South University: PSY4999 Criminal Justice Critical Issues Analysis

This assignment for PSY4999 Senior Seminar delves into critical issues facing the criminal justice system, particularly those exacerbated by the post-9/11 environment. It begins with an analysis of the challenges posed by national-level street gangs, such as MS-13, to law enforcement, including violent crimes, drug distribution, and juvenile recruitment. The assignment then explores relevant criminological theories like Life-Course Developmental Theory and Multiple Marginality Theory to explain factors that contribute to juvenile gang involvement. A significant portion is dedicated to the issue of wrongful convictions, examining the causes such as police misconduct, forensic science errors, and procedural misconduct. It highlights the efforts of citizens and organizations, like the Innocence Project, in preventing wrongful convictions and compensating victims. Finally, the assignment addresses a post-9/11 critical issue: cyber attacks, examining the impact of migration, organized crime, and political turbulence. It analyzes the government's response, including the use of cyber operations and funding for cyber-security, while acknowledging the complex nature of these threats and the need for a multi-faceted approach, including addressing underlying social issues.

Running Head: CRIMINAL LAW
CRIMINAL LAW
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
CHALLENGES POSED BY GANGS AGAINST LAW ENFORCEMENT:................................2
THEORY ANALYSIS:...................................................................................................................2
WONGFUL CONVICTIONS AND INNOCENCE PROJECT:....................................................3
COMMON CAUSES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS:............................................................4
 Police Misconduct................................................................................................................4
 Science..................................................................................................................................5
 Snitches.................................................................................................................................5
 Procedural misconduct..........................................................................................................5
POST 9/11 CRITICAL ISSUE:.......................................................................................................5
 Migration..............................................................................................................................6
 Organized Crime...................................................................................................................6
 Political Turbulence..............................................................................................................6
REFERENCES:...............................................................................................................................8

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CHALLENGES POSED BY GANGS AGAINST LAW ENFORCEMENT:
Gangs engage in criminal activities by recruiting their new members in urban, suburban, and
rural regions across the boundaries of United States. They pose following threats to law
enforcement:
Violent Crimes: FBI Uniform crime Reporting of 2009 and 2010 data have stated that regions
like California, Arizona, Illinois, Oklahoma Texas and Florida are responsible for more than
90% of the criminal activities and have substantial gang presence. Conflict between gang and
their rivalry have resulted in increase of crimes and violence of gangs in many jurisdictions. In
2011, officials have reported a spree of murders, stabbings, robberies and drug distribution by
prominent gang organizations amount to more than 16 homicides in that period.
Drug Distribution and Trafficking: this is a serious threat to public safety and stability because
such distribution is conducted with lethal violence. Violent fights over control of drug territory
and enforcement of drug debts is a common occurrence in urban and suburban areas.
Juvenile Gangs: the organizations are recruiting juveniles for their vulnerability and
susceptibility to tactics. In addition, they are targeted to avoid harsh punishments and criminal
sentencing along with their willingness to engage in violence.
THEORY ANALYSIS:
Sampson and Laub (1993, 2005) has proposed Life-Course Developmental Theory which
states that the social factors of a juvenile is the driving factor for them to join gangs. The gang
organizations tend to provide them with social capital and improved relationships with peer

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networks, and their families. However, in interactional theory as proposed by Thornberry and
Krohn (2011), states that the relationship between a juvenile and his anti-social peers had
significant effects on the gang membership in adolescence.
Vigil (2006, 2008, 2010) has explained multiple marginal theory which states that the
youth face economical marginalization including racism and repression with immigration and
ghetto living strain the social controls with family and society resulting in diminishing respect
for law enforcement. However Gilman et al. (2014) has explained social developmental
model comprising of social opportunities like rewards, bonding, trust and anti-social
opportunities like involvement, gang exposure beliefs, risks and so on, leading for juvenile to
join gangs.
WONGFUL CONVICTIONS AND INNOCENCE PROJECT:
No criminal justice system is perfect and such imperfections lead to the miscarriage of
justice. In USA, torture and police misconduct has led to the conviction of the innocents. In
addition, according to Death Penalty Information Centre (2014), in US, more than 143 people
have been released from the death penalty since 1973 on the grounds of innocence.
The legal terms have been dealt in tow concepts, firstly the prevention of wrongful
convictions meaning the investigations, evidences and inquiry should be beyond reasonable
doubt and secondly, compensation for the victims of wrongful convictions.
The citizens have made certain efforts to ensure innocent people are not convicted. In this
aspect, many fictional stories of innocent people wrongly convicted have been abounded
drawing our attention to their plight and loss. Such stories like A lesson before dying (1993), the

