Portal:Criminal justice

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The Criminal justice Portal

Criminal justice is the system of, practices, and organizations, used by national and local governments, directed at maintaining social control, deterring and controlling crime, and sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation. The primary agencies charged with these responsibilities are law enforcement (police and prosecutors), courts, defense attorneys and local jails and prisons which administer the procedures for arrest, charging, adjudication and punishment of those found guilty. When processing the accused through the criminal justice system, government must keep within the framework of laws that protect individual rights. The pursuit of criminal justice is, like all forms of "justice," "fairness" or "process," essentially the pursuit of an ideal. Throughout history, criminal justice has taken on many different forms which often reflect the cultural mores of society.

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The Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident was an attempted indecent assault by U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown on a Filipina bartender, Victoria Nakamine, in Okinawa, Japan on November 2, 2002. The case received extensive attention in the Japanese media, especially on Okinawa, and the crime sparked a public debate over the U.S. military presence in Japan, the fairness of the Japanese legal system, and the practices of the Japanese police. The case involved the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan and the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Japan and the United States. On July 8, 2004, after a 19-month trial, Brown was convicted by a Japanese court of attempted indecent assault and destruction of private property and received a one-year suspended prison sentence. Based on this incident and others involving crimes committed by U.S. military personnel in Japan, both countries entered into negotiations aimed at modifying the SOFA in July 2003; however, as of 2007, no changes have been made.

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Credit: Pöllö

A police boat is usually a small sea-faring vessel that is used by police agencies to patrol bodies of water. They are usually employed in enclosed harbors near cities or in places where a stronger police presence than that offered by the Coast Guard is needed.

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Wikinews Crime and law portal

February 10: German judge orders life sentence for nation's 'first Islamic-motivated terror attack'
February 4: Unarmed man killed by narcotics officer in The Bronx
February 3: Chris Huhne resigns from UK Cabinet to face charges
February 2: Texas teen enters guilty plea in shooting trial
February 2: Scientology guilty of fraud rules French appeal court
February 1: California teacher arrested after photos indicated lewd acts on children
January 29: British courts give green light for assisted dying case
January 29: New York police confirm cocaine shipment seizure at UN Headquarters
January 29: Twitter to allow censorship of posts on a country by country basis
January 28: Five arrested over police payments at News International

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Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber, burglar and thief of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times, making him a notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes. Ultimately, he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his brief criminal career after less than two years. The inability of the noted "Thief-Taker General" (and thief) Jonathan Wild to control Sheppard, and injuries suffered by Wild at the hands of Sheppard's colleague, Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, led to Wild's downfall. Sheppard was as renowned for his attempts to escape justice as for his crimes. He returned to the public consciousness in around 1840, when William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel entitled Jack Sheppard, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. The popularity of his tale, and the fear that others would be drawn to emulate his behaviour, led the authorities to refuse to license any plays in London with "Jack Sheppard" in the title for forty years.

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Did you know...

...that apart from blowflies, some flesh-eating beetles (pictured) can also be used by forensic entomologists in determining the time of death of a corpse?
...that after Edward Phelan was acquitted of murder, indicted on perjury charges and killed by companions in self-defense, one of the largest lakes in Saint Paul, Minnesota was named after him?
...that in Medellín v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, absent an act of Congress or Constitutional authority, the U.S. President lacks the power to enforce decisions of the International Court of Justice?

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