North Carolinas Criminal Justice System 2 nd Ed
- Slides: 6
North Carolina’s Criminal Justice System, 2 nd Ed. Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones Carolina Academic Press Copyright © 2011, Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones. All Rights Reserved.
Chapter 1: Crime • Crime in North Carolina is comparable to crime in most other states, especially Southern States. • It is not the number of crimes that is important; it is the crime rate. • The index crime rate is determined by the number of crimes reported to police divided by the total population, then multiply by 100, 000 Copyright © 2011, Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones. All Rights Reserved.
• Contrary to popular perception, crime has experienced an overall decrease nationwide since the 1990 s. • Same holds true for NC, but various types of crime may rise in specific locales. • The NC SBI is responsible for gathering and disseminating crime statistics for North Carolina. • The reasons for decreases or increases in crime are unclear (see Zimring 2007). Copyright © 2011, Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones. All Rights Reserved.
• Crimes committed by juveniles are titled “delinquent acts. ” • The age of adulthood in terms of criminal responsibility varies among states. Copyright © 2011, Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones. All Rights Reserved.
• Subculture of violence in NC? • Race relations in NC, like most other states, are more complicated than portrayed in some films and works of literature. • However, in the distant and not too distant past, overt discrimination was part and parcel of North Carolina criminal justice. Copyright © 2011, Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones. All Rights Reserved.
• Walker’s wedding cake model of criminal justice will be used in this book. • First case in point will be the “Fatal Vision” murders at Fort Bragg. Copyright © 2011, Paul E. Knepper and Mark Jones. All Rights Reserved.
