PSCI 010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Jeremy Bentham, Homicide, Uniform Crime Reports
2 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Intro to Course and Role of Public Opinion
Jail: awaiting trial or 1-2 year sentences. County.
Prison: post-sentence, violation of parole - federal
Incarceration Rate: Rate at which citizens are placed in prison, jail, parole, probation, or community service
programs. In the U.S., the incarceration rate is about 730/100,000, 2285/100000 for african americans
Imprisonment Rate: Rate at which citizens are placed in prison.
Burl Cain: Warden of Angola Prison in LA → enforced religion at the slave/company-like prison.
Prison Litigation Reform Act (1996): This is a law passed in 1996 - hard for prisoners to challenge their
confinement in court; stopped a lot of the judiciary from being able to monitor prison institutions; made it
hard to blame wardens and state officials for bad prison conditio
Mass incarceration: Regards the fact that more Americans are incarcerated for increasingly longer periods of time.
Accounting for the people in prison, jail, parole, probation, or community service programs → these are all people
under surveillance of the corrections branch of the government. 1 in 30 people are watched by the state.
●The US accounts for 25% of the world’s incarcerated population, while only having 5% of the actual
population. World leader in incarceration rates.
●5-12X the rate of other western countries.
●Use of punitive sentencing like life in prison, capital punishment, juvenile sentences.
●Disproportionately affects African Americans (400/100,000 white, 2300/100,000 black, 1000/100,000
latino)
Determinate Sentencing: When a jail or prison sentence is definite and can not be taken up or reviewed by a parole
board, inmate will be barred from presenting case to parole board for possible early release.
Indeterminate Sentencing: prison or jail sentence that has no definite length and is at the discretion of the prison
based on the behavior and inmate conduct. Courts are allowed to tailor the sentences of inmates to better fit the
offender’s circumstances and characteristics.
Mandatory Minimums: the requirement of strict prison terms of a certain length depending on the crime
committed.
●These sentences do not give a judge the opportunity to determine the sentence based on the circumstances
of a crime or the perpetrator.
●These policies lead to overcrowding in prisons.
●EX: Rockefeller drug laws that led to minimum sentences for drug sentences in New York, specifically for
the sale and possession of heroin and cocaine.
●These sentences were part of the get tough on crime policies that were implemented as part of the War on
Drugs in the late 70s and 80s.
●Crack cocaine was the only drug that now required a mandatory minimum sentence for the first offense of
simple possession.
○If caught with 5 or more grams, 5 years in prison
Truth-In-Sentencing: policies or legislation advocating for the abolition of parole to ensure that incarcerated
people serve their full sentences.
●An example of this is refusing the release of offenders before they serve at least 85% of their sentence.
Three-Strikes laws: After committing a third crime, a person will be sentenced to anywhere from 25 years to life in
prison without the possibility of parole.
●CA passed this legislation in 1994 and the following 10 years led to 23 other states implementing the same
policy.
●This law is critiqued in that it does allow for the circumstances of a crime to be taken into account.
●“People convicted of a third strike, which could include any felony, no matter how minor, and many
misdemeanors, received a minimum 25-year sentence. They were required to serve 85% of the sentence-- at
least 21 years and 3 months.”
Document Summary
Intro to course and role of public opinion. Incarceration rate: rate at which citizens are placed in prison, jail, parole, probation, or community service programs. In the u. s. , the incarceration rate is about 730/100,000, 2285/100000 for african americans. Imprisonment rate: rate at which citizens are placed in prison. Burl cain: warden of angola prison in la enforced religion at the slave/company-like prison. Mass incarceration: regards the fact that more americans are incarcerated for increasingly longer periods of time. Accounting for the people in prison, jail, parole, probation, or community service programs these are all people under surveillance of the corrections branch of the government. 1 in 30 people are watched by the state. The us accounts for 25% of the world"s incarcerated population, while only having 5% of the actual population. 5-12x the rate of other western countries. Use of punitive sentencing like life in prison, capital punishment, juvenile sentences. Disproportionately affects african americans (400/100,000 white, 2300/100,000 black, 1000/100,000 latino)
