Public Safety Outcomes of Virginia's Detention Assessment Instrument

The placement of juveniles in secure detention has been the subject of considerable attention recently. For the past several years, Virginia has been engaged in efforts to improve detention practices at both the state and local levels. One important policy and practice change is the implementation of a standardized, structured decision‐making instrument to guide detention decisions by intake officers of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). This report will present a brief background on the Detention Assessment Instrument (DAI); an analysis of the performance of the DAI on key public safety outcomes; and an overview of Virginia's participation in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI).     

论我国拘役刑的废除

拘役刑作为我国刑罚的五种主刑之一,在我国1979年和1997年的刑法中均有规定,但其作为一种短期自由刑具有一定的缺陷,其存废之争也开始兴起。本文在简要介绍我国拘役刑的概况后,将具体分析废除我国拘役刑的理由,最后提出废除拘役刑后我国的刑罚体系的完善方案。     

Ten Ways to Reduce Detention Population

“Juvenile detention is regularly overlooked, maligned, and misunderstood. Its embattled condition is best described as severely abused and neglected. It is underfunded, understaffed, crowded and largely ignored.”¹ “Detention caseloads increased 38 percent between 1987 and 1996. The increase in the number of delinquency cases handled by the courts has driven the growth in the number of juveniles in the detention system. In 1987, 1.2 million delinquency cases were disposed of in juvenile courts. By 1996, this number had risen 49 percent, to almost 1.8 million. This increase in the volume of juveniles in the justice system resulted in a 38 percent increase in the number of delinquency cases that involved the use of detention. The number of juvenile delinquency cases detained in 1996 was 89,000 more than in 1987. This has resulted in increased demand for juvenile detention bed space across the country.”² “Changes in statutes allowing more detainable offenses have significantly increased the number of youths admitted to regional detention centers.”³ “Although minority youth constituted about 32 percent of the youth population in the country in 1995, they represented 68 percent of the juvenile population in secure detention…⁴     

监所检察监督的问题与对策探析

近年来,各级检察机关认真落实最高人民检察院《关于加强和改进监所检察工作的决定》,加大了对刑罚执行和监管活动的监督力度,监管执法的能力和水平明显提升,侵害在押人员合法权益的问题得到了有效遏制。但是在押人员非正常死亡、违法变更刑罚执行等问题尚未在司法实践中得到彻底解决,监所检察仍然是检察机关法律监督中的薄弱环节。这些不足和问题,反映了当前监所检察运行在监督理念、基础保障、监督方式等方面还有待加强和改进。因此,坚持"三个维护"的监所检察指导思想,加强监所检察建设,促进工作机制和监督方式创新,应是我们完善监所检察监督必须认真研究和思考的问题。     

羁押必要性审查制度研究

我国在最新修订的法律及各种规范性文件中对羁押制度进行了修改与完善,其中修改后的《刑事诉讼法》确立了必要性审查程序,而最新的《人民检察院刑事诉讼规则(试行)》则对此进行了细化,通过多个条文予以具体规定,对审查主体、内容、方式等问题进行了初步的规定。由于法律和司法解释的规定都相对比较原则,导致该项制度在实施过程中仍存在程序规定不细致、审查标准不明确等问题。我们应在理清羁押及羁押必要性审查的概念、羁押必要性审查的理论基础及价值目标等基础理论的前提下,梳理出我国羁押必要性审查制度的立法现状,并在此基础上正确理解我国羁押必要性审查的性质、涉及的诉讼阶段、审查的案件范围、实施审查的工作主体等基本问题,进而结合基层检察工作实际,构建一套符合立法意旨且切实可行的羁押必要性审查机制。     

The Moral Justification for the Preventive Detention of Terrorists

The moral, as opposed to legal, justification for the preventive detention of terrorists is the topic of this article, and, in particular, for the preventive detention of members of extremist Islamist terrorist organizations, such as Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda (AQ). The article argues that preventive detention of terrorists is morally justified under certain circumstances. Its argument for preventive detention of terrorists is analogous to that used to detain enemy combatants as prisoners of war. However, rather than relying on the possession of the properties definitive of the legal status of a combatant, it relies on demonstrable possession of constitutive features of functionally integrated membership of a terrorist organization. Membership in this sense of a terrorist organization creates the presumption of a standing intention to commit murder, or at least to assist others to do so, in the service of the organization’s political ends.     

