Low Level Criminal Suspects

This research paper discusses the way in which the American criminal justice system processes and deals with adult persons suspected of having committed low level criminal offenses.

1. Types of Cases

a. Kinds of behavior involved. Lower level criminal courts process and dispose of petty offenses, usually misdemeanors, crimes involving maximum sentences of less than one year, and sometimes lesser felonies. Crimes involving defendants under the age of 18 are generally handled by juvenile courts. Traffic offenses not involving vehicular homicide are generally handled in summary fashion by special traffic courts. According to Feeley (1979), his study of the operations of the lower Court of Common Pleas in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 1970s showed that petty offenses account for 80 to 90 percent of all criminal prosecutions (p. 5). The two major classes of petty offenses are crimes against public order and crimes against property. Crimes against public order include breaches of the peace and disorderly conduct, such as those resulting from barroom brawls, family disputes and conflicts between neighbors, and may also include offenses such as vagrancy, loitering, public drunkenness, prostitution, illegal gambling and the possession of illegal drugs. Crimes against property mostly involve petty theft or larceny, such as trespass, shop lifting and purse-snatchings. In Feeley's study, the mo

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dvise the defendant of the bail requirements in the case of petty offenses which are governed by a fixed schedule based on the nature of the charge. A few jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia, have preventive detention statutes, which authorize the state to detain an allegedly dangerous felon for 60 days without bail, but this procedure is, according to Walker (1985), seldom utilized (p. 49). However, as he pointed out, "the American criminal justice system has traditionally practiced preventive detention," principally through cooperation among the police, prosecutors and judges to set bail high enough to keep dangerous felons off the street (p. 50). Defense attorneys can always challenge the amount of bail requested by the prosecution, but judges tend to go along with prosecution requests in most cases. According to Jacob (1973), "arraignments and bail hearings typically last less than a minute for a defendant in local courts of large cities" (p. 66). According to Eldefonso et al., "the persons who suffer the most from any type of bail process are those without money," because statistics show they are more likely to be convicted and three times as likely to be incarcerated as others (p. 77). b. Discussion of public o
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Approximate Word count = 4332
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)