The Armed Career Criminal Act: Imprecise, Indeterminate, and Unconstitutional

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schearer
Keyword(s):  
Career Criminal

Justice-Involved Women

Affilia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Karyn Allen
Keyword(s):  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
Community Reintegration ◽  
Holistic Model ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Community Reentry ◽  
Career Criminal ◽  
Persistent Offender ◽  
Incarcerated Population

Women are the fastest growing sector of the incarcerated population. Community reentry is challenging for both men and women. However, pathways out of crime and reintegration have been found to be more complex for women. This article uses empowerment and narrative theories as conceptual frameworks and to contextualize the findings of this exploratory study. The findings indicate that self-identifying as persistent offender and/or career criminal, together with marginalization (ethnicity, poverty, and education) impact redemptive narratives of justice-involved women and their ability to create successful lives after incarceration. Using regression models, this study aimed to create a holistic model that integrated both micro and macro factors to better understand the complexities for community reintegration for justice-involved women. It sought to frame the experience of reintegration and the desistance process with a feminist lens, drawing greatly from community reentry literature in an era of mass incarceration.

Prisons, Deterrence, and Incapacitation

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
Michael Gottfredson ◽  
Travis Hirschi
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Criminal Careers ◽  
Criminal Career ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
Career Criminal ◽  
Theory Of Crime ◽  
Offender Typologies

Modern control theory doubts the effectiveness of criminal sanctions to affect the crime rate substantially. This view is contrasted with the expectations of the criminal career perspective, a leading view on the nature of crime and the role of the criminal justice system in controlling crime by deterrence and incapacitation. The contrast is illustrated with differing expectations about how age is related to crime (including serious offending), the importance of the versatility effect for offending, and evidence about how changes in incarceration levels are expected to be related to crime rates. On all counts, the results of competent contemporary research support the expectations of the general theory of crime over the expectations of criminal career/career criminal traditions. The research on statistical modeling and offender typologies in the criminal careers tradition has not provided consistent or replicated results demonstrating that criminal sanctions effectively incapacitate or deter offending. Control theory is inconsistent with mass incarceration, with the belief that increasing severity of sanctions reduces crime rates either by incapacitation or by deterrence, and notes that crime tends overwhelmingly to decline with age for all offenders beginning in early adulthood.

The Life-without-Parole Sanction: Its Current Status and a Research Agenda

1988 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derral Cheatwood
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Repeat Offenders ◽  
Life Without Parole ◽  
Career Criminal ◽  
Political Conditions

As of January 1, 1987, 29 states have life-without-parole statutes. These laws are divided into capital offender statutes that most commonly apply the sanction for aggravated homicide, and career criminal statutes that apply the sanction to repeat offenders under specified conditions. Although both types are life-without-parole statutes, they are directed at two very different offender populations and probably arise from divergent social and political conditions. Further, the capacity of the executive to release through commutation makes the life-without-parole statutes less substantial than is commonly believed. Some of the problems that increased use of this sanction may create are discussed, and a research agenda to prepare for these problems before they arrive is suggested.

Is Burglary a Violent Crime? An Empirical Investigation of the Armed Career Criminal Act’s Classification of Burglary as a Violent Felony

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 663-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip M. Kopp
Keyword(s):  
Violent Crime ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
National Crime Victimization Survey ◽  
Crime Victimization ◽  
Violent Offense ◽  
Drug Offense ◽  
Career Criminal ◽  
Three Strikes Law ◽  
Three Strikes

Traditionally considered a non-violent property offense, burglary is nonetheless classified as a violent crime under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The ACCA, a three-strikes law that provides a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, is triggered when an offender, who has been previously convicted for a crime classified under the ACCA as either a “violent felony” or “serious drug offense,” is convicted at the federal level for any felony committed while in possession of a firearm. The present study investigated the ACCA’s classification of burglary as violent through analysis of National Crime Victimization Survey data for the period of 2009 to 2014. Results showed that burglary is overwhelmingly a non-violent offense. The national incidence of actual violence or threats of violence during a burglary was 7.9%. At most, 2.7% of burglaries involved actual acts of violence. Legislative reform of the ACCA classification to match the empirical description of burglary is discussed.

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