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wrong man (1956), my cousin vinny (1992), to kill a mockingbird (1962) were made for the
awareness among the people for such incidents.
There have been many fictional writings like that of Rubin Hurricane Carter (1991) and
Ron Williamson (2006), have given a detailed insight of such dilemma.
The lawyers, journalists and others from social work organizations have started a
movement or resolution called the “innocent movement” or the “innocent revolution” since the
post-conviction DNA testing led to the freeing of prisoners. The revolution has advocated the
rights of the innocent who have been wronged by the state. There have been coercion and
corruption of police work, mistake, false confessions due to torture, unethical and incompetent
lawyers, along with the science has led to legislative changes with the recognition of Innocent
Project. In a conference in 2009, one of the founders of Innocence project had remarked that the
level of self-righteousness is put to test when wrongful conviction takes place. He has afformed
that today’s victim may be tomorrow’s perpetrator and vice versa. Thus, deprivation from rights
and free life leads to various levels of emotional plight.
COMMON CAUSES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS:
There are various causes for wrongful convictions:
 Police Misconduct: According to Covey (2013), Police misconduct causes wrongful
convictions. Police are the preliminary observers and the presenters of the case. They are
the ones who are responsible to investigate, and identify the culprit. However, they may
get mistaken with eyewitness misidentification or false confessions. In other situations,
police can also gain confessions and alibi by the means of coercion, threat or other

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wrongful means. This is done when the biasness is created for one person, the police
continuously frames the person and neglects to look beyong the parameters of that
particular person, leading to wrongful conviction.
 Science: most convictions are later proved as wrongful due to post-conviction DNA
results. Forensic method is a form of junk science, which is applied with little or no
validation of science. Thus, forensic misconduct also leads to such wrongful convictions.
 Snitches: they are part of fraudulent behavior in which the witnesses are paud to testify
against a person leading to his conviction. Such payment of ransom is not disclosed to the
court and may come to knowledge after the person detained is already convicted and is
serving the period of sentence.
 Procedural misconduct: According to Gould et al. (2013) it has been explained that
the most important cause of wrongful conviction is procedural misconduct. This includes
the procedure of litigation and its various stages like eye witness, alibi, lawyers and so
on. misconduct on each stage leads to the miscarriage of justice. Incompetency of the
lawyer is a part of procedural misconduct wherein the innocent is convicted due to failure
of the lawyer to support his case. Ultimate sufferer is the innocent.
POST 9/11 CRITICAL ISSUE:
The issue chosen for the examination is CYBER ATTACKS FROM FOREIGN
COUNTRIES.
Community influences cyber-attacks in following ways:

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 Migration: Migration continues to increase tension across the globe, which results in
difficulty in the enforcement of law in an effective way. Illegal immigrants are difficult to
identify and hence, it threatens national security and public safety.
 Organized Crime: Criminal Organizations have network all over the world to maintain
business among each other. It leads to violence and terrorism including the cyber-
terrorism endangering national security.
 Political Turbulence: Instability of government and continuous strikes, and rivalry
among the inter-governmental parties leads to political turbulence and cyber-criminals
tend to take advantage of such heated situations.
Internet activism called hacktivism had gained the attention of the people to promote some form
of social change. However, hacking still stands as a point of threat to national economy and
security. The recent method adopted by government is to attack the hackers before they attack
the country or targeted company. However, such an act is not lawful under Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act 1986. Recently, president trump has introduced the National Security Presidential
memorandum 13 stating that it shall permit the Defense department wide range of freedom to
launch cyber operations against adversaries of United States. However, the memorandum is
strong shift from Obama rule which had criticized the provisions on the grounds of escalated
conflicts and diplomatic tensions across the world.
The cyber-security industry is engaged in rapid expansion of the network with an
estimation of 10-12% growth by 2021. Business Insider reports that over 655billion$ will be
spent on cyber-security by 2020. The 2019 budget proposal by Trump administration states that
14.983billion$ have been requested for cyber-security funding.

