Criminal Justice: Heumann Midterm Guide Beginner Flashcards

What does criminal justice mean?

The institutions and processes used to respond to suspected crime, including police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections.

What is a criminal law?

A rule that identifies prohibited conduct and allows the government to impose a criminal punishment.

Who is a suspect?

Someone authorities think may have committed an offense. Suspicion does not establish guilt.

Who is a defendant?

A person accused in a criminal case. Being accused does not mean the person has been proved guilty.

Who is a prosecutor?

A lawyer who represents the government in a criminal case and decides which charges to pursue.

What do police do in the criminal justice process?

They investigate suspected offenses, enforce laws, and make decisions about when and how to act.

Who is a defense lawyer?

A lawyer who advises and represents the accused person.

What does a judge do?

A judge oversees court proceedings and makes the legal decisions assigned to the court.

What is a jury?

A group of people selected to decide issues assigned to them at a trial, such as whether the prosecution has proved guilt.

What is evidence?

Information offered to help establish what happened, such as testimony, documents, or physical objects.

What is testimony?

A person's account given as a witness in a legal proceeding.

What is a criminal charge?

A formal accusation that someone violated a criminal law.

What is an arrest?

Taking someone into custody under legal authority. An arrest is not a conviction.

What is a trial?

A court proceeding where evidence and arguments are presented so the disputed issues can be decided.

What is a conviction?

A formal determination of guilt, such as after a guilty plea or a trial.

What is a sentence?

The punishment a court imposes after a conviction.

What is an appeal?

A request for a higher court to review a lower court's decision. It is not simply a new trial.

What are corrections agencies?

Agencies that administer custody or supervision after criminal justice decisions, such as prison and probation agencies.

What is a legal right?

A protection or entitlement recognized by law, such as protection against compelled self-incrimination.

What is a legal remedy?

A legal response to a wrong, such as excluding evidence or awarding damages. Having a right and receiving a remedy are different questions.

What is an institution?

An organized part of public life with established roles and practices (e.g. a court or PD).

What does empirical study mean?

Studying what happens by using observations, data, and other evidence.

What does studying legal doctrine mean?

Studying legal rules, court decisions, and how those rules are interpreted.

What is mechanical jurisprudence?

The idea that judges can apply established rules to facts almost automatically, like a machine producing an answer.

What is rule skepticism?

Doubt that legal rules always point to one clear answer. Rules can be ambiguous or conflict with one another.

What is fact skepticism?

Doubt about how reliably courts can reconstruct what happened. Witnesses and decision makers can make mistakes.

What does discretion mean?

Room to choose among legally available actions instead of following one automatic response.

Does fact skepticism mean every witness is lying?

No. Honest people can misperceive, forget, or describe events differently.

Give a simple example of police discretion.

An officer may decide whether an appropriate response is a warning, citation, or an arrest, within the law and department rules.

What does politics mean in this course?

The allocation of resources, protection, punishment, authority, etc. Politics is broader than corruption or elections.

Why is a sentencing law political?

It expresses choices about punishment, liberty, risk, and how much judgment officials should have.

Why is police funding a political issue?

It determines how public money and protection are distributed and which problems receive attention.

Why does the professor question whether criminal justice is a true system?

Because its agencies do not always share goals or coordinate, and they can work against one another even while handling the same case.

What is a street-level bureaucrat?

A frontline public worker who deals directly with people and exercises judgment, such as a police officer or teacher.

Why does an arrest not guarantee a conviction?

Different stages have different requirements; a prosecutor or court may find that the evidence or legal basis is insufficient.

What is Lipsky's main argument?

Frontline workers help make policy through their everyday decisions, especially when resources are limited and goals are unclear.

Why do street-level workers develop routines and shortcuts?

They must manage heavy demands with limited time and resources; shortcuts make work manageable but can produce unfair results.

How can performance targets shape police behavior?

Officers may focus on what supervisors prioritize (e.g. arrests) rather than every outcome the public values.

Does police discretion mean supervisors have no influence?

No. Training, monitoring, rules, and incentives from supervisors can shape how officers use their judgment.

What is the dark figure of crime?

Crime missing from official records because it was not reported, recognized, or recorded.

What is the difference between actual crime and recorded crime?

Actual crime includes offenses that occur; recorded crime includes the incidents that enter official records.

Why might a victim not report a crime?

The person may distrust police, fear retaliation, feel embarrassed, or believe reporting will not help.

How can police practices change recorded crime?

Officials may change how they classify, count, or record incidents, even if underlying behavior has not changed equally.

What is the UCR?

Official police-reported crime information.

What are police-recorded crime statistics?

Counts of incidents known to and recorded by police; they are useful but incomplete measures of crime.

What is a victimization survey?

A survey asking people about experiences of crime, including some incidents they never reported to police.

What is one advantage of a victimization survey?

It can uncover offenses missing from police records.

What is one limitation of a victimization survey?

People may forget, misdate, or misunderstand incidents, and the survey may not cover every population or offense.

Do arrest totals directly measure how much crime happened?

No, they reflect enforcement choices and suspected offending; arrests do not establish guilt.

Why might an official want recorded crime to fall?

A lower figure can make the official or department look successful.

Why might an official want recorded crime to rise?

A higher figure can support demands for more funding, personnel, or attention.

What did Seidman and Couzens study?

Whether an apparent crime decline in Washington, D.C., could be explained by changes in reporting and recording practices.

What is the main lesson of Seidman and Couzens?

Crime statistics are produced by institutions and can be affected by political pressure.

