Crime and Punishment

                 Crime and Punishment

If we look into history we shall find that laws, which are, or ought to be, conventions between men in a state of freedom, have been, for the most part the work of the passions of a few, or the consequences of a fortuitous or temporary necessity. Observe that by justice I understand nothing more than that bond which is necessary to keep the interest of individuals united, without which men would return to their original state of barbarity. All punishments which exceed the necessity of preserving this bond are in their nature unjust.

The end of punishment, therefore, is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal.

The torture of a criminal during the course of his trial is a cruelty consecrated by custom in most nations. It is used with an intent either to make him confess his crime, or to explain some contradiction into which he had been led during his examination, or discover his accomplices, or for some kind of metaphysical and incomprehensible purgation of infamy, or, finally, in order to discover other crimes of which he is not accused, but of which he may be guilty.

No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? This dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is unnecessary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent whose crime has not been proved. Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment.

 

 

In proportion as punishments become more cruel, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible; and the force of the passions still continuing in the space of an hundred years the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison. That a punishment may produce the effect required, it is sufficient that the evil it occasions should exceed the good expected from the crime, including in the calculation the certainty of the punishment, and the privation of the expected advantage. All severity beyond this is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.

The death penalty is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords. If the passions, or the necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their fellow creatures, the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples of barbarity, the more horrible as this punishment is usually attended with formal pageantry. Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the fundamental principle of good legislation, which is the art of conducting men to the maximum of happiness, and to the minimum of misery, if we may apply this mathematical expression to the good and evil of life....

Would you prevent crimes? Let the laws be clear and simple, let the entire force of the nation be united in their defence, let them be intended rather to favour every individual than any particular classes of men; let the laws be feared, and the laws only. The fear of the laws is salutary, but the fear of men is a fruitful and fatal source of crimes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crime Prevention and Punishment

 

CRIME PREVENTION

Over the years politicians, law enforcement officials, teachers, parents, and other concerned citizens have examined countless ideas in an effort to decrease youth violence and crime, from holding parents responsible for their children's crimes to having after-school violence prevention programs. The continuing problem of youth crime has many people devoting significant time and resources to end the cycle of violence. A variety of programs have been implemented in the area of prevention, intervention, and suppression. Efforts are ongoing to determine the effectiveness of such programs. The following sections discuss laws that have been enacted as well as a variety of prevention programs, including community prevention programs, law enforcement prevention strategies, and school-based prevention programs, to try to prevent juvenile crime.

 

Laws Enacted to Prevent Juvenile Crime

HOLDING PARENTS RESPONSIBLE

 

For many decades civil liability laws have held parents at least partly responsible for damages caused by their children. In addition, child welfare laws included actions against those who contributed to the delinquency of a minor. By the 1990s, in response to rising juvenile crime rates, communities and states passed tougher laws about parental responsibility. In "Parent Liability Child's Act" (2007, http://law.enotes.com/everyday-law-encyclopedia/parent-liability-child-s-act#criminal-responsibility), the Encyclopedia of Everyday Law notes that some states now hold parents of delinquent youth criminally liable. However, other, less stringent parental responsibility laws are more common. Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia require parents to pay court costs for their children adjudicated delinquent. Florida, Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia require parents to pay the costs of caring for, treating, or detaining delinquent children. Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, and Oklahoma require parents to pay restitution to the victims of their children's crimes.

Nine states hold parents criminally responsible for storing a loaded firearm in a place that allows minors access to it, and other states hold parents liable if they know their child possesses a firearm and do not confiscate it.

Critics of parental liability explain that victims are just looking for someone to blame. They assert that U.S. law usually holds people responsible for crimes only if they actively participate in the transmission of such acts. They believe that if standard rules of U.S. law are practiced, the prosecutor of a case should have to prove that the parents intended to participate in a crime to be found guilty. Samantha Harvell, Belen Rodas, and Leah Hendey of Georgetown University find in Parental Involvement in Juvenile Justice: Prospects and Possibilities that judges and probation officers believe that parents should be more involved in legal proceedings against minors because they feel that the relationship between parent and child often contributes to delinquency. However, judges and probation officers remain somewhat reluctant to use parental sanctions. In fact, the article "UF Study: Americans Give Mixed Reviews to Parental Responsibility Laws" (University of Florida News, March 14, 2005) notes that a 2005 survey found that public support for parental responsibility laws was relatively low.

