Where Have All the Guns Gone? In today's society guns are everywhere. News casts shower the public with stories about gun violence, movie heroes blow away the bad guys, cartoon characters brazenly shower each other with flying bullets, and children shoot each other in school roo...

In past years, society has looked nearly exclusively at notorious cases. For instance, the case of Stanford vs. Kentucky, wherein a seventeen-year old boy had committed the crime of murder in Kentucky. The court affirmed the death sentence and rejected Stanford's belief that he had a constitu...

The defences of duress, necessity and duress of circumstances all recognise that a person ought not always to be regarded as criminally liable if he or she feels compelled to act against their will. Critically evaluate how and why the courts have limited the availability of these defences. If y...

Throughout my time as a criminal justice student, I have been interested about the relationship between drugs and crime. I have also been amazed by the statistics having to do with the amount of prisoners returning to a correctional facility after their time served. The link between drug use and cr...

Issue of Gun Control and Violence The issue of gun control and violence, both in Canada and the United States, is one that simply will not go away. If history is to be any guide, no matter what the resolution to the gun control debate is, it is probable that the arguments pro and co...

Crime and Drug Use federal tax dollars to fund these therapeutic communities in prisons. I feel that if we teach these prisoners some self-control and alternative lifestyles that we can keep them from reentering the prisons once they get out. I am also going to describe some of today's progra...

The link between drug use and crime is not a new one. For more than twenty years, both the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Justice have funded many studies to try to better understand the connection. One such study was done in Baltimore on heroin users. This study f...

Crime and Drug Use Throughout my time as a criminal justice student, I have been interested about the relationship between drugs and crime. I have also been amazed by the statistics having to do with the amount of prisoners returning to a correctional facility after their time served. The link be...

PRISONS DO NOT WORK Right now in the United States of America murderers, rapists, and child molesters are being set free. Prisoners are watching T.V., eating a meal, and using exercise equipment while law abiding citizens are starving and living in the gutters. Prisoners even have their own periodi...

Each of these headlines from recent New Zealand newspapers is illustrative of an "episode, condition, person or group of persons" that have been defined as a "threat to societal values and interests"- what Stanley Cohen terms a Moral Panic. So how relevant are Moral Panics today? What role does ...

MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES Introduction The case of Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who killed his disabled daughter Tracy, has once again brought into focus the issue of mandatory minimum sentences (MMS). Latimer was twice convicted of second degree murder for what he claimed was a comp...

The Debate On Capital Punishment What act by the United States government kills almost a hundred people every year? The United States Department of Justice legally executes criminals who commit certain crimes. The crimes for which a person can be executed for are named Capital offenses, thus ...

Capital Punishment Introduction "God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good" (Genesis 1:31). Is there anything a human being can do to deserve to have God's gift of life taken away? Then there is the question of whether or not the person is guilty or wrongfu...

Recidivism of Sex Offenders Sex offenders have been a serious problem for our legal system at all levels, not to mention those who have been their victims. There are 43,000 inmates in prison for sexual offenses while each year in this country over 510,000 children are sexually assaulted (Oakes...

A History of gangs in the USA Although it is not fair and certainly not warranted to connect any ethnic group with organized crime, it is a fact that the massive immigration of the early 1900's fueled the creation of the early gangs, particularly in New York City. As more and more immigr...

In today's society, juvenile offenders are now facing a double-edged sword. Not only can they be tried in a Juvenile court for a crime committed. They are now being charged as adults. They are setting a juvenile as an adult has stirred up many different views. When should we say enough is enough?...

Why are young adults in cities involved with gangs? Countless innocent people in the U.S. die from youth violence unintentionally; either being an innocent bystander caught in the recklessness of activities done from gang violence or dying a tragic death of being wrongfully victimized. Children con...

IV. Introduction What is this whole idea about the Death Penalty? Is it really effective? " The death penalty is commonly defined as a punishment inflicted upon a criminal for a crime that they have committed." To some it is an inhumane way of solving crime. In most cases there is &quo...

Capital punishment is the legal infliction of the death penalty on persons convicted of a crime.(Cox 12) It is not intended to inflict any physical pain or any torture; however, it is a severe form of corporal punishment. It is unchangeable because it removes those punished from society permanentl...

Juvenile Crime There has always been alarm and despair over escalating juvenile crime. In the 1950s there were reports about the mushrooming problems with youthful gangs in the big cities. In the 1960s we began to hear about a surge of juvenile crime in areas that had been regarded as virtually crim...

Criminally Inclined Foreigners and Illusions of Mono-Ethnicity Introduction: Japan perceives itself and is perceived by other nations as a mono-ethnic and racially pure society. Since the post-World War Two era, a low crime rate has existed in Japan. Recently however, crime has been on a sharp r...

DEBATE #6 SHOULD INCARCERTION OF PREGNANT WOMEN BE AVOIDED? The subject of incarceration of pregnant women has been a very controversial issue for years. In this debate, Ken Ayers argues YES. He is well qualified to take this stand because he has presented and published a n...

The Death Penalty "Evil has many faces. The criminals and murderers commit acts of evil against society, the law enforcement agencies, judicial system, and prison systems are corrupt and commit crimes (evil) against the criminals, you (society), are destructive by supporting godless morals and...

The United States has many problems-problems that need the attention of people as a whole. Murder is one of the problems. Murder is such a heinous crime that it deserves appropriate punishment. Capital punishment is the appropriate discipline against cold-blooded killers. Murders deserve a fair and...

Feb. 2, 1996 Feb. 19, 1997 Moses Lake, Wash. 2 students and 1 teacher Bethel, Alaska Principal and 1 student killed, 2 killed, 1 other wounded when 14-year-old Barry others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16, at his high Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class. school. Oct. 1, ...