Criminal Justice Policy Review

At least one fourth of the New York City subway riders surveyed in a 1986 study carry some form of self protection ranging from guns and knives to mace. The tendency of citizens to carry self protective devices is a source of concern to law enforcement officials who denounce such behavior as needless and potentially harmful. Criminal justice practitioners assert that the likelihood of becoming a victim of violent crime is small, that victims and prospective victims are incompetent in their efforts to protect themselves, and that protection against crime is primarily an area reserved to the state regardless of whether it is effective or not. How is one to explain the practice of carrying devices dedicated to self protection when it persists contrary to the advice and disapproval of criminal justice practitioners?

The exclusionary rule has been the focus of controversy since the United States Supreme Court's decision in Mapp v. Ohio. Over the years the Supreme Court has narrowed both the scope and the applicability of the exclusionary rule in an effort to find an acceptable balance between the deterrence of police misconduct and needs of the law enforcement. However, examination of recent decisions reveals that controversy over the exclusionary rule has not abated. Thus, while the exclusionary has not been abandoned, the future contours of the rule remain uncertain.

Prison overcrowding has become an increasingly urgent problem confronting state governments in the 1980s. This paper provides a detailed description of the causes and effects of overcrowding as viewed by the agencies with the most direct responsibility for dealing with it, state corrections departments. Top-level correctional administrators in the fifty states were asked about the standards they used to define prison capacity, the factors they saw as causing institutional overcrowding, the effects overcrowding was having on their organization and the responses to the problem being made in their state. They were also questioned about the roles played by a variety of potential constituents in relation to their agencies. The results of the survey show that, according to these respondents, overcrowding is having serious negative effects on corrections personnel and physical facilities and that building new institutions is the solution to the problem with the most widespread support among administrators. Governors were the policy actors most frequently reported to be important supporters of corrections.

In an attempt to reduce the number of adjudicated juveniles being committed to the state for placement, the juvenile court in Wayne CountyMichigan implemented three intensive supervision programs to serve as alternatives to commitment. A four-year, randomized evaluation of the programs found them to be cost-effective. An analysis of court processes, however, suggested that the programs gradually came to supplement rather than to displace commitments as intended. The results of this study illustrate how juvenile justice organizations adapt to the presence of alternative programs in ways that dilute their impact.

Unfortunately, racism, perpetrated by virtually all of America's governmental institutions, has long been a fact and problem of American life. Prior research suggests that America's juvenile justice systems have not been void of the negative effects of racism; thus, racial equity in dispositional decisions is a major issue in dispensing juvenile justice. The study presented in this research examined Nebraska Crime Commission data over a consecutive six year period and found, all else being equal, that black youths are usually more likely to receive harsher treatment than are whites in terms of: (1) experiencing pre-hearing detention, (2) being formally prosecuted by petition, and (3) receiving a harsher final penalty. With regard to judging an accused youth to be delinquent, the analysis reveals a reversal of the foregoing relationship between race and harshness of the decision.The research concludes with some policy recommendations to remove racial biases from juvenile justice processing.