One of the most important aspects of a country is its criminal justice system, as this system flows into almost every aspect of the country and more often than not is the defining feature of each country in the world. One country of study that I have found interest in is Colombia, which is a country that has been plagued by a 50 year old civil war conflict and increasing amounts of corruption and human rights violations. Throughout the paper it is noticeable that Colombia has shaped many of their institutions after the U.S. model such as their judicial system and even their criminal penal code, but it is in the small details that make the system flawed. In Colombia, violent conflict between the two dominant political parties, the liberal and conservative party, has steered the political agenda into defending the country from paramilitary and guerilla action and the defense from various drug groups who seek to gain influence over the government. Throughout Colombia’s criminal justice system we see various places where human rights abuses occur such as in the policing system, in corrections with the brutal treatment of prisoners, and even with basic fundamental rights such as the right to free speech and the right to association. This deprivation of liberty is important in establishing a historical profile for Colombia as these issues have only increased over the past 50 years. In this paper I will analyze the various institutions known as the police, the penal system, the court system, criminal procedure, juvenile justice, and even take a look at the political structure of Colombia. It is obvious after an examination of the current crime trends and the current political and human rights situation in Colombia that improvement is not...
... middle of paper ...
...RC and the government of Colombia have reached an agreement on two out of three important topics on the agenda for the peace talks, but there is still a third point about narcotics traffic that has yet to be resolved, although public figures seem to be optimistic. The FARC has asked the U.S. to get involved in these peace talks stating that “these decisions are coming from Washington anyways, so we would like to talk with the U.S. personally” although the U.S. government declines knowledge of these peace talks and refuses to participate. Public opinion about the FARC peace talks has not changed much though, because these peace talks have been established before, to no avail. Even during these peace talks, both the government and the FARC have stated that their activities will continue and the government is still using military means to prevent FARC actions as well.
In El Salvador, the implementation of mano dura resulted in the incarceration of thousands of youths, sometimes based solely on their appearance, associations, or addresses. According to the OAS Hemispheric Security Observatory, between 2004 and 2008 alone, the number of gang members in El Salvador’s jails doubled from 4,000 to 8,000, representing roughly one-third of the total jail population. El Salvador’s 19 prisons, built to hold 8,000 people, held nearly 24,000 in 2012. As a result of such severe overcrowding, many presumed offenders languished in prison for years without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom. Yet still, the gangs continued to grow, and El Salvador’s judicial system became strained to the breaking point.
2. Did you easily find the National Criminal Justice Reference Service when you searched for NCJRS on the search tools?
...es relationship is soaring through trade embargo. The reinforcement of the Colombian National Police force everywhere in Colombia is very secure. People in Colombia are fun loving people willing to teach anyone there culture. Thru trials and error learning from their past the image of Colombia changed for the good.
Saint Augustine once said, “In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” The criminal justice system in America has been documented time and time again as being a legal system that borders on the surreal. We as Americans live in a country where the Justice Department has failed to collect on $7 billion in fines and restitutions from thirty-seven thousand corporations and individuals convicted of white collar crime. That same Justice Department while instead spending more than 350% since 1980 on total incarceration expenditures totaling $80 billion dollars. America has become a place where a 71-year-old man will get 150 years in prison for stealing $68 billion dollars from nearly everyone in the country and a five-time petty offender in Dallas was sentenced to one thousand years in prison for stealing $73.
Mass incarceration has caused the prison’s populations to increase dramatically. The reason for this increase in population is because of the sentencing policies that put a lot of men and women in prison for an unjust amount of time. The prison population has be caused by periods of high crime rates, by the medias assembly line approach to the production of news stories that bend the truth of the crimes, and by political figures preying on citizens fear. For example, this fear can be seen in “Richard Nixon’s famous campaign call for “law and order” spoke to those fears, hostilities, and racist underpinnings” (Mauer pg. 52). This causes law enforcement to focus on crimes that involve violent crimes/offenders. Such as, gang members, drive by shootings, drug dealers, and serial killers. Instead of our law agencies focusing their attention on the fundamental causes of crime. Such as, why these crimes are committed, the family, and preventive services. These agencies choose to fight crime by establishing a “War On Drugs” and with “Get Tough” sentencing policies. These policies include “three strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and juvenile waives laws which allows kids to be trialed as adults.
The current century has witnessed immense improvement and re-conceptualization of standards and sovereignty of human rights in Latin America. With the endemic repression and violations of human rights throughout Latin American in the mid to late 20th century, the International human rights regime, an amalgam of international and intergovernmental organizations and bodies, expanded exponentially. By conducting investigations within certain countries, or simply monitoring overt violations of human rights, the international human rights regime stimulated global awareness of violations of human rights in different countries; soon to follow was change in domestic policy in response to international policy. This also led to increased opposition by domestic NGOs against repressive governments or dictatorships largely responsible for human rights violations. Just as well, a number of organizations and groups aided domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in their growing efforts to establish judicial practices that better protected human rights. Declarations, conventions, and charters, established a number of values that served as the credo for the organizations that constituted the international human rights regime. Over time, more and more countries were pressured and held accountable for these values, which developed into universal standards for human rights practices. Thus the International Human right regime and the pressure they imposed upon governments ultimately resulted in widespread positive changes in human rights.
