Psychopathic Prosecutors in the Federal Criminal Justice System

The federal criminal justice system has a conviction rate of approximately ninety percent (Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual 2015-2016, 2015, p. 7).  Prosecutors mete out justice in the system by using severe sanctions and biased procedural laws that were created more than forty years ago (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Walker, Spohn, & Delone, 2012).  Moreover, these specific professionals (federal prosecutors) are causing significant collateral harms to communities throughout the United States in an egregious manner (Alexander, 2012; Church & Hueman, 1992; Reiman & Leighton, 2017; Simon, 1993).  That is, since the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 came into effect, federal criminal investigative agencies began targeting impoverished communities and other individuals in lower social classes with similar practices that were/are found in the various state-based criminal justice systems (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Walker et al., 2012).  Federal prosecutors were thrilled with the reformations because it allowed them to present little evidence to acquire indictments and convictions and, in turn, be more successful in their daily procedures (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Walker et al., 2012).  These understandings of success by federal prosecutors are based on ideas of the ratio of cases and convictions that they have as well as the length of imprisonment that a defendant receives (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Walker et al., 2012).  Lawmakers have begun to shun these practices, but federal prosecutors are ignoring the protestations about reform and carrying on with their psychopathic practices.        

The change from dealing with narco-terrorists, other violent terroristic activities against federal employees and the government, and massive fraud cases that crisscrossed the nation brought additional prosperity for federal prosecutors as well.  Specifically, federal prosecutors were able to easily present themselves as quality attorneys and move upward in the social ladder in the United States (Baum, 1997; Boylan & Long, 2005).  Explaining further, the first wave of federal prosecutors who were able to implement the reformations of 1984 were able to get promotions faster, enter other public offices with merited claims of success in their previous profession, and even enter the private sector and capitalize off of their glory that they were able to attain because of the easy distribution of convictions in the federal criminal justice system that were formulated (Baum, 1997; Boylan & Long, 2005).  Capitalism via terrible methods of criminal justice took over and, because of this, new generations were viewing the upward social mobility of the first class of prosecutors as something positive.  Because of this, law schools became flooded with students seeking to be federal prosecutors and clerks in federal judicial chambers, educators and academic institutions made connections and more money, and federal criminal investigators worried less about attending courtroom procedures, civil lawsuits, and being scolded by their supervisors for botched police work (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Boylan & Long, 2005; Reiman & Leighton, 2017).  With this being stated, it needs to be understood that federal prosecutors are the catalysts that allows federal legal matters to be ensued.  The easily configured convictions turned the United States attorneys’ offices into stomping grounds for individuals who were seeking to put in minimal effort toward American values of justice, ruin lives at the expense of capitalistic and professional desires, retain power in horrendous ways, and celebrate their victories with larger salaries and more materials that could be bought because of the financial prosperity that was attained (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Boylan & Long, 2005; Reiman & Leighton, 2017).  Prosecutors, in the generations after the first class of the 1984 reforms, began to tear apart poor communities and target poor people more than their predecessors without much care for the collateral effects that individuals and society at large were/was dealing with.  United States attorneys recognized the professional and personal gains that were acquired from their predecessors in other words, and the impractical professionalism carried over regardless of the social scientists and other professionals who were presenting the results to the government officials. 

  

Statistics and empirical facts from the inception of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 to the current times verify the above-mentioned practices.  For example, since 1984 the federal criminal justice system has maintained the same conviction rates (about 90 percent), privatized the penal system, and allowed mass incarceration to steadily take shape as the years passed (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Boylan & Long, 2005; Reiman & Leighton, 2017).  Prosecutors' efforts were the primary reasons that caused these egregious increases of offenders in the federal system, destruction of due process in the federal courts, and common practices that include disenfranchising poor people and impoverished communities.  Another example can be used, from 1980 to 2016 federal prosecutors were/are responsible for securing more than 854,601 convictions with imprisonment (Carson, 2018).  The demographics of the offenders in federal prisons has mostly been individuals of low socioeconomic status and from impoverished community backgrounds and incarcerated for non-violent and relatively minor drug offenses (Carson, 2018).  In 2016, 81,900 of the 172,554 total federal offenders were incarcerated for drug offenses (Carson, 2018).  Of this, it should be noted that federal prosecutors do have discretion with charge and count bargaining, yet gunning for longer terms of imprisonment tends to be a common practice and it appears that the United States attorneys are not aware of the concept of maximum capacities in correctional facilities or socials harms that manifest because of their professionalism (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Boylan & Long, 2005; Reiman & Leighton, 2017).  Secure a conviction, get as much prison time as possible, and repeat these practices is their proclivity, and these schemes are done without much care or compassion toward anyone else.     

