Corrections: Key Terms Chapters 1-3

Aggravating Circumstances

Magnify the offensive nature of a crime and tend to result in longer sentences

Conflict Theory

Maintains that concepts of inequality and power are the central issues underlying crime and its control.

Determinate Discretionary Sentence

Type of sentence with a range of time to be served; the specific sentence to be served within that range is decided by the judge at the point of initial sentencing. No further modifications can be made to the sentence regardless of the offender’s progress in an institution.

Determinate Presumptive Sentence

Type of sentence that specifies the exact length of the sentenced to be served by the inmate. Accounts for the variety of circumstances that are different from one case to another.

Discrimination

A differential response toward a group without providing any legally legitimate reasons for that response.

Disparity

Inconsistencies in sentencing and/or sanctions that result from the decision-making process. Occurs when the CJS provides an unequal response toward one group as compared with the response given to other groups.

Fine

A monetary penalty imposed as a punishment for having committed an offense.

General Deterrence

Punishing an offender in public so that other observers will refrain from criminal behavior.

Incapacitation

Deprives offenders of their liberty and removes them from society with the intent of ensuring that they cannot further victimize society for a time.

Individual Personality Traits

Characteristics that influence a person's behavior and decision-making, impacting their likelihood of engaging in criminal activity. May include defiance, impulsivity, narcissism, resentment, etc.

Labeling Theory

Contends that individuals become stabilized in criminal roles when they are labeled as criminals.

Mandatory Minimum

A minimum amount of time or a minimum percentage of a sentence must be served with no good time or early-release modifications.

Mitigating Factors

Circumstances that make a crime more understandable and may reduce the severity of a sentence or culpability that an offender might have.

Negative Punishment

The removal of a desirable or valued stimulus to decrease the likelihood of an undesired behavior being repeated.

Negative Reinforcers

Unpleasant stimuli that are removed when a desired behavior occurs.

Positive Punishment

Punishment where a stimulus is applied to the offender when the offender commits an undesired behavior.

Positive Reinforcers

Stimuli that are presented to increase the likelihood of a desired behavior being repeated.

Rehabilitation

Offenders will be deterred from reoffending due to their having worthwhile stakes in legitimate society. Treatment > punishment

Reintegration

The process of helping offenders transition back into society after serving their sentence, aimed at reducing recidivism by connecting offenders to legitimate areas of society that are gainful and productive.

Restorative Justice

An approach to justice that focuses on repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior through cooperative processes involving the community and victim.

Retribution

Offenders should be punished in a way that is equal to the severity of the crime they committed. The justification for punishment by the concept of lex talionis. Constrained revenge that is tempered with proportionality and enacted by a neutral party.

Selective Incapacitation

A strategy that targets specific offenders for longer sentences based on their perceived risk to society, aiming to prevent future crimes while creating a cost-effective reduction in crime.

Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014

A bill that adjusts federal mandatory sentencing guidelines in an effort to reduce the size of the U.S. prison population

Social Learning Theory

Contends that offenders learn to engage in crime through exposure to and adoption of definitions that are favorable to the commission of crime.

Specific Deterrence

The infliction of a punishment upon the specific offender in the hope that they will be discouraged from committing future crimes.

Strain Theory/Institutional Anomie

When individuals cannot obtain success goals they will tend to experience a sense of pressure.

Corrections

A process whereby practitioners from a variety of agencies and programs use tools, techniques, and facilities to manage and rehabilitate criminal tendencies among the offender population.

Brutalization Hypothesis

The use of harsh punishments sensitizes people to violence and teaches them to use violence rather than acting as a deterrent.

Code of Hammurabi

The earliest known written code of punishments that established rules and sanctions to govern society, emphasizing justice and retribution.

Lex Talionis

The Babylonian law of retaliation; An eye for an eye

Mamertine Prison

An ancient Roman prison (system of underground tunnels and dungeons under a sewer system) notorious for its harsh conditions, where prisoners faced torture and execution.

Trial by Ordeal

A method of justice used in medieval times/middle ages of Europe where the accused underwent physical tests to determine guilt or innocence, often believed to be divinely influenced.

Sanctuary

A place offering protection from arrest or prosecution, often associated with religious sites.

Public Wrong

Crimes against society or a social group. May include crimes against religion, treason, witchcraft, incest, sexual offenses, or violations of hunting rules.

Private Wrong

Crimes against an individuals that could include physical injury, damage to a person’s property, or theft.

