Crime and Justice Research Paper

Zahid Chowdhury

CRJ 425 Senior Seminars

Annotated Bibliography

“Crime and Justice”

Beccaria, C. (1764) Of crimes and punishment. Retrieved October 15, 2014, from http://www.constitution.org/cb/crim_pun.htm.

Beccaria talks about the idea of punishment on the criminal acts done by individuals but also condemns the notion of torture and the death penalty. He believes that without a working judicial system crimes will only increase and there will be no stabilization. Beccaria didn’t go to in depth with the general and the specifications of deterrence but he generalized the use of laws and punishments. In my paper his opinion on how to make the criminal justice system stronger in many areas can come of use, even though his work was published many years ago America still uses many of his ideas in their system today, but lost their way of punishing and controlling the criminals.

Bradley, G. V. (2003).Retribution: The central aim of punishment. Harvard Journal Of Law & Public Policy, 27(1), 19-31.

Gerard Bradley talks about the idea of Retribution and how this idea can actually help lower the percentage of crimes that happen in many societies today. He believes that if the criminal gets the right amount of punishment for the crime he has committed then the individual will never try to do something like this again. Retribution is used to make sure the person doesn’t get the upper advantage than everyone else, and if the person does he will be taken away a privilege that was given to him by the laws of society. This article goes with my paper because it talks about the necessary punishment needed to show people that there are consequences in the end rather than because it was a small crime we will let it go, no one should have the upper hand than everyone. If the system lets criminals go by everyone will do certain acts because they now know the system is flawed.

Hobbes, T., & Gaskin, J. C. (1998). Leviathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hobbes talks about punishment to where a single sovereign punishes the person of breaking the law. When people transfer from a state of nature and surrender their will to the sovereign they are giving up their rights to the leader and must follow only one set of rules. Hobbes does mention that when contracts are made there has to be 3 groups involved, one that sees over the transaction of the two parties. Some limitations in Hobbes is that the single sovereign controls what type of punishment is given to all crime, there is no second voice to his decision. Hobbes article can help me in my paper because it describes the idea of contracts and what a leader needs to do to control his citizens as well as consequences men go through when not in contract or breaking the contract.

Bentham, Jeremy. 1907. An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved October 15, 2014 from the World Wide Web: http://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthPML.html

Bentham, in his writing, talks about the “good” and “evil” in the legislation of a society. He creates categories as measurements for the idea of punishment to see whether or not punishing someone creates more evil or makes good to the society. He believes that when one goes through to pursue their own single happiness they will encounter difficulties rather than pleasure. Laws are set forth for society’s pleasure, so everyone can act accordingly. Bentham’s article is great for my paper because he talks about the greater good of the society and wants legislatures to create such laws that can help the society greatly and make fewer punishments occur. There has to be a sort of system that can regulate society so it can meet the highest amount of pleasure and the least amount of suffering for its people.

Packer, H. L. (1968). The limits of the criminal sanction. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Packer discusses two different types of model, the crime control and the due process, where both models hold different values. Both models have their own way of showing how to control and prevent uprising of power throughout our criminal justice system, where balance must be met for everyone in every stage. His ideas on these models give both the police and the person an equal amount of fairness so that the scale doesn’t tip to one side. The only problem I might have with his models is that both can’t really exist together, but his ideas of how to improve the justice system can help throughout my paper.