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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:23 pm
Time: 11:23 pm
Results for misdemeanors (u.s.)
1 results foundAuthor: Natapoff, Alexandra Title: Misdemeanor Decriminalization Summary: As the U.S. rethinks its stance on mass incarceration, misdemeanor decriminalization is an increasingly popular reform. Seen as a potential cure for crowded jails and an overburdened defense bar, many states are eliminating jail time for minor offenses such as marijuana possession and driving violations, and replacing those crimes with so-called "nonjailable" or "fine-only" offenses. This form of reclassification is widely perceived as a way of saving millions of state dollars - nonjailable offenses do not trigger the right to counsel - while easing the punitive impact on defendants, and it has strong support from progressives and conservatives alike. But decriminalization has a little-known dark side. Unlike full legalization, decriminalization preserves many of the punitive features and collateral consequences of the criminal misdemeanor experience, even as it strips defendants of counsel and other procedural protections. It actually expands the reach of the criminal apparatus by making it easier - both logistically and normatively - to impose fines and supervision on an ever-widening population, a population who ironically often ends up incarcerated anyway when they cannot afford the fines or comply with the supervisory conditions. The turn to fine-only offenses and supervision, moreover, has distributive implications. It captures poor, underemployed, drug-dependent, and other disadvantaged defendants for whom fines and supervision are especially burdensome, while permitting well-resourced offenders to exit the process quickly and relatively unscathed. Finally, as courts turn increasingly to fines and fees to fund their own operations, decriminalization threatens to become a kind of regressive tax, turning the poorest populations into funding fodder for the judiciary and other government budgets. In sum, while decriminalization appears to offer relief from the punitive legacy of overcriminalization and mass incarceration, upon closer inspection it turns out to be a highly conflicted regulatory strategy that preserves and even strengthens some of the most problematic aspects of the massive U.S. penal system. Details: Los Angeles: Loyola Los Angeles School of Law, 2014. 63p. Source: Internet Resource: Loyola-LA Legal Studies Paper No. 2014-43 : Accessed September 11, 2014 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2494414 Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2494414 Shelf Number: 133276 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationDecriminalizationJail OvercrowdingMass IncarcerationMisdemeanors (U.S.)Prison OvercrowdingPunishment |