 

CURFEWS

To break the cycle of youth violence and crime, lawmakers have enacted curfews in various cities, towns, and rural areas across the country. Curfews for young people have existed off and on since the 1890s, when they were enacted to reduce crime among immigrant youth. States and cities often pass curfew ordinances when citizens perceive a need to maintain control over juveniles. Because of the rising rate of juvenile crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s, more than a thousand jurisdictions in the United States imposed youth curfews. Arlen Egley Jr. and Aline K. Major of the National Youth Gang Survey, in "Highlights of the 2001 National Youth Gang Survey" (April 2003, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/fs200301.pdf), report that 62% of jurisdictions reporting gang problems used curfews or other ordinances aimed at keeping youth from congregating at night.

Of those jurisdictions, 86% argued that such laws "demonstrated at least some degree of effectiveness."

Most curfew laws work essentially the same way. They are aimed at restricting juveniles to their homes or property between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. weekdays. Such laws usually allow juveniles to stay out a little later on weekends. Exceptions are made for youth who need to travel to and from school, attend church events, or go to work at different times. Other exceptions include family emergencies or situations when juveniles are accompanied by their parents.

Although many people believe that curfews are important in the fight against youth crime, critics of curfew ordinances argue that such laws violate the constitutional rights of children and their parents. They contend that the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of people are endangered by curfew laws, especially the rights of free speech and association, privacy, and equal protection. Opponents also assert that no studies prove curfew laws to be effective. In fact, most studies—such as Patrick Boyle's "Curfews and Crime"  and Caterina Grovis Roman and Gretchen Moore's "Evaluation of the Youth Curfew in Prince George's County, Maryland"—show that curfews have little effect on youth crime.

 

Community Prevention and Intervention Programs

 

Prevention measures are programs aimed at keeping youth, particularly at-risk youth, from beginning a life of crime, joining gangs, and/or otherwise ending up in prison or jail. Intervention programs are designed to remove youth from gangs, criminal activities, and/or patterns of reckless behavior that would ultimately put the youth in prison or jail. Such programs typically include helping the individual build self-esteem, confidence, and socialization skills while offering education, recreation, and job skills assistance.

Although this chapter examines a few of the types of programs available, hundreds of such programs exist throughout the United States, some at the national or state levels, but many at the local/community level. Many involve mentoring—having adults and sometimes other students spend time with at-risk youth to help them explore alternatives to violence and crime.

Mentoring programs take on a variety of activities, including sports, recreation, and education. Mentors help their subjects gain self-esteem, conflict resolution abilities, peer pressure resistance skills, and confidence.

Many prevention and intervention programs have seen some success with delinquent and at-risk youth, as noted by individuals who credit such groups with turning their lives around or keeping them from heading into lives of crime and violence. Others have proven to be ineffective. Those that succeed provide alternatives to youth and often a safe place to hang out, make new friends, and learn life skills.

 

CHICAGO AREA PROJECT

Chicago, like Los Angeles, has been home to many gangs throughout the twentieth century. In an effort to deal with the gang situation on the city's streets, the Chicago Area Project (CAP) was founded in 1934—the nation's first community-based delinquency prevention program. The program, which was designed by the sociologist Clifford R. Shaw (1895–1957), aimed to work with delinquent youth in poverty-stricken areas of Chicago. CAP staff sought to prevent youth from joining gangs and ultimately committing crimes.

To achieve this, CAP advocates believed that improvements needed to be made to neighborhoods and communities. According to CAP (April 9, 2007, http://www.chicagoareaproject.org/aboutus.htm), "The agency believes that residents must be empowered through the development of community organizations so that they can act together to improve neighborhood conditions, hold institutions serving the community accountable, reduce anti-social behavior by young people, protect them from inappropriate institutionalization, and provide them with positive models for personal development." The organization emphasizes that juvenile delinquency in low-income areas is a product of social disadvantages—not a flaw of the individual child or of individuals from certain ethnic or racial backgrounds.

CAP includes more than twenty-nine affiliates and twelve special projects. Continuing to promote self-improvement and self-determination, CAP emphasizes community organizing, advocacy, and direct service. According to CAP,

it "has succeeded in arousing in individual citizens a sense of responsibility for the welfare of their children—and a realization that their own united efforts offered the most promising prospect for providing security, protection, and constructive satisfaction of the needs of the children and young people in any community."