The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Sentencing in Two Federal Districts

While a substantial body of research indicates that legal variables, such as offense severity and criminal history, principally shape sentencing decisions, other studies demonstrate that extralegal factors such as race, gender, and age influence sentencing outcomes, as well. The handful of studies focusing upon the effect of pretrial detention/release on sentencing outcomes indicate that pretrial detention is associated with greater lengths of incarceration. This study—the first to empirically examine the sentencing consequences of pretrial detention in the United States federal courts—employed a sample of 1,723 cases from two district courts (New Jersey and Pennsylvania Eastern). Pretrial detention and, to a lesser degree, revocation of granted pretrial supervision were associated with increased prison sentences; on the other hand, successfully completing a term of pretrial services supervision was associated with shorter sentence length. Implications for the federal criminal justice system are discussed.     

论我国看守所立法

作为与监狱不同的羁押场所,看守所的主要功能是保证未决犯的合法权利、确保刑事诉讼活动的顺利进行。看守所立法有其特有的历史脉络与现实状况,看守所立法指导着看守所工作的发展与进步。从目前来看,我国看守所的立法工作还需明确法律修改目标、合理规范看守所法律地位及其职能、加强对羁押过程中的人权保障、加强对看守所工作的监督等。     

Perceived Needs and Interests of Juveniles Held in Preventive Detention

The current study assesses the perceived needs and interests of juveniles held in preventive detention. The study involved 70 juveniles assigned to residential units at a juvenile detention facility. Juveniles were administered a written questionnaire that requested both quantitative and qualitative responses to items related to juveniles' perceived needs and interests. Frequency tests were performed to determine which perceived needs and interests are most and least pronounced among detained juveniles. The areas of need most commonly cited by detained juveniles were learning how to make better choices, learning more about computers, and learning to control anger better. Juveniles expressed an interest in most activities, with children versus staff contests, cultural diversity education, learning new board games and card games, doing arts and crafts, and taking care of a pet being the most popular items. In order to ensure that programs are helpful and enjoyable for detained youth, detention staff members should tailor programs and activities to the perceived needs and interests identified in the current study.     

Public-Private Venture to HELP Youth in Juvenile Detention

The most reliable barometer on the status of Michigan's children reported a noteworthy decrease in juvenile crime in Calhoun County, Michigan, during the period of time when the W. K. Kellogg Foundation funded a model program for the county's most criminally active juveniles. This article summarizes how the confluence of need and resources led to the development of an exemplary solution to some of the problems facing contemporary juvenile justice programs and services. The irony is not that a public-private venture to develop effective community-based collaboratives proved successful, but that this effort occurred in the local juvenile detention center.     

论司法拘留与民事拘留

科学客观地确立司法拘留与民事拘留的关系,不仅是拘留理论深入研究的需要,也是拘留立法和拘留实践发展的需要,本文在考察对该关系的众多观点的基础上,认为当今的司法拘留与民事拘留是一种广义交叉关系和狭义全异关系,主张这两种关系中的“民事拘留”名称应被具有个别性的具体名称所取代。     

Juvenile Court Context and Detention Decisions: Reconsidering the Role of Race,Ethnicity, and Community Characteristics in Juvenile Court Processes

The relationship between race/ethnicity, community dynamics, and juvenile court processes has long been established. Prior research has relied on city‐ or county‐level measures of community characteristics (e.g., racial composition, poverty) to examine how racial groups are processed within juvenile courts. To date, no study has utilized finer scale measures of geographic areas to examine how characteristics of juveniles’ communities impact court decisions. By utilizing official juvenile court data from a city in the southwest, this study draws upon attribution theory to examine how economic and crime community‐level measures directly and indirectly influence detention outcomes. Findings reveal that the effect of race and ethnicity in detention outcomes varies across communities, and the effect of ethnicity in detention decisions is mediated by economic community‐level measures. The theoretical and policy implications of the study findings are discussed.     

