NCJ Number
79413
Date Published
1981
Length
32 pages
Annotation
The proposals by New York State and city officials to combat rising crime in the State by developing harsher penalties and relaxing constitutional standards for criminal justice are criticized and alternative recommendations are presented.
Abstract
In response to the public's increasing fear of crime, public leaders have been calling for such measures as longer sentences and mandatory terms for certain offenders, restoration of capital punishment, permiting preventive detention, increasing prison capacity, and limiting the application of the exclusionary rule related to search and seizure. Such measures not only abandon longstanding democratic and civil libertarian traditions, but also are based on faulty data and the mistaken assumption that the criminal justice system can solve the crime problem. Instead of the proposed measures, the criminal justice system should provide speedier adjudication, reduce unnecessary pretrial detention, develop community service programs and restitution as alternatives for defendants who need not be imprisoned or fully prosecuted, and improve service to crime victims. In addition, public officials should work with private groups such as the Fortune Society and the Vera Institute to make these and other improvements in the criminal justice system. The most important effort which should be undertaken is the revitalization of the economy with the development of new, community-based enterprises to create jobs for young people and others whose only opportunity now consists of committing street crime. Such an approach will change the conditions which create the crime problem. A total of 78 reference notes and membership lists of the National Executive's Committee and the advisory council of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency are provided.