1. Criminal Justice Process:
Sentencing and Corrections
Chapter 15

2. Final stage of criminal justice system
Sentencing
By judge or the jury
Determines the defendant’s fate for years/life

3. Sentencing Options
Basic guidelines for setting sentencing are set by statutes.
Judges generally determine the appropriate sentence
Options judges use:
Suspended sentence – allowing to serve at a later time
Releasing the defendant to a probation officer
Home confinement -Allowing to serve time at home
Judge may issue a fine
Restitution- Require defendant to pay back the victim
Work release- Allow defendant to work in the community in the day, nights goes back to prison
Most severe --- imprisonment or death

4. Three Strikes Law
Increases the prison sentences of persons convicted of a felony who have been previously convicted of two or more violent crimes or serious felonies, and limits the ability of these offenders to receive a punishment other than a life sentence
Reflects the get-tough attitude toward crime

5. Purposes of Punishment
Four reasons given for punishing convicted defendants:
Retribution
Deterrence
Rehabilitation
incapacitation

6. Retribution Punishment should involve some form of payback
“An eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth”

7. Deterrence
Punishment will discourage others from engaging in future criminal activities

8. Rehabilitation
Time in prison will allow the prisoner to change his or her ways and learn how to function as a productive member of society.

9. Incapacitation
Removes individual from society in order to make the community safe from the threat he or she posed.

10. Parole
The release of a convicted person from prison before the entire sentence has been served
It is a privilege granted to those the seem to have reformed and appear ready to rejoin society

11. Capital Punishment AKA death penalty Highly controversial topic
The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment under certain circumstances.

12. Corrections
Several treatment and punishment options available to the government.
Halfway houses
Mental facilities
Prisons
Some correctional system focus on preparing prisoner to re-enter society

13. The End
Test – next class on key terms and main concepts of chapter 12, 13, 14, 15