Criminal law have been improved since the mid-19 th century with the first major force being the creation of the Indeterminate Sentence and the Parole Law. It was created by Brockway in 1861 and in 1877 while he served as a warden in the Detroit House of Correction and the Elmira Reformatory (N.Y). the law was intended in rewarding criminals who portrayed change in behavior by shortening their sentences. The feature has continued to improve with more than seven million criminals being under Parole in 2011(Roberts, 2013).
Following the discovery of fingerprints by Sir Francis Galton, Juan Vucetich, an Argentinian police, used fingerprints to identify a double-murder of two children in 1892, and the bloody fingerprint was presented as evidence of the perpetuator who was the mother of the children. Since then the use of fingerprints has grown and developed with the current FBI, IAFIS housing more than 103 million fingerprints and over 73,000 known and suspected terrorists (Roberts, 2013).
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In 1908, due to the various crimes, U.S. attorney general, Bonaparte, who had proposed the creation of a secret investigating agency in 1906, created a hand-picked team of special agents of 25 members (Roberts, 2013). The name of the special agents has changed and is currently known as the FBI.
RICO Act of 1970, led to the ability to prosecute corrupt organization for instance the Mafia, who used the legal organizations to carryout different crimes. It enabled the bosses of these organizations to be sued even if they were not present during the crime (Roberts, 2013). Since then the Act has seen the prosecution of many legitimate organizations for organized crimes.
Geneticist Dr. Alec Jeffreys discovery of DNA connections of family in 1984 saw the use of DNA evidence to crack cases. Lastly the Cyberwarfare in 2010 authorized by President Obama enabled the use of Stuxnet virus that would be unleashed to destroy any cyberattack (Roberts, 2013). It also permitted the FBI and other policing departments to spy on personal emails, calls and other privacy violations to ensure security.
The issue of security and privacy has been the main issue in most of the forces that have enabled improvement and changes in criminal law. Following the 9/11, most Americans were willing to lose their privacy in the bid to improve their security but they are currently against the spying of their phones and online activities (Gardner, & Anderson, 2012). The government needs to balance the two but since security is the main task of the government, it is in the best interest that the public is comfortable with the spying and other details accessed by the federal departments (Gardner, & Anderson, 2012). Jurisdiction is mainly the description of authority either of geographical area containing a legal authority. The federal government has jurisdiction in the entire United States whereas each State has its own jurisdiction that span only upon its boundaries (Hirst, 2003).
In conclusion, jurisdiction is a complex issue since some crimes can be both under the State and Federal jurisdiction. If the cases crosses between two states, the Federal courts have the jurisdiction to hear and decide the cases. In the case of criminal law violation within the state but the violation is against the United States and involves specific federal laws, the states courts have no jurisdiction over the cases thus the federal courts have to hear and decide the cases. Federal courts have jurisdiction even in overseas cases if for example involves the offence on a ship flying an American flag even when the ship was in foreign waters (Hirst, 2003). In the case where the crime may be in a State but within the federal land for instance national parks, the states courts have no jurisdiction over the cases. States courts have jurisdiction of all other cases that are not under the above federal jurisdiction and are within the borders of a particular state.
References
Gardner, T. J., & Anderson, T. M. (2012). Criminal law . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Hirst, M. (2003). Jurisdiction and the ambit of the Criminal law . Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press.
Roberts, J. (2013, August 3). 10 Milestones that Changed Criminal Justice Forever . Rasmussen.edu . Retrieved March 24, 2017, from, http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-studies/blog/milestones-that-changed-criminal-justice-forever/