Methods of Humiliation

Gag, bridle, ducking stool, stocks, and pillories were punitive devices used historically to publicly shame and punish offenders.

Branding

Usually on thumb with a letter denoting the offense

Corporal Punishment

A punishment administered in a public forum to add a deterrent effect.

Banishment

Exile from society as a form of punishment, often used for serious offenses.

Hulk

Broken down, decommissioned war vessels of the British Royal Navy. Used as prisons for extended periods as it became clear the colonies would maintain their Independence.

Great Law

Correctional thinking and reform in Pennsylvania that occurred due to the work of William Penn, advocate for humane prison conditions, and the Quakers.

Montesquieu

Voltaire philosopher who wrote Persian Letters on criminal law abuses in Europe. He advocated for the separation of powers in government and influenced modern political thought.

Voltaire

Wrote critically of the French government and was imprisoned in the Bastille. He became involved with trials that challenged ideas of legalized torture, criminal responsibility, and justice.

Beccaria

Wrote An Essay on Crimes and Punishment, was an anti-death penalty activist, and is the father of classical criminology. Argued for proportionate sentences.

Classical criminology

Argued that punishments must be useful, purposeful, and reasonable/proportional.

Howard (1726-1790)

Sheriff of Bedfordshire in England, advocated prison reform and the improvements of conditions in these facilities, and wrote State of Prisons Treatise for British Parliament.

Bentham (1748-1832)

Leading reformer of the criminal law in England during the late 1700s to early 1800s, advocated for the use of graduated penalties that connected the punishment with the crime, believed that a person’s behavior could be determined through scientific principles and were hedonistic.

Hedonistic Calculus

Humans weigh pleasure and pain outcomes when deciding to engage in criminal behavior.

Old Newgate Prison

The first official prison in the United States. Was built solely for punishment and served as a chartered copper mine and a colonial prison.

Walnut Street Jail

America’s first attempt to incarcerate inmates with the purpose of reforming them in a penitentiary. Felons were provided with educations opportunities, religious services, basic medical attention, and access to productive work activity.

Western State Penitentiary

A prison in the Pennsylvania system, outside of Pittsburgh, known for its solitary confinement model, focusing on rehabilitation and reform through isolation and reflection without labor.

Eastern State Penitentiary

A prison in the Pennsylvania system, near Philadelphia, allowed inmates to reside in their cells indefinitely, inmates spent 24 hours a day in their cells with minimal human contact, most of them prison staff.

Auburn System

Alternative prison that focused on congregate housing and labor and promoting rigid discipline with an economic emphasis. Inmates were kept in solitary confinement during the evening, but were permitted to work together, without communicating, during the day. Would eventually give way to the penal farm.

Contract labor system

Feature of the Auburn system, utilized inmate labor through state-negotiated contracts with private manufacturers.

Black Codes

Separate laws required for salves and freepersons who committed crimes prior to the Civil War.

Elmira Reformatory

The first reformatory prison, established in New York in 1876, aimed at rehabilitating young offenders through a system of classification, indeterminate sentencing, and individualized plans of reform.

Indeterminate sentences

A range of years that will be potentially served by an offender.

Determinate Sentence

Fixed periods of incarceration imposed on the offender with no later flexibility in the term that is served. Once that time has expired, the inmate is released from prison.

Mark System

The duration of the sentence was determined by the inmate’s work habits and righteous conduct.

Progressive Era

A period of extraordinary urban and industrial growth and unprecedented social problems. Spanning from the 1890s to the 1920s, this era focused on addressing issues such as labor rights, women's suffrage, and government corruption through reforms.

Big House Prisons

Large stone structures with brick walls, guard towers, and checkpoints throughout a facility. Literally impel down.

Medical Model

Correctional treatment that utilizes a type of mental health approach, that is rehabilitative in nature, incorporates fields such as psychology and biology; criminality is viewed as the result of internal deficiencies that can be treated.

Reintegration Model

Programs that looked to the external environment for causes of crime and the means to reduce criminality.

Martinson Report

An examination of a number of various prison treatment programs. Included educational and vocational assistance, mental health treatment, medical treatment, and early release.

Crime Control Model

Increased the use of longer sentnces, the death penalty, and intensive supervision probation.

Top Three in Corrections

The three largest state correctional systems in the United States. In order of largest to smallest: Texas, California, and Florida. All three states have large overall free-world populations and prison populations, grapple with immigration issues (legal and illegal persons within its borders) have a diverse array of racial and cultural groups, and have robust, stable economies (IE impacts how well they are able to fund their correction programs).