Does Seidman and Couzens prove that every crime decline is fake?

No, their lesson is to investigate the data rather than automatically trust or reject them.

What is an independent source of crime-related information?

Information produced outside the police recording process, such as death records or auto-theft insurance claims.

Why are independent records useful?

They can help check whether a reported crime trend reflects a real change.

What is a crime count?

The number of recorded incidents in a specified place and period.

What is a crime rate?

A count related to a population or other denominator, allowing a more meaningful comparison.

Why might crime counts and crime rates move differently?

The population may change; a growing city can have more incidents without the same increase in crime per person.

If a rate falls from 10 to 8, what is the percentage decline?

Twenty percent: the fall of 2 is one fifth of the original 10.

Why must you identify the type of crime in a comparison?

Homicide, theft, and other offenses can follow different trends; one total does not describe every crime problem.

What does Lynch argue about American crime?

Countries use different definitions, reporting practices, and recording systems.

Why are international crime comparisons difficult?

The United States has especially high lethal violence in his comparisons, but it is not necessarily highest on every kind of crime.

What are mutually exclusive categories?

Categories that do not overlap; a case belongs in only one category within that classification.

Are the notes' crime categories all mutually exclusive?

No, juvenile, organized, property, and serious crime classify different features and can overlap.

What does the label victimless crime usually mean?

An offense without an obvious complaining victim, often involving consensual prohibited behavior; the label does not prove there are no harms.

What is the difference between checking a decline and explaining its cause?

Checking asks whether crime really fell; explaining asks why it fell. Good evidence for the first does not settle the second.

What is incarceration?

Confinement in a jail or prison.

What does mass incarceration mean?

Imprisonment on a very large scale, together with the policy choices that sustain it.

What is the carceral state?

The institutions and controls of punishment, extending beyond prison into supervision and restrictions on people's lives.

What is deterrence?

Trying to discourage an offense by making people expect consequences if they commit it.

What is incapacitation?

Restricting a person's ability to commit offenses outside custody by confining them.

What is the difference between deterrence and incapacitation?

Deterrence changes choices through expected consequences; incapacitation restricts opportunities through confinement.

What is a marginal effect?

The additional effect of one more increment of a policy, such as making an already long sentence longer.

Why can a prison population stay large without a matching rise in new crime?

Long sentences and slower release can keep many people in custody for a long time.

What is a racial disparity?

A difference in outcomes across racial groups; explaining its causes requires examining policy, practices, and context.

What is a mandatory minimum sentence?

A law requiring at least a specified punishment when its conditions are met, limiting the judge's sentencing choices.

What is a moral panic?

Intense alarm framing a perceived threat as an urgent social crisis and creating pressure for action.

Can concern about real violence coexist with criticism of harsh punishment?

Yes, communities can want protection from crime and protection from unfair or excessive state action at the same time.

What is Chiricos's main argument?

Media and political narratives can intensify fear of crime and encourage punitive responses beyond what crime trends alone explain.

How can a moral panic encourage punishment, according to Chiricos?

Strong fear creates pressure to do something quickly, making harsher policing or sentencing appear necessary.

Does Chiricos's argument mean victims' suffering is imaginary?

No. His concern is how threats are framed and amplified, not a claim that victimization does not happen.

What does Gottschalk's 2006 excerpt explain?

How political institutions, social movements, and historical choices helped build the American carceral state.

Why do social movements matter in Gottschalk's 2006 argument?

The reach of punishment beyond prison and the limits of narrow reform efforts.

What does Gottschalk's 2015 Caught emphasize?

Groups seeking justice or reform work within institutional limits, and their choices can have unintended punitive consequences.

How do Gottschalk's 2006 and 2015 excerpts differ?

The earlier excerpt focuses on political construction; the later one focuses on the reach of the carceral state and limits of reform.

What do King, Mauer, and Young argue?

The relationship between incarceration and crime is complex; more imprisonment does not automatically explain falling crime.

Why do King, Mauer, and Young compare places and periods?

Different patterns help test whether the simple explanation 'more prison caused less crime' fits the evidence.

What is Tonry's main argument?

Political choices about drug enforcement and punishment worsened racial disparities without convincing evidence of matching public-safety gains.

Do King, Mauer, and Young claim imprisonment can never affect crime?

No. They question simple causal claims and whether additional incarceration is the best use of resources.

How can a general-looking law produce unequal effects?

It may target conduct or places in ways that place heavier burdens on particular groups.

What does Tonry ask us to examine besides individual prejudice?

Which policies officials choose, how enforcement is directed, and what consequences were foreseeable.

What is Fortner's main argument in Black Silent Majority?

Demands for safety from working- and middle-class Black residents helped shape punitive drug policy in New York.

What laws are central to Fortner's account?

New York's Rockefeller drug laws, which became an important example of harsh drug punishment.

Does Fortner say all Black residents wanted the same policies?

No. He restores the role of particular residents and movements without making Black opinion uniform.

What is Forman's main argument in Locking Up Our Own?

Black officials and communities helped make punitive choices within a wider context of racism, violence, limited resources, and constrained options.

Why do cumulative choices matter in Forman's account?

Many separate decisions can build a harsh system without everyone following one plan for mass incarceration.

What do Fortner and Forman have in common?

Both show that Black communities and officials had agency and serious concerns about crime.

How do Fortner and Forman differ in emphasis?

Fortner stresses organized demands for order; Forman stresses constrained choices and their accumulating consequences.

What do Decker and colleagues study?

How local police handle immigration enforcement and why their approaches vary.