Colombian citizens experience and live through the good and bad things Pablo does, when Americans only hear about the negative actions Escobar commits. Hearing versus seeing plays a vital role in the difference of perspectives between the Colombians and Americans. In the United States, only hearing about Pablo Escobar leads to confusion among different people as “For what, exactly, isn’t easy to understand without knowing Colombia and his life and times” (15). American civilians not knowing personally know why they hate Escobar reflects poorly on the United States. The media does not inform the general public about all the great and generous things Escobar accomplishes for Colombia, and only publishes the stories of his cartel killing innocent people. From the perspective of Colombians, they only know Escobar as a hero of Colombia as “At his death, Pablo was mourned by thousands. Crowds rioted when his casket was carried into the streets of his home city of Medellin” (15). Colombians create a national mourning day for Escobar after his death, when the Americans celebrate their success in killing him. This represents the difference in opinion of Escobar between the two countries. Pablo made promises and he conqueres them; he said he would end poverty as he provided education and housing to the poorest people inside of Colombia. On the other hand,
The criminal justice system is a group of institutions that work together to protect a society, prevent and control crime, and maintain justice; enforcing the laws regulated by society. As the years have gone by and society has evolved; so have the criminal justice system and its methods to accomplish its role in society. This short analysis will evaluate the main facts that have been affecting the criminal justice system for decades and have influenced the evolution the justice system is enduring in a changing society (Muraski, 2009). Amongst the changes in the system, we will discuss the effect the changes have had on the citizens and how their perceptions have evolved as well.
In Jeanette Schmidt’s article, Transporting Cocaine states, “Colombian cartels would pay the Mexican groups as much as $1,000/kilo to smuggle cocaine into the United States” (Schmidt, 2). The Colombian cartels would then pick up the drugs and resume distribution and sales efforts, making personal profits that are unrecorded. In order to seize these individuals who are growing in power and numbers, the U.S. must control the connections between Mexico and Columbia. Mexico is the biggest transporter amongst Columbia and the U.S. because it shares a border with the U.S. This increasingly poisonous drug trafficking leads to drug dealers...
In Western cultures imprisonment is the universal method of punishing criminals (Chapman 571). According to criminologists locking up criminals may not even be an effective form of punishment. First, the prison sentences do not serve as an example to deter future criminals, which is indicated, in the increased rates of criminal behavior over the years. Secondly, prisons may protect the average citizen from crimes but the violence is then diverted to prison workers and other inmates. Finally, inmates are locked together which impedes their rehabilitation and exposes them too more criminal
The criminal justice system is necessary to society. Without it, there would not be any order. The criminal justice system restores and maintains justice. Everyone’s role is important in the criminal justice system. The prosecutor mainly pursues a case, the defense attorney defends the offender in the case, the victim reports the offense against them, and the criminal cooperates with the courts to get the least possible penalty. Alternative sanctions can help offenders by rehabilitation. The four individuals are vulnerable to victimization, hence each must play his/her role well with substantive evidence to ensure the objective of the achieved system. As stated before, the criminal justice is essential to society it protects innocent citizens and punishes those that do harm.
It wasn't just in Miami that the violence had erupted but also in Colombia. The situation in the country was much worse; the Medellin Cartel which was controlled by Pablo Escobar, The Ochoa Brother, Carlos Lehder, and Jose Rodriguez Gacha controlled much of the drug trade in Colombia. The Medellin Cartel would be at war against the Colombian government; as a result police, judges, and government officials were gunned down on the streets of Columbia. The government had evidence to extradite anyone who was caught acting in drug related crimes. As a result the Cartel made one of the most violent act they have ever committed. On November 6, 1985 the guerrilla group, M19, raided the palace of justice. According to Business Insider the raid took course over 2 days.
In this paper, I propose to talk about how all the three parts of the criminal justice system works and also delve a little bit on the issue of racism in context of the criminal justice system as a lot of people believe that the system most of the times acts keeping the individual’s race in mind.
Conscious efforts to critique existing approaches to questions of crime and justice, demystify concepts and issues that are laden with political and ideological baggage, situate debates about crime control within a socio-historical context, and facilitate the imagination and exploration of alternative ways of thinking and acting in relation to crime and justice. (p. 3).
McLaughlin and Muncie (2012) in their work indicate that “crime is not a self-evident and unitary concept. Its constitution is diverse, historically relative and continually contested.” With this statement, the authors are describing crime as something which is not unique but, on the contrary, it is a fairly normal and widespread event. Moreover, they are stating that crime depends on time and culture and it is shaped by morality and social attitudes. Crime can be linked to different areas such as economics, social status and geography. In this essay, different themes will be discussed: for instance, the main ones are the history of crime, the different types of crime, how to measure crime and the various ideas of crime in different parts of the world.