sentencing, vocational training, and treatment to rehabilitate offenders

Martinson Report (1974)

Review of rehabilitation programs that concluded "nothing works" to systematically reduce recidivism, triggering a shift away from rehabilitation toward get-tough policies.

100:1 Crack vs. Powder Cocaine Disparity

Policy under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 where 5 grams of crack triggered the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence as 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Fair Sentencing Act (2010)

Federal law that reduced the crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparity from 100:1 down to 18:1.

Determinate Sentencing vs. Indeterminate Sentencing

Determinate: Fixed term set by law/judge with no parole discretion.\nIndeterminate: Flexible range of years based on offender rehabilitation progress.

Truth-in-Sentencing Laws

Laws requiring incarcerated individuals (especially violent offenders) to serve at least 85% of their court-imposed sentence before release.

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994

Provided federal grant money to states to expand and build prisons, conditioned on states adopting 85% Truth-in-Sentencing laws.

Prosecutorial Discretion in Mass Incarceration

Over 95% of prosecuted cases end in guilty plea bargains. Increased felony filing rates by prosecutors drove much of the prison boom.

The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander, 2012)

Thesis that mass incarceration operates as a modern racial caste system that uses nominally "race-neutral" laws to target poor Black Americans.

Differential Involvement vs. Differential Treatment

Differential Involvement: Disparities caused by actual differences in offending rates.

Differential Treatment: Disparities caused by discrimination/bias within the justice system.

Flaw in using arrest rates to measure "Differential Involvement"

Arrest rates reflect policing tactics and surveillance levels in specific neighborhoods, not purely actual crime committed by individuals.

Cognitive Heuristics & Noise in Judicial Decisions

Under time constraints and limited info, court actors use mental shortcuts (heuristics) that rely on societal stereotypes linking race to dangerousness.

Chivalry / Paternalism Hypothesis

The finding that women often receive lighter sentences than men due to perceptions of lower dangerousness, vulnerability, or childcare duties.

Intersectionality in Sentencing Severity

Young Black males are consistently sentenced most harshly; white women are generally sentenced least harshly.