Abstract This work is a short examination of the primary habits and characteristics of serial killers. Some of the serial killers profiled include famous names like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam). Subjects explored concerning the killers include method, family background, and religious background.
From the Paper Murders are committed everyday in this world. Many people constantly walk in fear that some person lurking in the shadows will jump out with a weapon and kill them. Even though people fear all types of killers, perhaps the most feared types of killers are serial in nature. These people kill repeatedly and often torture their victims before their murderous outburst. Athough most serial killers share a few characteristics in common, they are all quite unique in one way or another.
Abstract The paper shows that while the use of psychological interrogation methods is currently permissible by the courts in Canada, Great Britain and the U.S.A., many researchers argue that psychological interrogation is, in essence, no different than blatant coercion. Confession Law has slowly evolved over time alongside the evolution of interrogation methods. The paper discusses how prior to the 18th Century, English Common Law accepted confessions without any restrictions, which allowed confessions extracted through torture to be accepted as viable representations of objective truth. Today, the bottom line on the admissibility of confessions is that they are "typically excluded if elicited by physical violence, by a threat of harm or punishment, by a promise of leniency or immunity from prosecution, or by failure to notify a suspect of his or her constitutional rights to counsel and silence" (Kassin & McNall, 1991). The paper shows that despite these seemingly stringent laws regarding the admissibility of confessions, psychological interrogation methods are adept at circumventing the law, and continue to employ methods that run the risk of eliciting false confessions. This paper reviews the literature on Psychological Interrogation methods, false confessions and the implications of both.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Psychological Interrogation Tactics
Inside the Interrogation Room
Custodial Legal Advice & The Right to Silence
Psychological Interrogation Functioning as Coercion
Police Interrogations and Confessions
Communicating Promises and Threats by Pragmatic Implication
False Confessions
Occurrence of False Confessions
Creation of False Confessions
An Empirical Study On Recall
Discourse Study
Interrogative Suggestibility & Delinquent Boys
Psychological Characteristics of False Confessors
Consequences of False Confessions
From the Paper "Interrogation, as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary, is the act of "questioning; formally and systematically." Interrogations within criminal justice systems are used to gather information relevant to investigations, and more importantly, to elicit confessions from suspects. Methods of interrogation have changed drastically throughout history, but the ultimate goal of obtaining confessions has held constant. While the whips and chains of the past have now exited the western world's interrogation rooms, many scholars argue that today's suspects are still subjected to psychological tortures. Psychological Interrogation is the most recent approach used by law enforcement officials to extract information from suspects."
Tags: applied, brutality, deprivation, police, psychology, sleep, social
Abstract Why do people perform criminal acts? Is it something in their genes? Something in the hand of fate? Is it something that they learn the way that other people learn to recite the names of the presidents or their parents' trade?
From the Paper "Social Learning Theory and Control Theory: A comparison of two models for criminal behavior
Why do people perform criminal acts? Is it something in their genes? Something in the hand of fate? Is it something that they learn the way that other people learn to recite the names of the presidents or their parents' trade?
Many criminologists, along with a high percentage of the sociologists and social psychologists that have studied criminal behavior, have selected this final explanation: People learn to be criminals in the same way that people learn any other kind of voluntary behavior. Scholars who believe this to be the case are adhering to social learning theories - or to related differential association theories - of criminality."
Abstract "In spite of a number of challenges, capital punishment has been affirmed by the Court and continues to be enforced. There is considerable public support for the death penalty, much of it related to a general trend toward demanding harsher penalties for criminals because of a fear of street crime and violence.
From the Paper "In spite of a number of challenges, capital punishment has been affirmed by the Court and continues to be enforced. There is considerable public support for the death penalty, much of it related to a general trend toward demanding harsher penalties for criminals because of a fear of street crime and violence. The death penalty is held out as a deterrent, and yet there is a relative balance in the evidence supporting and denying that effect. Though proponents and opponents of the death penalty may argue over such data as can be found on issues of this sort, a more basic question is simply whether capital punishment is the right sort of thing for an advanced society to use. If an automatic death penalty were instituted for all cases of first degree murder, this change would not be likely to have the effect that proponents of the death penalty might hope."