Holt V. Sarver

Landmark case that addressed prison conditions and inmate rights, leading to significant reforms in the treatment of incarcerated individuals. Was the first time a stae prison system was found to be in violation of prisoners’ Constitutional rights.

United States v. Booker

A Supreme Court case that decided judges were no longer required to follow the sentencing guidelines that had been in effect since 1897. Federal judges now must only consider these guidelines with certain other sentencing criteria when deciding a defendant’s punishment. Resulted in a push towards indeterminate sentencing and reintegrative efforts.

Continuum of Sanctions

A range of penalties and interventions used in the correctional system, from least to most restrictive, allowing for graduated responses to offender behavior. Range from simple fines to incarceration and end with the death penalty.

Calibrate

Sanctions can be selected in a manner that allow the seriousness and number of sanctions to be weighed so that the punishment effect is proportional to the crime.

Jail

A confinement facility, usually operated and controlled by county-level law enforcement, that is designed to hold persons charged with a crime who are either waiting adjudication or serving short sentences of 1 year or less after the point of adjudication.

“Three strikes and you’re out” Law

A law that requires judges award a long-term prison sentence to offenders convicted of three or more felonies, significantly increasing penalties for repeat offenders.

Social Justice Theory

Contends that all persons should have access to economic resources, political power, and social mobility and standing within a given society.

American Correctional Association (ACA)

The longest-running and largest association that represents professionals in the field of corrections.

Absolute Immunity

Protection for persons who work in positions that require unimpaired decision-making functions

Compensatory Damages

Monetary compensation awarded to a plaintiff for losses suffered due to another's actions.

Consent Decree

An injunction against both individual defendants and their agency

Declaratory Judgment

A judicial determination of the legal rights of the person bringing suit.

Defamation

Slander or libel that damages a person’s reputation

Emotional Distress

Refers to acts that lead to emotional distress of the client.

Good faith defense

The person acted in the honest belief that the action taken was appropriate under the circumstance.

Hands-off Doctrine

The policy of the courts of avoiding intervention in prison operations. Based on the premise of separation of powers and that judges should leave prison administration to prison experts.

Injunction

A court order that requires an agency to take some form of action(s) or to refrain from a particular action(s).

Intentional Tort

The actor, whether expressed or implied, was judged to have possessed intent or purpose to cause an injury.

Libel

Written communication intended to lower the reputation of a person where such facts would actually be damaging to a reputation.

Malicious Prosecution

Occurs when a criminal accusation is made without probable cause and for improper reasons.

Negligence

Doing what a reasonably prudent person would not do in similar circumstances or failing to d what a reasonably prudent person would do in similar circumstances.

One hand On, One Hand Off Doctrine

More conservative rulings are being handed down from the Court, reflecting an eclipse of the hands-off doctrine.

Person Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)

Limits an inmate’s ability to file lawsuits and the compensation that he or she can receive. Intended to prevent frivolous lawsuits being filed by inmates in federal court.

Punitive Damages

Monetary awards reserved for the person harmed in a malicious or willful manner by the guilty party.

Qualified Immunity

Legal immunity that shields correctional officers from lawsuits, but first requires them to demonstrate the grounds for their possession of immunity.

Rational Basis Test

Sets guidelines for the rights of inmates that still allow correctional agencies to maintain security.

Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000

Prohibits government from substantially burdening an inmate’s religious exercise

Slander

Verbal communication intended to lower the reputation of a person where facts would actually be damaging to a reputation.

Tort

A legal injury in which a person causes injury as the result of a violation of one’s duty as established by law.

Totality of the Conditons

A standard used to determine if conditions in an institution are in violation of the 8th Amendment.

Writ Writer

An inmate who becomes skilled at generation legal complaints and grievances within the prison system.

Ex Parte Hull

Supreme Court case. Found that no state or its officers could legally interfere with a prisoner’s right to apply to a federal court for writs of habeas corpus. Inmates have the right to unrestricted access to federal courts to challenge the legality of their confinement.

Cooper v. Pate

Validated the rights of inmates to sue prisons systems and staff. Inmates could sue state officials in federal courts under the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

Turner v. Safley

Supreme Court case that ruled on a Missouri ban against correspondence sent among inmates in different institutions within the state’s jurisdiction. Such forms of regulations are valid if they are “reasonably relate to legitimate penological interests.” IE ensuring the safety and security of the institution, rehabilitative concerns, and prison order.