U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Human Rights Guarantees in the Administration of Criminal Justice

NCJ Number
89921
Date Published
1983
Length
54 pages
Annotation
This pamphlet summarizes discussions from a training course whose main themes were human rights guarantees for minorities and juveniles in criminal justice systems and human rights guarantees for standards of ethics in criminal justice systems.
Abstract
In the context of the course themes, the human rights standards of the United States in the administration of criminal justice and their implementation were discussed. The course involved international participants responsible for various aspects of criminal justice administration in their countries. The discussion of the rights of minorities in the criminal justice system noted that laws should specify the objective administration of justice, but that finally nondiscrimination must be implemented through the discretionary decisions of criminal justice personnel. Discrimination was considered to be most likely when significant minority representation is not present among criminal justice personnel. Lectures bearing upon the rights of juveniles in the administration of the criminal justice system considered protecting the rights of juveniles in continental and Anglo-Saxon systems of criminal justice as well as law reform for the protection of juveniles. The discussion of the human rights guarantees for standards of ethics in criminal justice systems focused on Islamic law, publicity, and standard setting. Other topics examined in the course were the human rights of ethnic groups in immigrant countries, human rights commissions and their functions, the Asian and Pacific approach to human rights in the administration of criminal justice, guarantees for policing standards, and the rights of the mentally disabled in the criminal justice system. Appended are the course program, a list of participants and observers, the titles of lectures and other papers distributed, and a list of the United Nations documents distributed.