 

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA

Offering a variety of programs to help youth, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA; 2007, http://www.bgca.org/) has worked with more than 4.6 million children throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and U.S. military bases in the United States and abroad. In about four thousand club locations, the group uses forty-seven thousand trained, full-time staff "to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens."

 

The BGCA offers a specialized program called Gang Prevention/Intervention through Targeted Outreach for those aged six to eighteen. Sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the outreach program works with delinquent youth and those at risk of becoming delinquent. The goal of the program is to provide educational and fun activities for youth in a safe environment to steer them away from becoming involved in gangs.

 

VIOLENCE-FREE ZONES

Coordinated by the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, violence-free zones help gang members and other violent youths turn their lives around through the adoption of a productive and peaceful lifestyle. A community-based program, the project provides various types of assistance, including life-skills training, mentoring, job assistance, substance abuse help, character development, and family services. To establish a violence-free zone, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise and community leaders seek to end youth violence by working with warring gang factions to call a truce.

The first violence-free zone was created in 1997 in the Benning Terrace public housing complex in Washington, D.C. At that time the area was so crime-ridden that people were afraid to leave their homes.

The situation became even more desperate after the twelve-year-old Daryl Hall was beaten, kidnapped, and later murdered by warring gang members. Gangs had become so bold they attacked Hall in broad daylight. The National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, in conjunction with the Alliance of Concerned Men, stepped in and was able to set up meetings between the leaders of the rival gangs. The groups managed to work out a truce.

Aimee Howd reports in "How to Stop Kids from Killing Kids" (Insight on the News, April 24, 2000) that when David Gilmore of the D.C. Housing Authority heard about the cease-fire, he joined the cause and offered jobs to some of the youths. Meaningful, legitimate employment proved to be an important asset to the program. Among the jobs available were landscaping, building maintenance, and removing graffiti. Jobs not only provided youth with an income but also with a sense of purpose and belonging. Gilmore estimates that the program saved the city $13 million and that fifteen or more deaths were prevented in the three years following the truce.

Programs have since been launched in Atlanta, Georgia; Prince George's County and Baltimore, Maryland; Dallas, Texas; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

Law Enforcement Strategies

 

OJJDP COMPREHENSIVE GANG MODEL

The OJJDP advocates the use of a comprehensive gang model developed by Irving A. Spergel to combat gangs. Jim Burch and Candice Kane, in the fact sheet "Implementing the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model", note that the model includes five steps to help gang members and their communities. Steps include mobilizing the larger community to create opportunities or service organizations for gang-involved and at-risk youth; mobilizing outreach workers to connect with youth involved in gangs; creating academic, economic, and social opportunities for at-risk and gang-involved youth; using gang suppression activities and holding youth involved in gangs accountable for their actions; and helping community agencies problem solve at a grassroots level to address gang problems. The model assumes that gang violence is a byproduct of a breakdown in the larger community. According to the OJJDP, in "OJJDP Model Programs Guide" (October 11, 2005, http://www.dsgonline.com/mpg2.5/mpg_index.htm), evaluations of programs based on the OJJDP model show mixed results, although negative results generally result from poor program implementation.

 

GANG RESISTANCE EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Hoping to reach students before they become involved in gangs and crime, uniformed police officers throughout the country visit middle schools to discuss the life consequences associated with such activities. The thirteen-part curriculum, offered through the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program, was initially created by the Phoenix (Arizona) Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in 1991. Because that pilot program met with success, G.R.E.A.T. has expanded to all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Among the topics presented are personal, resiliency, resistance, and social skills. The stated goals of the program are to help youth resist peer pressure, have positive attitudes toward law enforcement, learn ways to avoid violence, develop basic life skills, and set positive goals for the future. According to the article "G.R.E.A.T. Middle School Component" (April 27, 2007, http://www.great-online.org/corecurriculum.htm), the G.R.E.A.T. curriculum for seventh graders educates students about gangs, violence, drug abuse, and crime; helps students recognize their responsibilities and learn how to make good decisions; fosters communication skills; and teaches anger management skills.

The effectiveness of G.R.E.A.T. training became the basis for a study conducted by Finn-Aage Esbensen and D. Wayne Osgood, who published their findings in "Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT): Results from the National Evaluation" (Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 1999). Program participants were said to have developed more negative opinions about gangs and more positive attitudes about police. They also reported experiencing lower rates of victimizations, among other things.

