Portal:Criminal justice

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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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Damage to the Murrah building before cleanup began

The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the U.S. government in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 injured. Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil. Shortly after the explosion, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer stopped 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate and unlawfully carrying a weapon. Within days after the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both arrested for their roles in the bombing. Investigators determined that McVeigh and Nichols were sympathizers of an anti-government militia movement and that their motive was to avenge the government's handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents (the bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Waco incident). McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. A third conspirator, Michael Fortier, who testified against the two conspirators, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the U.S. government. As with other large scale terrorist attacks, conspiracy theories dispute the official claims and point to additional perpetrators involved. The attacks led to widespread rescue efforts from local, state, and federal agencies, along with considerable donations from across the country.

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1933 warrant for arrest of Polish politicians

Credit: From "Historia Polski 1914-1939" by Henryk Zieliński, released by heir, Julo.

A 1933 warrant for arrest of Polish politicians. An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by and on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual.

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Wikinews Crime and law portal

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Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz (b. 1929) was a senior Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship known as the National Reorganization Process. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006, on charges of homicide, illegal deprivation of freedom (kidnapping), and torture. The tribunal, besides passing the sentence, stated that Etchecolatz's crimes were "crimes against humanity in the context of the genocide that took place in Argentina". The term "genocide" was thus employed for the first time in the official treatment of "Dirty War" crimes, as requested by the accusers. The "Dirty War" was a series of the atrocities committed under the military dictatorship of Argentina during 1976 to 1983. The dictatorship began with a coup d'état against President Isabel Peron followed by the accession of a military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla. During military rule, thousands of political dissidents were either killed or went into "forced disappearance".

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...that the design for the 1941 Art Moderne Illinois State Police Office in Pontiac (pictured) was also used for the state police headquarters building in Rock Island, Illinois?
...that Sholom Schwartzbard was acquitted in the Schwartzbard trial despite pleading guilty to murder, and that the family of his victim was ordered to pay for the cost of the trial?
...that former Branch Davidian leader George Roden was shot twice in a gun battle with his rival David Koresh and seven other Branch Davidians, before being evicted from the Mount Carmel Center near Waco?