Legal Policy Memorandum: Proposing a Solution to a Negative Criminal Justice Issue
MEMORANDUM
To: District attorney
From: Assistant Prosecutor
Re: Proposing a Solution to a Negative Criminal Justice Issue
Date: February 22, 2017.
Issue Presented: With the cases of criminal justice issues such as the use of force by the police officers in arresting the criminals, which in some cases leads to the death of the offenders and innocent lives, what is the solution for dealing with these negative criminal issues?
Short Answer: At the center of the debate on how to halt the criminal justice issues, a conversation regarding the inequities of the functioning of the criminal justice system has been included (Fooner, 2013). Such inequities mentioned in these discussions include the use of aggressive policing and excessive force. The severity of the criminal sentences based on some ethical and racial disparities have been mentioned. Besides, the prosecution and arrest policies have been an issue of concern in most societies. To be successful in the criminal justice system, leaders have to act ethically while coming up with clear solutions to the crime issues (Shearing & Johnston, 2013). The leaders should also communicate locally to identify such issues and solve them before further negative impacts are realized in the society.
Statement of Facts: On March 11, 2004, there was a report of a series of bombs explosions in four trains in Madrid. “The explosions killed 191 people, wounded 1800 others, and set into motion a full-scale international investigation,” (Kassin, Dror, & Kukucka, 2013, p. 44). From fingerprint identification, the FBI identified Brandon Mayfield an American Muslim with the bombing. Since he was on the FBI watch list, he was roughly identified with no further investigation or chance to defend himself. After the arrest and appearing in a law court for the wrong criminal activity, the Spanish authorities matched the fingerprint to Ouhnane Daoud who was the real bomber for Algeria. “Confirmation bias” was named as the factor that attributed to the arrest of the wrong person (Kassin et al., 2013).
Discussion: The most profound issue related to this incident is that the police used their force to wrongly arrest an innocent person. Being a Muslim may be one of the factors that attributed to his arrest since most of the terrorists are associated with this religion. However, the forensic investigation might end up giving the wrong results if not correctly carried out (Kassin et al., 2013). Based on the scenario, appropriate investigations should be conducted before arresting the criminals. Fooner (2013) argues that arresting should not be biased on the skin color, religion or background of a person as evidenced in this scenario.
Conclusion: Based on the scenario, the U.S. government, agreed on a mistake exhibited by its police force. A conventional justification was made by the administration, and a compensation of two million dollars was paid to Brandon Mayfield. However, this did not lead to coming up with a succinct decision on how to end the negative criminal justice issue. Cases of police shootings without fully analyzed evidence are often reported in the U.S. Besides, arrests without succinct reasons where some innocent lives suffer behind bars are common. Based on racial bias, most blacks live in fear of arrest for the wrong charges.
Recommendations: One of the complexities in proposing a solution to negative criminal justice issue is the crime cycle (Shearing & Johnston, 2013). At some point, an offender may be associated with a criminal case such as the issue Brandon Mayfield being in the criminal watch list of the FBI. However, the offender might have changed into a responsible citizen, but upon a similar criminal issue, he or she might be the first suspect hence reflecting on the wrong perception of the security force. To effectively solve this issue, there is a need to increase the use of special prosecutors whose purpose in the criminal justice system will be to conduct police investigations (Banks, 2012). Enhancing the collection of data in the police facilities will be of the essence in keeping track of the past criminals. This will ensure that there will be no arrest of innocent people based on their past records but the previous conduct. According to Banks (2012), there is a necessity of training all the police forces on the essence of police conduct to avoid negative criminal justice issues in future.
References
Banks, C. (2012). Criminal justice ethics: Theory and practice. California: Sage Publications.
Fooner, M. (2013). Interpol: issues in world crime and international criminal justice. Berlin: Springer.
Kassin, S. M., Dror, I. E., & Kukucka, J. (2013). The forensic confirmation bias: Problems, perspectives, and proposed solutions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2(1), 42-52.
Shearing, C. D., & Johnston, L. (2013). Governing Security: Explorations of policing and justice. New York: Routledge.
