Criminal Justice, Annotated Bibliography Example

Aizenman, N.C. “The high cost of incarceration.” The Washington Post (2008). Print. Points out the issues for the state government with regards to the costs of incarceration. The authos states facts with numbers in relation to this issue, and analyzes the data found. The author claims that incarceration is not worth all its costs, and the governemtn is spending too much on this. One of his findings point out the number of American teens who are currently incarcerated within the criminal justice system, and he provides data and statistics of how many people are imprisoned this year, and a summary of their costs. He deals with findings which he obtains through reports from sources such as The Pew Center, and gathers very recent information regarding incarcertaion. Along with this data, he includes very specific numbers and statistics, pointing out what race, gender and age brackets contribute to those who are currently incarcerated in the criminal justice system. The author also compares the data he finds with data of the incarcerated in other countries and compares them with the United States. He finds that the United States is the leading country with the greatest percentage of incarcerated. He also claims that taxpayers are suffering due to this. The author’s credibility is that he is a writer for The Washington Post, specializing in legal articles, mostly criminology.

Donohue, John and Justin Wolfers. “Does the Death Penalty Deter?” Wilson Quarterly 30.2 (2006). Print. The article is about a debate on whether the United States should retain capital punishment, and the question of the study is whether capital punishment deters murder or not. It is argued that capital punishment may desensitize society. Date was analyzed by the researchers and they found that capital punishment does not have a deterrent effect. The authors write about the death penalty, and if it is an effective means of deterring murder or homicides. It is found in their study that the death penalty does not do this, and it increases the chances of actually brutalizing society. The authors tested these findings and compared them with original studies which covered a different time period. These included comparison groups, using alternative analytical techniques and also changing the variables. Their difficulty in the study occurred because executions happen very rarely in the United States, and there was not enough data on the subject. This makes it hard to come to accurate conclusions regarding the issue. Also, the large changes in rates which occur year to year in homicides make the study difficult to conduct since there are constantly changing variables. The credibility of the authors are that they are researchers/business professors from Yale University.

Gertner, Nancy. “Confronting the Costs of Incarceration: Supporting Advisory Guidelines.” Harvard Law & Policy Review 3.2 (2009). Print. This article states that advisory sentencing guidelines may come off as unrelated to the issue of concern which is that the failed experiment of mass incarceration. However, there is infact a link with the concerned topic and the costs of incarceration, as the author finds. There are a lot of mandatory minimums in sentencing as applied by state laws and statues. Though, the number of incarcerated has greatly increased since the 1980s. This has been said to be fueled by the governments’ need to put on harsher sentencings to law violaters. This has largely contributed to the costs being spent on the criminal justice system, which taxpayers have to shell-out money for. It is because of the renewed Federal Sentence Guidelines that have placed political pressure on creating a more rational punishment system, in turn placing more people in jail, increasing the costs of incarceration along with it. The Federal Guidelines were said to be built on top of two purposes of sentencing – retribution and incapacitating. The author of this study is very credible because she is a judge in the criminal justice system. Therefore, she has the experiences needed to be able to determine the problems which are ongoing within the system. She has had enough time around people who work for the system and within the system to be able to point out what is is lacking, and what can be fixed.

Nagin, Daniel S. “Thoughts On The Broader Implications Of The ‘Miracle Of The Cells’.”Criminology & Public Policy 7.1 (2008): 37-42. The research study conducted experiments which provided information on the most effective means of treatment within the criminal justice system in regards to its incarcerated. This study is an experimental study of intervention on the payments of court-ordered financial obligations. It is afinding within the research that court-ordered fines cannot be dealt with seriously. The study involves experiments on these interventions and their outcomes. The outcomes were then analyzed in terms of how much they are directly costing for the criminal justice system. This has to do with the increasing population of the incarcerated, and how to effectively keep them in line. It has been found that ways of keeping them incapacitated have been costing the government a lot of money, and there needs to be new ways in going about this. These studies made it possible for the criticisms to provide answers to the much needed questions and recommendations the study is looking for. Studies have find that individuals who have committed a nonserious offense are required to pay a court-ordered fine, after this, they will be labelled with a delinquent status. This is instead of incarererating those of misdemeanor offenses, raising the population of the incarcerated and causing a problem of space within jails, and in turn costing the government money through which they will get from taxpayers.

Reinhard, Christopher. “Cost of Incarceration and Cost of a Career Criminal”. 13 February 2008. 2 October 2010. Web. <http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0099.htm>. The author of this article is a senior attorney, specializing in criminology. He is a credible author because he has worked within the justice system and is familiar of how things run. The article answers the question of the costs of incarceration and also the costs of having a career criminal on the street. This study is focused in Connecticut. The author gathered information from the Office of Fiscal Analysis, this information is the annual costs of incarcerating an inmate. All the information included fringe benefits, statewide allocation and program distribution. Also, information from the Deparment of Correction was found, and they calculated the cost of bulding and equipment depreciation in terms of jail facilities. The study made the use of charts and data to analyze these findings and come to conlusions in which a recommendation can be implemented. However, the costs of a career criminal were not discovered, however a study by a one Professor Mark Cohen from Vanderbilt University was able to break down a lifetime of costs which were imposed by a career criminal. This study focused on a target population of chronic juvenille offenders and was used in Reinhard’s study to back up his own study. Reinhard broke down all the costs to incarcerate an offender in a Connecticuit facility and provided the information in tables.

–Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “Death Row Facts.” 6 March 2007. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 1 October 2010. Web. <http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/drowfacts.htm>. This website of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice offers statistics and data collected throughout history in order to come up with reliable facts about the death row in texas. It provides a brief on the hisory of the death row, and how capital punishment was administered. They gave statistics on how many brothers were executed together, the last one being during the year 1999 by lethal injection. The information about how the styles of executions have changed over time. The article gives statistics and data on the most notorious of criminals, and how they were dealt with. The webpage also provides a list of Capital Offenses according to Texas law, and Capital Punishment in the United States. This information was retrieved from the Bureau of Justice and Statistics and was analyzed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The webpage also provides information on the properties of the lethal injection, and how much it would cost to administer it. Tables were provided regarding information on the average time a person spends from death row to execution. The shortest time comes up to almost a year. Also, information on the longest time spent in death row, the youngest as well as the eldest during execution. This source is relable because it is a government website.