More facts can be implemented to depict the psychopathy of federal prosecutors and their lack of compassion for fellow Americans.  Particularly, the constant budget increases for the Department of Justice and the lack of monetary allocations to impoverished communities that would fix social ills that are suggested to cause criminality shows how the main concerns for the United States attorneys is not about dealing with crime and public safety, but ensuring that they have the resources to get over on criminal defendants in a routine fashion (Carson, 2018; Office of Public Affairs, 2017).  The budget for the federal prosecutors and the Bureau of Prisons has increased annually for the last forty years (Carson, 2018; Office of Public Affairs, 2017).  In 2017, the United States Attorney’s Office requested an additional sixty-one million dollars, including twenty-six million dollars for three-hundred new prosecutors nationwide, of the three-hundred requested hires, two-hundred and thirty are proposed to focus on violent crimes in poor communities (Office of Public Affairs, 2017).  There has been a slight increase (approximately three percent) in the overall violent crime rate in the United States from 2016 (Office of Public Affairs, 2017).  Most of the violent crime that caused the slight increase came from public shootings in urban areas that already have high numbers of gun violence and serial shooters who take many lives in one act (Fox, 2018; Gramlich, 2018).  Other than this, the other violent crime rates (assaults, robberies, etc.) in the United States has been relatively stable when compared to previous years and does not impact the overall violent crime rate that much (Fox, 2018; Gramlich, 2018).  Moreover, incidents that include law enforcers who kill citizens, for the most part, is not recorded as an identified crime by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Department of Justice or barely has any statistical reference at all, nor is it accounted for in their budgets (Carson, 2017; Gramlich, 2018; Office of Public Affairs, 2017).  Again, federal prosecutors have the ability to choose which cases they take on.  Once more, the attack on poor communities and indigent people should be noted and rather than allocating the sixty-one million dollars to agencies that could use the money to solve social problems that cause crimes, the federal prosecutors and other law enforcers use the poor communities, indigent people, and biased statistics as a justification for requesting more money (Baum, 1997; Reiman & Leighton, 2017). 

Summation

Extreme psychopathy by federal prosecutors has been maintained for about forty years now, and the federal criminal justice system seems to be catering to individuals who lack social morals about helping fellow Americans.  Furthermore, federal prosecutors tend to appear to have no remorse for their blatant lying or exaggerations of criminality in the courts (Baum, 1997; Paulhus & Williams, 2002).  The high convictions rates and the mass incarceration problems are examples of this.  The mostly unjustified budgets are an example of this too, and shows how federal prosecutors will say or do anything to make their professionalism easier to perform and proper while engaging in it.  The lengths that federal prosecutors go to to be successful and move upward in society blinds any sense of sensitivity about the social and individual harms that they are causing (Alexander, 2012; Baum, 1997; Reiman & Leighton, 2017).  Social reputations via capitalism have taken over in the federal criminal justice system and the federal prosecutors in the United States are never vocal about the problems that they are causing in contemporary society.  Get hired, acquire as many convictions as possible, the longer the sentence the better, and not care about the residual effects that permeate are the activities of federal prosecutors, and these actions are literally increasing year-by-year.                                             

References:

---- (2015, November 1).  Federal Sentencing Guidelines 2015-2016.    

---- (2017).  U.S. Attorneys (USA): Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Request at a Glance.  Office of

Public Affairs.  Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/jmd/page/file/968226/download.

Alexander, M.  (2012).  The new Jim Crow:  Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness.

            New York:  The New Press.   

Baum, D.  (1997).  Smoke and mirrors:  The war on drugs and politics of failure.  New York:

            Little, Brown and Company.   

Boylan, R. T., & Long, C. X.  (2005).  Salaries, plea rates, and the career objectives of federal

prosecutors.  The Journal of Law and Economics, 48(2), 627-651.        

Carson, A.  (2018, August 7).  Prisoners in 2016.  Bureau of Justice Statistics:  Prisoners Series.

Retrieved from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p16.pdf.   

Church, T. W., & Heuman, M.  (1992).  Speedy disposition:  Monetary incentives and policy

            reform in criminal courts.  Albany, NY:  State University of New York Press.

Gamlich, J.  (2018, January 30).  5 facts about crime in the U.S.  Pew Research Center. 

            Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/30/5-facts-about-crime-in

the-u-s/..       

Fox, J.  (2018, February 12).  Psst: Crime may be near an all-time low:  Why do Americans remain

            unconvinced by the data?  Bloomberg News.  Retrieved from

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-12/pssst-crime-may-be-near-an-all-

time-low.  

Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M.  (2002).  The dark triad of personality: Narcissism,

machiavellianism, and psychopathy.  Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6),

556-563.  

Reiman, J., & Leighton, P.  (2017).  The rich get richer and the poor get prison:  Ideology, class,

            and criminal justice (11^th ed.).  New York:  Routledge.

Simon, J.  (1993).  Poor discipline:  Parole and social control of the underclass, 1890-1990.

            Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press.   

Walker, S., Spohn, C., & Delone, M.  (2012).  The color of justice:  Race, ethnicity, and crime

in America (5^th ed.).  Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth.