Chapter 12 Two “liberal” topics in this chapter: (1) Justice/Compliance (& discrimination) (2) Decriminalization I’ll add additional material to both!

Chapter 12 What does “compliance with the law” mean (as a policy approach) - would increased compliance work better than trying to force people to obey the law (conservative approaches)?

Chapter 12 How does compliance relate to perceived legitimacy of the law?

Chapter 12 Why is the perception of fair process so important to legitimacy and compliance? fair process (rather than simply outcomes) is the key to perceived “fairness” (Walker’s example is a grade appeal!!!)

Chapter 12 How can the CJS “build legitimacy”  outreach – community relations  elimination of bias - discrimination much more on this later!!  decrim – less arbitrary imposition of values -- irrationality undermines law!!

Chapter 12 Decriminalization What kinds of behavior do Morris and Hawkins advocate decriminalizing? “Victimless crimes” “Public Health Problems”

Chapter 12 Public drunkenness, drug offences, gambling, disorderly conduct/vagrancy, sexual behavior - public and private Juvenile status offenses Abortion

Chapter 12 What are the six rationales for decrim? - Overburdened CJS - Divisive and arbitrary enforcement - Deviant economies (“black markets”) - Corruption (police, etc.) - Privacy and freedom issues - Ineffective - makes most problems worse

Chapter 12 How does the question of values affect the decrim debates? Leads to volatile politics - whose values? Liberal view - Law should not be used where there is no strong public consensus - because this “de-legitimates” law.

Chapter 12 Can decrim of drunkenness, abortion, sex, and gambling decrease serious crime? Walker - drugs & prostitution maybe (would lower crimes directly connected?) Others - no I think Walker is wrong, in several ways!!

Chapter 12 Criminalization of drugs, sex, and gambling creates illegal economies which leads to other crimes - violence, exploitation, etc. Decrim would create legal economies and legal jobs.

Chapter 12 Decrim could dismantle illegal economies and replace them with legal economies and this would probably reduce crime. There are also more subtle decrim issues -- like abortion and crime More about this later

Chapter 12 Would eliminating injustice reduce crime? especially discrimination Walker overlooks several points about discrim -- class discrim?? (against poor) -- and race/ethnic discrim

Chapter 12 Class discrim throughout the CJS is part of the basic organization of the system -- dual systems based on class It’s hard to imagine how poor people could ever be convinced that our legal system is fair

Chapter 12 and I also completely disagree with Walker’s view of race/ethnic discrimination --- I think that this is more than a perceptual problem -- there really is significant race/ethnic discrim in the system (of course this overlaps with class discrim)

Chapter 12 Two major discussions I want to add here: 1. Recent research on abortion and crime 2. A different view of race/ethnic discrim