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Thus, lawmakers and government are in continuous effort to control cyber-crimes and are
taking appropriate steps and there have been definitive improvements in the recent years.
Issue of hacking and cyber-security is a complex process, which involves high-
intelligence programming and people from such background. Government has already made
provisions for funding. Appropriate allocation of funds and investment in training of officials for
ethical hacking could be an appreciative step towards fighting cyber-crimes. Along with the issue
of cyber-crimes, government should also focus on its causes and must take necessary steps for
the eradication of such causes and extend support to the migrants and poor people who resort to
wrongful means for earning money.

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REFERENCES:
(2019). Retrieved 13 August 2019, from
https://in.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/68021_Howell_Chapter_5.pdf
2011 National Gang Threat Assessment | Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2019). Retrieved 13
August 2019, from https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-
threat-assessment
Assessment, W. T. (2012). Statement for the Record.
Cawdette, R. (2019). Security in a Digital World | Harvard Political Review. Retrieved 13
August 2019, from http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/security-in-a-digital-world/
Covey, R. (2013). Police misconduct as a cause of wrongful convictions. Wash. UL Rev., 90,
1133.
Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying (1993); A Lesson Before Dying (Ellen M. Krass Prods.
1999)
Fox News, China tries to curb miscarriages of justice as anger over torture, other abuses, grows,
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/27/china-tries-to-curb-miscarriages-justice-as-
anger-over-torture-other-abuses/, Nov. 27, 2013. Ken Armstrong, Steve Mills, and
Maurice Possley, Coercive and Illegal Tactics Torpedo Scores of Cook County Murder
Cases, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-
011216confession,0,1748927.story, Dec. 16, 2001.
Death Penalty Information Center, the Innocence List,

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http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row, last accessed Feb.
18, 2014.
Gilman, A. B., Hill, K. G., Hawkins, J. D., Howell, J. C., & Kosterman, R. (2014). The
developmental dynamics of joining a gang in adolescence: Patterns and predictors of
gang membership. Journal of Research on Adolescenece, 24, 204-219.
Gould, J. B., Carrano, J., Leo, R. A., & Young, J. K. (2013). Predicting erroneous convictions: A
social science approach to miscarriages of justice. Univ. of San Francisco Law Research
Paper, (2013-20).
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960); To Kill a Mockingbird (Brentwood Prods. 1962).
John Grisham, The InnocenT Man: Murder And Injustice In a Small Town (2006) (nonfiction
book about Ron Williamson’s wrongful capital murder conviction in small town
Oklahoma).
Krohn M.D., Ward, J.T., Thornberry, T. P., Lizotte, A., & Chu, R. (2011). The cascading effects
of adolescent gang involvement across the life course. Criminology, 49, 991-1028
Sam Chaiton & Terry Swinton, Lazarus and The Hurricane: The Untold Story Of The Freeing Of
Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (1991)
Smith, A. (2009). In Praise of the Guilty Project: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Growing Anxiety
About Innocence Projects. U. Pa. JL & Soc. Change, 13, 315.
The Wrong Man (Warner Bros. 1956). This movie, starring Henry Fonda and Vera Miles, was
based on the true story of Christopher Emmanuel (“Manny”) Balestrero, a musician who

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was wrongly identified as a bank robber.
My Cousin Vinny (Palo Vista Prods. 1992).
Vigil, J. D. (2010a) gang redux: A balanced anti gang strategy. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press
Vigil, J. D. (2010b). Multiple marginality and human development: Applying research insights
for gang prevention and intervention.
Vigil, J.D. (2006). A multiple marginality framework of Gangs.
Vigil., J. D. (2008). Mexican Migrants in gangs: A second generation history.