刑事羁押期限:立法的缺陷及其救济

科学设计刑事羁押期限应坚持谦抑原则。坚持刑事羁押的谦抑原则、缩减羁押期限是法制宽容精神的体现 ,是无罪推定原则的必然要求 ,是保证刑罚及时性和刑罚效果的需要 ,体现了对犯罪嫌疑人和被告程序主体地位的尊重。从立法上看 ,我国刑事羁押期限制度有诸多缺陷 :规定的依附性和不完整性 ;羁押期限较长 ;羁押期限与涉嫌犯罪的非比例性 ;决定羁押期限延长程序的不公开 ;重新计算羁押期限的立法过于原则等等。建议将羁押期限的立法规定独立开来 ,同时适当缩减拘留、审查起诉和审判的期限 ,废除补充侦查制度 ,明确规定重新计算羁押期限的法定情形 ,严格控制对羁押期限的延长。     

The Effects of Legal and Extralegal Factors on Detention Decisions in US District Courts

The Bail Reform Act of 1984 changed the law dictating release and detention decisions in federal court. Since its passage, few studies have examined judicial decision-making in this context. Legal research enables us to account for the structure and interpretation of federal detention laws and to analyze previously neglected measures of legal factors in our analyses. We use US Sentencing Commission data on a sample of defendants who were sentenced in 2007 (N?=?31,043). We find that legal factors—particularly length of criminal history, having committed a violent or otherwise serious offense, and having committed the offense while under supervision of the criminal justice system—have the strongest relationships with the presentence detention outcome. A defendant’s age, race, and ethnicity have weaker relationships with detention. When we compare defendants who are similarly situated with respect to legal factors, the probability of detention is similar regardless of age, race, and ethnicity.     

非法拘禁罪行为构造研析

旨在剖析非法拘禁罪的行为构造。首先就非法拘禁罪之客观行为进行了本体研析,界定了"拘禁"与"其他方法"之内涵。随后,从基本构成时间和从重或加重构成时间两个层次,探究了非法拘禁罪客观行为的时间限定问题。在此基础上,述及非法拘禁罪客观行为之前提条件,并认为非法限制他人人身自由的行为,在必要时也可以非法拘禁罪论处。     

刑事诉讼中拘捕与羁押制度分立问题研究

羁押中所存在的问题是我国刑事司法实践中的顽疾,一直得不到彻底的解决。因此必须从制度层面上寻找出我国羁押制度的内在缺陷。我国刑事诉讼立法上未对拘捕与羁押进行区分,而设置了拘捕与羁押一体化的结构。这种结构上具有天生的缺陷,是我国羁押中存在问题的一个重要原因。     

刑事案件"延长羁押期限"问题研究

我国现行的延长羁押制度对于成功地展开刑事追诉活动,防止嫌疑人、被告人逃避侦查和审判,避免其毁灭证据、串供甚至威胁证人、被害人等,都是卓有成效的;在不断的延长羁押过程中,嫌疑人、被告人也丧失了再犯新罪、自杀以及危害社会的能力。但作为一种沉重的代价,延长羁押制度法治化水平也确实是不高的,无论是延长羁押法定、程序保障、比例性等实体性原则,还是权力监督、司法救济等程序性原则,都没能在我国延长羁押制度中得以确立。拟通过分析延长羁押制度存在的问题,有针对性地提出改革、完善现行延长羁押制度的具体对策。     

关于对现行犯适用先行拘留的思考

现行犯是指正在预备犯罪、实行犯罪或者犯罪后即时被发觉的人。刑事诉讼法规定对现行犯可以适用先行拘留。对刑诉法所规定的"先行拘留",理论和实践中众说纷纭,诸如立案前拘留、逮捕前拘留、无证拘留和有证拘留等等。这些观点均有违立法精神,造成了司法实践中对拘留的适用无所适从。先行拘留和拘留是有区别的,对现行犯可以先行拘留,应当理解为"先抓获后拘留"。     

Ethnicity, gender, and global risk indicators in the lives of status offenders coming to the attention of the juvenile court

The present study examined the risks and needs of status offenders in comparison to an at-large juvenile court sample, with specific attention paid to factors related to gender and ethnicity. Status offenders displayed significantly higher risk scores than the comparison sample in domains associated with both family and parenting concerns and educational concerns. In addition, females displayed higher risk levels than males and White youth displayed significantly higher risk levels than minority youth across a wide variety of risk domains. Further analyses were conducted regarding the participation of African American males and females in a program designed as an alternative to detention. For both groups, successful program completion was accompanied by little or no further court involvement, whereas failure to complete the program was related to a variety of negative outcomes. However, African American females and males successfully completing program requirements displayed different risks and needs at the outset of their participation.