NCJ Number
153221
Editor(s)
R J Bidinotto
Date Published
1994
Length
316 pages
Annotation
Scholars, journalists, and criminal justice professionals address the problem of crime and the criminal justice system's response to it from the premise that individuals bear primary moral responsibility for criminal actions.
Abstract
Five papers examine the issue of who is responsible for crime. These papers posit that criminal behavior is based in the mind and actions of the offender, such that the offender should bear responsibility for the harms caused by his/her behavior. Six papers examine how the criminal justice system tends to facilitate "flight from responsibility" in its processing of defendants. Some of the issues discussed are plea bargaining that undermines the matching of charges to harms done in the actual offense, the use of the exclusionary rule to release the guilty, undermining of the urge to confess, and the insanity defense as a means of denying criminal responsibility. Seven papers in the concluding section recommend ways to implement criminal justice strategies that will place more responsibility on individual offenders for their crimes. Some recommendations are that convicted offenders experience a retribution that matches the harms done in the offense, the complete implementation of sentences, the greater use of incarceration, and the use of community sentencing that emphasizes the offender's moral responsibility for remedying the harms of the offense and modifying the injurious behavior involved in the offense. Chapter footnotes and subject index