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Criminal
Law Crime Statistics In the basic criminal law course, I do not try to teach the “theory of punishment” materials. In the study of homicide, as I undertake it, and use it as the focus of our study of various criminal law doctrines, we do see concerns about punishment raised in the “mercy killing” case, like State v. Forrest (North Carolina, 1987) [Dressler: 252-256] and are pushed to think about punishment if we ask whether the doctor defendants in Barber v. Superior Court [Dressler: 135-139] should be punished as murderers, or for committing conspiracy to murder). We may over punish, we may create harm as we punish, but it’s no longer, in my view, a great innovation (as we once though) to begin the study of criminal law with a study of theories of punishment. I do not mean to suggest that punishment does not deserve study. Interestingly enough, when we start thinking seriously about “punishment,” we end up with a rather different course in criminal law. That is, criminal law might be taught with punishment as the central, organizing motif. We might begin the course with a day spent at the county jail; we might even arrange to have ourselves locked-up for 24 hours to get a feel for what it’s like to be in jail. Or might take a day trip to the nearest state prison. (Question: How many of lawyers have ever been in a prison cell?) Or for that matter we might visit a lawyer or two now doing time. – Some statistics (12/31/2004): There are now some 2,267,287 people incarcerated in local, state and federal prisons. (Of this number, some 713,990, or about 1/3 are in local jails.) – West Virginia (end of year 2004): There were 5,067 inmates in state and federal correctional facilities in the State of West Virginia. – Women in prison: There are 104, 848 women in state and federal correctional facilities. – 60% of the State and Federal inmates were black or Hispanic (8.4% of black males, age 25-29, are in jail or prison). – The nation’s prison population rose 1.9% in 2004. (In West Virginia, the increase in prison popular population from 2003 to 2004 was 6.5%. Crime Statistics: [Crime Statistics] [Bureau of Justice Statistics] [Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics]
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