Marques Freeman
11/4/13
Police, Courts, and probation
Last paper
Growing interest In the past few years there has been a growing interest in getting involve in different criminal agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and parts of homeland security. The CIA stands for Central Intelligence Agency and its“primary mission is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security”(Commnity, pg1. tour). This is a rapidly growing field that a lot of people are taking interest in. Since Americans are now more involved interested in homeland security fields the government can create more jobs to protect and serve the community. A major board that is helping to create jobs is the community restorative board. A community restorative board is a group of people from a specific area that talk to offenders face to face with the intentions of making the offender aware of their behavior and allow them a say in the consequences. The community restorative board has four goals which are:
1. Promote citizen ownership of the criminal justice system by involving them directly in the justice process. 2. Provide opportunities for victims and community members to confront offenders in a constructive manner about their behavior. 3. Provide opportunities for offenders to take personal responsibility and be held directly accountable for the harm they caused to victims and communities. 4. Generate meaningful "community-driven" consequences for criminal actions that reduce a costly reliance on formal criminal justice processing (Pg1. Community Restorative Board, http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/CommunityRestorativeBoards.pdf). This board is mainly used in non-violent and minor offences. As I learn more about this board the more that I feel it is effective in society and helps offenders be more involved in their cases and punishments. The community feels better and the justice system because they are now helping with the court system process and the judges decisions. There is still little data about if this program is effective or not although it seems effective some victims feel that it is not. Another newer concept is a term referred to as “circle sentencing”. Circle sentencing is a system where the community tries to figure out punishments for offenders besides jail time. This was started and also known as “peacemaking circles—were resurrected in 1991 by judges and community justice committees in the Yukon Territory and other northern Canadian communities” (pg.1, Circle Sentencing, https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/2001_2_1/page4.html). In rural and urban areas, circle sentences have been use with juvenile offenders even adults. During the process of circle sentencing, the victim, offenders, family and friends speak about the offender and what they feel should happen to prevent future