A discussion of the effectiveness and failures, origins in the 20th Century, purposes, procedures, state laws, arrest and detention, determination of status, hearings, examples, commitment and confinement of the juvenile justice system.
2,475 words (approx. 9.9 pages), 14 sources, 1999, $ 87.95
From the Paper "Juvenile Justice System
Introduction
This research paper summarizes the principal features of the juvenile justice system in the United States and comments on some major issues facing it. The juvenile justice system involves all the parties involved in dealing with the juvenile, parents and surrogate parents, schools, the police and prosecutors, probation departments, the courts, correctional institutions and a variety of community and social agencies which deal with the juvenile after he or she comes into contact with the law.
Origins and Broad Trends
Judge L. P. Edwards (1992) explained:
Established in the later nineteenth century, the juvenile court was for some a humanitarian institution intended to..."
From the Paper "Causes of Prison Overcrowding: A Research Proposal
Background on the Problem
Prison overcrowding and the costs associated with operating prisons have developed as major public issues over the past two decades (Eckl, 1994). The increase in violent crime in the United States in the 1970s, together a plea bargaining process that often appeared to favor offenders, led to public outcries to get tougher on crime. Both President Reagan and President Bush tapped this vein of public discontent by successfully, if inaccurately, by labeling their opponents as being soft on crime. Other politicians, particularly at the state level, jumped on the tough on crime bandwagon.
Statement of the Problem
One outcome of all of this activity were new sentencing..."
Abstract This paper investigates a few theories which together make up a new theory explaining criminality. This synthesized theory makes statements such as that behaviors and personalities are inherited and that a person should just accept it. The author illustrates how the importance lies in the combination of all the theories taught previously.
From the Paper "The second part of the nature vs. nurture theory suggests that behaviors and personality traits are nurtured, or encouraged through a series of events?whether good or bad. The second element of the "synthesized theory" says that when those two theories are combined with a new theory, such as studying generations of criminals, we have an entirely different approach to dealing with crime. This new "synthesized theory" can be named "generational studies" for the purpose of discussion."
This paper analyzes and examines the multitude of issues related to the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. JonBenet Ramsey was a six-year-old girl from Boulder, Colorado, murdered on Christmas Day in 1996.
Abstract The paper outlines the major elements of the case, including the facts surrounding the murder and the evidence collected. The paper then evaluates the published statements of material witnesses. It also examines the arguments of a former Boulder Police investigator and his suspicions regarding the identity of the killer. Lastly, this paper concludes with preliminary summarizations and recommendations for further investigation.
From the Paper "A month later, Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter identified the Ramseys as ?the obvious focus of the investigation.? A year after JonBenet's murder, police basically had two theories about the case: (1) that someone entered the Ramseys? house through unknown means, possibly sexually abused then brutally, yet silently, killed JonBenet, hid her body, took the time to write a long ransom note, then left unheard and unseen; or (2) that someone who was in the house that night committed the horrible crime."
Abstract This paper looks at how the amount of crime increases every day and how governments are working over time to fight this disaster and reduce it. It shows how some countries adopt capital punishment as one of the best ways of deterring crime and how others that have abolished capital punishment are trying to show the negligible effect of this kind of punishment. It examines how the United States of America, the only western country that uses death penalty suffers from a huge amount of offense from other countries. It evaluates how statistics have proved that there is no real positive effect with capital punishment and what makes capital punishment ineffective are errors in judgments such as lack of justice and natural mistakes.
From the Paper "In addition, the positive effects of death penalty on rate of crime are not proved. For many years it was thought that capital punishment is a deterrence of crime but later, when statistics became expanded, statisticians express that the idea that states with capital punishment have a lower crime rate is wrong. McManus (1998) expresses that states without the death penalty have fewer homicides than states those use death penalty. Massachusetts that has been abolished the death penalty, as an example, has the fewest crime rates in the United States of America (McManus, M., 1998). Similarly, Bonner and Fessenden (2000) illustrate that during the last twenty years, the rate of murder in states with capital punishment has been forty eight percent to more than one hundred percent higher than states with no capital punishment."
Discusses the 1966 Supreme Court decision on suspect's rights to counsel & silence. Examines background, significance, legal need for, provisions, exclusionary rule and effectiveness.
