taught by Professor Garigen.

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1 Short title flush left, in all capitals and page number along right for student papers. On the first page, the words Running head should appear in front of the shortened title, followed by a colon. On all subsequent pages, only the shortened title is needed. For help creating the Running head see the library s How to Insert a Running Head in Word 2010 video from our Citation guides page. Full title, writer s name, and institution all centered. Running head: PLEA BARGAINING 1 Plea Bargaining: Unpopular but Necessary to Our Criminal Justice System Student Name Genesee Community College An Author Note is not required by most instructors. Only put an Author note on your title page if it is required by your instructor and follow their instructions for what they want in it. Author Note This paper was prepared for Criminal Justice 101, Section 01, taught by Professor Garigen.

2 PLEA BARGAINING 2 The abstract is a brief summary of your paper s main points. It generally contains 150 to 250 words. Most instructors do not require an Abstract. Follow your instructor s directions for what they want in your Abstract if they require one. Abstract This paper explores the importance of the concept of plea bargaining to the criminal justice system. For some plea bargaining is an important and useful tool used to keep the wheels of justice moving in a timely fashion, but to others it is a slap on the wrist to offenders and a further insult to victims and their families. Some argue that the results of plea bargains make for inconsistent justice, but the Supreme Court has endorsed the practice and therefore it is important that judges monitor the system to make sure plea bargains are used fairly and without discrimination.

3 PLEA BARGAINING 3 The title should reflect the subject matter. Use the introduction to catch the reader s interest, to provide a context for the reader, and to prepare the reader for what is to follow. Notice how the writer provides the source of the information within the sentence. This is one way to handle the documentation. Putting the page number of the source completes the documentation. This method is called parenthetical or intext documentation. If you need assistance, ask a social science professor, your English professor, or a librarian. When you have a long direct quote, you can shorten it by omitting any unnecessary information. You indicate the omission by using the three dots, called ellipses. Plea Bargaining: Unpopular but Necessary to Our Criminal Justice System A Livingston County teen was recently charged with criminally negligent homicide in the heroin overdose death of a female friend. The young man was accused of administering the dose. In order to receive a lighter sentence, he forfeited a trial and pled guilty to the charges; as a result he will spend six months in a New York State shock camp rather than serve extensive prison time. An editorial in the Livingston County News, A Doubly Meaningless Death, (2001) raised objections to the plea bargain. The writer saw the plea bargain and subsequent sentence as equivalent to a slap on the wrist (p. A4). The writer believed that such a decision sent the wrong kind of message for such a serious crime. Furthermore, said the writer, To free [the young man] with no more than a six-month slap on the wrist makes her death doubly meaningless and should not happen (p. A4). This instance of plea bargaining points out the significance of this process in the criminal justice system. On the one hand plea bargaining reduces the time and thus the money spent on a trial, however, the accused usually receives a lighter sentence. According to Black s Law Dictionary (2009), a plea bargain is a negotiated agreement between a prosecutor and a criminal defendant whereby the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for some concession by the prosecutor a more lenient sentence or a dismissal of other charges (p. 1173). As explained in Schmalleger (2007), such a process is beneficial to all parties. A plea bargain is in the best interest of a defense team if they feel they cannot win an acquittal and prosecutors will choose to plea bargain if they

4 Again, the source of information is given in the first sentence, so only the page number is required. When the source of information isn t given in the text of your writing, include the author s name and page number. Page numbers are required for in-text citation of direct quotations. However, some database articles and many webpages do not have page numbers. If you can see page numbers in your source, use them in your paper; if you cannot see page numbers, list a section name and count the paragraphs see p. 13 of the library s APA Stylesheet for more details. Few if any terms in criminal justice are completely uncontroversial. To understand a term, therefore, you need to understand all of its ramifications. You can see here that the writer is explaining some of the issues involved in the concept of plea bargaining. Identifying the writer of a publication and the writer s affiliation helps the reader to judge the reliability of the publication. PLEA BARGAINING 4 feel their evidence is weak. The accused benefits from the possibility of reduced or combined charges, lessened defense costs, and a lower sentence than might have otherwise been anticipated (p. 312). The victims also begin to restore their lives to some sort of normalcy. Although there was a recommendation by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals in 1973 to abolish the practice of plea bargaining, the Supreme Court has ruled that the process is an important and necessary component of the American system of justice it is to be encouraged (Schmalleger, 2007, p. 312). The reason is that the current judicial system both court facilities and manpower is not equipped to handle every criminal case in this country. If every case went to jury trial, wrote Mirsky and Kahn (1997) in their article in The American Prospect, resources would have to multiply by many times (p. 56). Thus a provision must be in place to administer justice in a reasonable, timely and cost effective manner. Plea bargaining allows for that. Despite its sanction by the Supreme Court, plea bargaining does have its opponents. The primary complaint is that it lets defendants off with lighter punishment than they ought to get. In fact, it s so unpopular that prosecutors who regularly engage in the practice rarely advertise it (Schmalleger, 2007, p. 313). Another complaint against plea bargaining is that results are inconsistent and dependent on the kind of attorney representing the client. Research done by Peter Nardulli (1986), a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, found the complaint to be probably invalid (p. 380). Nardulli (1986) studied plea bargaining in nine medium sized counties in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He compared the plea bargains obtained by various kinds of attorneys privately retained or publicly paid. He found that there were few statistically significant

5 PLEA BARGAINING 5 differences and thus concluded that the results of plea bargaining were reasonably consistent. In these counties, at least, the results depended more on local rules and practices than on the type of attorney. While plea bargaining may be viewed with suspicion by much of the public, given the amount of crime and the present structure of our judicial system and available resources, it is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Judges must remain diligent in monitoring plea bargaining to ensure justice is served to all, regardless of race, color, gender or social status.

6 Note that the word References is not underlined, not boldface, and not in quotation marks. Because this is a References page and not a bibliography, it includes only those works that are actually cited in your paper. If you read something but did not cite it, don t include it here. Note that the order of items here is alphabetical order by the author s last name or the first work of the title of resources without an author. Note that the first line of each item is not indented. All subsequent lines are, however, indented. This is called hanging indent. PLEA BARGAINING 6 References Di Natali, C. (2001, December 27). New charges delay Dalton s plea deal in drug death. Livingston County News, p. A1. Retrieved from A doubly meaningless death. [Editorial]. (2001, December 27). Livingston County News, p. A4. Retrieved from Garner, B. A. (Ed.). (2009). Black s law dictionary (9 th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West Group. Mirsky, C. L., & Kahn, G. (1997). No bargain. The American Prospect, 32, 56. Retrieved from Nardulli, P. F. (1986). Insider justice: Defense attorneys and the handling of felony cases. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 77, doi: / Schmalleger, F. (2007). Criminal justice today: An introductory text for the twenty-first century (9 th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. As with the in-text documentation used in the body of the paper, this page follows APA format. Refer to your APA handbook or to the handbook you may have bought for English class for rules and examples of APA format. Note that this entire page is double-spaced.