Administration of justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Administration of justice - Essay Example This scenario deals with a case of arrest under securities fraud, of Michael Pickens, son of the multi-billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens, arguably one of the richest persons in the United States of America Michael pleaded guilty and was arrested and charged with securities fraud, having masterminded a major scam to induce investors, through trickery and deception, to buy shares in stocks, such that when their markets turned bullish, the perpetrators of this fraud could sell the stocks for lucrative profits. As a matter of fact, the parties involved in this bogus e-mail fraud had netted $400,000 as profits. However, coming back to Michael Pickens, he has a long history of substance abuse and drug addiction, and has already spent more nearly one and half years, at drug treatment and rehabilitation. The critical question that now arises is what kind of penal, deterrent and/or rehab sentence should be served by the criminal justice delivery system, in the case of Michael Pickens and why should such recourse be chosen. Besides, the goals and objectives of the sentence would also need to be discussed in terms of its potential effectiveness and ability to reform this trickster through integration into mainstream society. 1. Rehabilitation Perspective: According to this view the justice system is a large institution that provides correctional faculties to criminals and law breakers. From this perspective, criminals are not merely seen as scheming, manipulative individuals who mastermind their crimes out of greed, or vendetta. Instead, they are viewed as victims of their circumstances or as being deceived by the society. Thus, in this context, rather than highlighting their crimes and its various ramifications and implications, rehabilitation specialists focus on criminals as individuals, their needs and aspirations, as well as factors that what prompted them to commit the crimes. Thus, they give consideration to what could be possibly done to help rehabilitate such individuals back into the mainstream society. â€Å"Rather than focus on the victim, as the crime control people do, rehabilitation people focus on the criminal: their needs, how can they be helped, and what treatment suits their individual behavior problems† (Worrall, n.d). Perhaps the rehabilitation treatment model, far from being punitive or disciplinary, seeks to enforce effective measures into the justice delivery system, which could aid in diagnosing, treating, monitoring and following up of cases so as to achieve remedial or curative measures for the ‘patient’. The policies of correcting and rehabilitating substance abusers underpin the activities of The California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF). This facility, with its treatment capacity of 1,428, is presently the largest-in-prison TC in the state besides being one of the biggest in any US prison. 2. Crime control Perspective: To a large extent, the crime control perspective is an anti th esis of the rehabilitative viewpoint, in that it advocates stronger, stricter and more stringent laws and measures against criminals and lawbreakers, actual and potential. This theory adopts a viewpoint that by strengthening and reinforcing policing techniques, like putting more law enforcement personnel on the job, crime rates could be effectively reduced and also better controls and monitoring could be achieved. Besides, better policing infrastructure could help reduce the incidence and regularity of crimes, especially in heavy crime zones. Coming to the current policies, it is seen that more than 30 States in this country have implemented laws, which require a compulsory sentence of a specific period for particular kinds of crimes. Most are directed at drug offenders or those people charged with violent crimes and forbid them from being