1,800 words (approx. 7.2 pages), 7 sources, 1987, $ 63.95
From the Paper "Perhaps no other ruling of the Earl Warren Supreme Court era has fanned emotions to the degree of Miranda vs. Arizona. Decided on June 13, 1966, the court ruled in Miranda that a confession could not be used in court if the suspect, once in police custody, was not informed of his right to counsel and his right to remain silent.
In the years intervening between Miranda and today, the ruling has come under considerable fire. Most recently, Attorney General Edwin Meese has publicly stated that the Justice Department will seek to overturn Miranda at the earliest possible opportunity (Baker 134). The purpose of this research is to defend the positions taken by the Warren court in Miranda, and to indicate why the ruling should stand."
From the Paper "The purpose of this research is to review the white collar crime phenomenon in the United States. White collar crime is non violent in and of itself, although, in some instances, such as money laundering, it may derive from some form of violent crime. White collar crime also involves theft, although not in the forms of burglary, shoplifting, or employee theft of goods.
White collar crime assumes many manifestations. In this research, three forms of white collar crime are examined, as they are representative of the overall problem. The three forms of white collar crime considered are embezzlement, money laundering, and insider stock trading.
EMBEZZLEMENT
Embezzlement is the "unlawful, fraudulent taking of money or (...)"
A focus on police corruption and issues such as drug abuse, trafficking, bribery, abuse of power and illegal agreements with criminals. Including case examples
3,600 words (approx. 14.4 pages), 12 sources, 1989, $ 127.95
From the Paper " The purpose of this paper is to discuss the topic of police corruption. It will consider the nature of police corruption and the extent of the problem as well as the various possible causes for it. It will additionally provide case examples regarding police corruption that have appeared in news articles in recent years. Finally, the paper will consider suggestions for possible remedies to the problem of police corruption.
Police corruption has been defined as the "misuse of authority by a police officer in a manner designed to produce personal gain for the officer or for others" (Carter and Stephens 6). Corruption in this sense can take on a variety of forms. For example, an unscrupulous officer may indulge in corrupt practices for the purpose of financial gain. In another instance, an officer may engage in corruption in order to cover..."
This paper discusses the causes and effects of inmate prison violence in America: Riots, day-to-day physical and psychological abuses, hopelessness, overcrowding, gangs, racial issues and possible solutions.
1,800 words (approx. 7.2 pages), 9 sources, 1990, $ 63.95
From the Paper "This paper will be concerned with the causes and effects of inmate prison violence in America. Violence in prisons is usually dramatized in the form of prison riots, such as the one that broke out at Attica State Prison in New York in September, 1971. In that riot, the prisoners took thirty-eight guards and civilian workers hostage for a period of four days. The Attica situation came to a violent and bloody end when state police stormed the prison, and thirty-two prisoners and nine guards and employees were killed. Another highly publicized prison riot took place in 1983 at Ossining State Prison (formerly known as Sing Sing) in New York. In that uprising, prison inmates held seventeen guards hostage for two days, "freeing them only after inmate demands were read over television". It has been noted that ... "
From the Paper "The book Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman is the true account of a novelist about the fact that his brother is sentenced to prison for life for murder, something the novelist's brother tries to understand and with which he has to cope. The first question he considers is why his brother ends up in prison while he goes a very different direction in life. He further questions the meaning of criminal behavior and how it develops. He examines the nature of the prison system. He must learn to cope with that system as a visitor, an outsider who is given insight by his visits and by letters written by his brother from the inside."
This paper discusses the problem of overcrowding in prisons: Statistics, causes and effects, violence, racial aspects and solutions. Tables and graphs.
1,125 words (approx. 4.5 pages), 10 sources, 1991, $ 39.95
From the Paper "This paper will be concerned with the problem of overcrowding in prisons. Between the years 1970 and 1985, the prison population in the United States tripled. This growth was particularly noticeable during the decade of the 1980's.
In 1978, for example, the number of American prisoners totaled 158,394. By 1985, that figure had risen to a total of 490,000 prisoners. In 1989, it was reported that nearly 628,000 Americans were in prison, with an additional 150,000 "in local jails, sometimes for months, awaiting trial"
Graph 2 provides a visualization of this dramatic increase in the American prison population between the years 1980 and 1988. Prison overcrowding has resulted from the fact that there ... "