 

 

 

SUPPRESSION PROGRAMS

 

Another method intended to reduce youth crime and violence is called suppression. This tactic is used by law enforcement agencies throughout the country. Suppression usually involves a show of force, such as saturating an area with many uniformed police officers. The idea is meant to demonstrate to criminals that they are being watched and that criminal activities will not be tolerated. Suppression techniques also include sweeps, where officers sweep through an area rounding up youth and adult offenders. Some suppression programs have proven to be somewhat effective, whereas others have not.

In some areas with high gang activity and violent youth crime, law enforcement personnel have tried suppression techniques. Suppression programs have been tested out in various cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, among others.

The Houston Police Department Gang Task Force is just one example of the many units of this type operating throughout the United States. Working in conjunction with the Mayor's Anti-Gang Office (2007, http://www.houstontx.gov/publicsafety/antigang/index.html), the task force focuses on areas with high gang activity by providing a highly visible presence in an effort to lessen gang violence and crime. Initiatives aim to target, arrest, and incarcerate gang members involved in criminal activities. At the same time, the Anti-Gang Office works with communities, neighborhoods, service organizations, and schools to provide supportive services to at-risk youth, including counseling, job leads, conflict resolution, and recreation programs. The Mayor's Anti-Gang Office has also provided gang awareness training to individuals, including educators, law enforcement personnel, probation officers, and members of the public since 1994. The group makes use of high-tech devices, such as geomapping and tracking systems. These programs help staff keep track of gang locations as well as youth program assistance sites.

Bill White, the mayor of Houston, reports in "Houston Mayor White Oversees Gang Free Schools and Communities Project" (April 10, 2006, http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/best_practices/usmayor06/HoustonBP.asp) that suppression is generally not successful alone.

Houston provides an example of how suppression can be combined with other program elements, in that the Mayor's Anti-Gang Office uses suppression techniques as one element of the OJJDP's comprehensive gang model, "a paradigm that utilizes five core strategies (community mobilization, provision of opportunities, social intervention, suppression, organizational change and development) to address gang issues within a targeted community."

 

SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS

The School Resource Officers (SROs) program is intended to improve relations between youth and police. The project, designed to prevent and intercept the commission of youth crime and violence, also gives students and police officers the chance to get to know one another. In some areas, children grow up with contempt for or fear of police. The SRO program works to eliminate these concerns as well as to educate students about the law and provide one-on-one mentoring.

Under the program, a police officer is dispatched to a school as an SRO. The officer works to prevent crime, violence, and substance abuse; makes arrests if necessary during the commission of crimes; counsels students; and conducts classes about law enforcement and school safety. The program calls this the TRIAD concept (police officer, educator, and counselor). To participate as an SRO, candidates must complete a specialized training program. The SRO program is credited with helping reduce youth crime in schools and in the community.

Founded in 1990, the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) has a national membership of nine thousand officers. NASRO holds annual conferences and provides workshops for the SROs about various procedures, techniques, and prevention measures. The group also conducts surveys of its members to learn more about current issues affecting the SROs and schools. For example, Kenneth S. Trump of the National School Safety and Security Services, in School Safety Left Behind? School Safety Threats Grow as Preparedness Stalls and Funding Decreases: NASRO 2004 National School-Based Law Enforcement Survey, notes that over a third of the SROs (37.4%) believed that gang activity in their schools had increased, another third (38%) believed gang activity had remained the same, and only 8.4% believed gang activity had decreased.

 

School-Based Prevention Programs

 

STUDENTS AGAINST VIOLENCE EVERYWHERE

After Alex Orange was shot and killed in Charlotte, North Carolina, while trying to stop a fight in 1989, his classmates at West Charlotte High School decided to organize the group Students against Violence Everywhere (SAVE). SAVE (2006, http://www.nationalsave.org/main/statistics.php) has grown far beyond Orange's high school; in 2006 it had more than 1,650 chapters with 189,000 student members. The organization is active in elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States. Members have their own "colors": orange for Alex Orange and purple for peace and nonviolence.

The group focuses on violence prevention and on helping kids gain life skills, knowledge, and an understanding of the consequences of violence and crime. SAVE helps members overcome negative peer pressure situations through the development of positive peer interactions. It also plans safe activities, including cosponsor-ship of the National Youth Violence Prevention Campaign. During the weeklong campaign participants spend each day focused on one aspect of violence prevention. For example, the first day seeks to "promote respect and tolerance," and other days focus on anger management, conflict resolution, school and community safety, and unity.