The USA criminal law outline is very wide, and so detailed. In fact, this is just a synopsis or a brief outline of some aspects of it. This is outline is used to teach students of law in the university and extensive aspects of it is detailed out for students in law schools. Those who minor in law also make use of some aspects of this law outline, and in some places, it could be referred to as the USA criminal justice system. We shall just examine some aspects of it and list some relevant details but may not go as in-depth as might be taught in the law classes.
One of the key issues of the USA criminal law outline to be considered is – Justification or reasons for punishing offenders:
a. Deterrence to offenders. Under this broad unit, we have deterrence as one of the justification or reasons for punishing offenders. While this could be broken down into many categories, the main factor under this deterrence unit is to deter people from committing crimes or offending others in the society by threatening to punish them one way or the other. It is assumed that as rational thinkers and as persons who live by priorities, this brings issues that tend to offend the other individual against the law and the threat of commensurate punishment would serve to deter people from committing crimes.
b. Incapacitation of offenders. This is the governmental or judicial procedure whereby offenders are incapacitated by putting them away into correctional facilities. This could be remand homes, rehabilitation centers like prisons with the ultimate aim to break down the instinctive tendencies that are prone to crimes in them, and to also rehabilitate them back into the society after this correctional procedure.
c. Retributive justice. This has to do with the need to retaliate against the offender for his offense or crime against the society, against a victim and against the relations or families of his victim. In this case, the offender is incapacitated by incarceration or option to pay a heavy fine, but where the offender has committed crimes that involve the loss of lives, then the extreme retaliation or retribution of ‘an eye for an eye’ may apply.
d. Denunciation. This looks like retribution or retaliation but actually involves the need to emphatically and publicly announce the societal denunciation of what the offender has done. The media may condemn it and also condemn the offender for his offense and analysts or columnists may be brought in reinforce the societal denunciation of what the individual offender has done, as a way to deter others.
In determining the USA criminal law outline under the justification or need to punish offenders, some other key issues that have generated debate is whether the offender should be punished according to his present offense or according to the accumulation of past sins. Another issue in like manner is whether an offender should be punished exactly in proportion to his offense or in proportion to some other rationale that have a bearing to his present or past crimes.