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Attitudes Toward The Way Courts Deal With Criminals, Chelsea Van Aken
Attitudes Toward The Way Courts Deal With Criminals, Chelsea Van Aken
Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science
The way courts treat criminals depends on a variety of factors. This paper examines how age, sex, and race affect an offender’s treatment during sentencing. These variables were collected using the 2010 General Social Survey and were tested using the SPSS 20.0 Student Version Statistical Software. The independent variables include age, race, and sex, while the dependent variable is the way courts deal with criminals. The hypotheses that were tested stated that older individuals, nonwhite persons, and men would believe that courts deal too harshly with criminals. The conclusion found that none of the variables showed a significant correlation; therefore, …
The Unfair Sentencing Act: Racial Disparities And Fiscal Consequences Of America's Drug Laws, Kristin Zimmerman
The Unfair Sentencing Act: Racial Disparities And Fiscal Consequences Of America's Drug Laws, Kristin Zimmerman
Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science
In 1986, the United States government attempted to combat the perceived war on drugs by enacting mandatory drug laws, with a primary focus on incarcerating crack offenders. The result of this was a mass influx of African Americans to US penitentiaries and minimal to zero reduction of crack convictions. Because the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 recognized 100 grams of cocaine as equivalent to one gram of crack, it has been perceived not as a war on drugs, but as a war on a war on minorities. The mass incarceration of drug offenders also led to severely damaging fiscal consequences …