As what everybody knows, criminal justice refers to the system and agency within the government which focuses on safeguarding the peace and order of the society. Among the agency goals are the mitigation of crimes and implementing appropriate disciplinary actions among those who have violated the laws or giving suitable rehabilitation programs (Neocleous, 2004).
The scope of the criminal justice system varies depending on the state or country. In the United States of America one effective approach of the system is having an enhanced coordination with the law enforcers, with the law court and with the correctional agencies in order to fully protect the rights of every citizens (Fuller, 2005). While in England, the criminal justice system is
Miranda v. Arizona: Impacting Criminal Justice Policy The role the United States court system plays in the creation and implementation of criminal justice policy is far reaching and powerful. And when the court deciding an issue is the highest in the land, the Supreme Court of the United States, the impact of the decision on the entire criminal justice system can be profound. Such is the case of Miranda v. Arizona, a landmark decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 1966 that continues to impact how justice is meted in our country today.
The correctional system plays a vital role in the country. The system is made of several government agencies that are charged with the authorities of safeguarding the populace from dangerous individuals. Generally, this is accomplished through a number of methods, such as imprisonment and probation. In addition, the correctional system is designed to make society a safer place by keeping the criminals behind bars.
The Criminal Justice system is one of the most important vessels within society due to its role in ensuring that society is abiding by its laws and holding those who transgress these laws to account. Despite its crucial role in society, it has also been under some scrutiny in regards to how effective it actually is, which results in arguments that it doesn’t properly fulfil its job as a carrier of justice. A focus on the criminal justice system is a subject of interest because it helps us understand the tension within society between individual rights and freedoms. (Schmalleger, F. and Koppel, T, 1999) Thus, this essay will be arguing that the criminal justice system is indeed broken.
The criminal justice system consists of law enforcement, courts, and corrections. Law enforcement officers are the first responders. Their job consists of many duties, such as patrolling the streets, conducting traffic stops, helping people when they need help, and arresting criminals. The courts are responsible for understanding criminal cases and deciding on how individuals should be dealt with, whether it is participating in community service, probation, or jail time. Corrections are where criminals go to serve time for the crime they committed.
The criminal justice system does many things for our society. It provides us with a place to put criminals. It acts as a rehabilitation center for those criminals so that when they come out of jail or prison they can reintegrate into society. The criminal justice system provides us with a forum in which we can solve disputes legally which is the court system. It also acts as a deterrence for potential future offenders by putting someone in jail or prison.
The criminal justice system is made up of three branches that carry out their own specified function for efficiency and intentionality. The corrections branch is tasked with the duty of imposing sentences on individuals convicted of crimes. Criminal sentences serve multiple purposes including punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, and protection of society. Numerous philosophies make up the reasoning behind these types of punishments. The ideology of punishment ranges depending on the desired outcome, so the criminal justice system implements different philosophies in order to achieve a few of the outcomes they strive for.
Crime is a blemish in almost every society. Criminals and law breakers have been around since biblical times and still haunt societies today. The American Criminal Justice System is in place to attempt to help control criminals. The idea is not to create a perfect society where no crime will be committed, but to contain the crime. Predicting crime is not an easy task, criminal justice officials take many steps to prevent crime from happening.
Moving forward, in order to understand the criminal justice system more, it is important to know what the concept of federalism is. Federalism is meant the government powers being shared within the national government and states. As I should also mention, federalism plays a part in the growth and development of the United States. While reading through the textbook, federalism established a powerful national government, allowing state powers and traditions. As an example that was mentioned in the textbook, back in 2015, California was known for becoming the fifth state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, but only allowing for those certain patients who were ill.
The National Criminal Justice Association was established in 1971 in Washington, D.C. It is a non-profit organization that serves as the principal liaison between state and local units of government, the various agencies of the U.S. government, and criminal justice interest groups. Its goal is to assist tribal, state, and local governments on crime prevention and crime control issues. Their goal is to create a balanced approach to the people’s complex public safety and juvenile justice system.
A comparison between the Due process model and crime control model Within the criminal justice system, there are two competing models: the crime control model and the due process model. These two models were constructed by Robert Packer and each represents a particular school of thought. In managing crime, there is the individual i.e. the suspect and there is the society. The due process model is seen to focus on the suspect whereas the crime control model focuses on the society. This paper analyzes these two models and based on the rate of crime in the society, makes recommendations as to which is the best model in criminal justice.
In the criminal justice system, there are three major components. They are the police, the courts, and the corrections. Each one of the components has a role to play in the system. The police are in charge of arresting and investigating crimes. The courts are charged with the responsibility of punishing offenders while the corrections implement the court rulings.
In the criminal justice system, the corrections component is also responsible for the rehabilitation of the convicted individual. It is their duty to attempt to make the defendant a productive member of society once again. Based on the individual’s behavior while incarcerated, the court and corrections officials may decide to place them on parole, which ensures that the individual will comply with the rules of society once they are fully released from the system. The criminal justice system is an essential role in the organizational structure of not only the United States but also in countries around the world. If there were no criminal justice system to administer punishment, the world would be unstructured, disorganized, unjustified, cruel, and not to mention a chaotic place for it citizens.
Within the criminal justice system there are several stakeholders such as law enforcement officials, prosecutors, juries and judges who play a critical role in the processes which are intricate to the justice system. These systems serve as a pendulum to balance the scale of justice so that no one side is unequal to the laws that are applied. Within this intricate system there are multiple steps that occur when processing felony charge(s) cases. These steps include the investigation, the arrest, arraignment, trial, sentence, and appeals (Nichols, n.d). The first step in maintaining justice involves law enforcement officers who are often the first responders when criminal acts are committed.
An important role is carried out by the criminal justice system in a democratic society. My philosophy and approach for balancing individual rights and public protection is that law enforcement authorities should restrict citizens’ liberties through force to compel obedience of law if those liberties cause harm to the society. Authorities maintain law and order by restricting freedoms of the citizens through force to constrain them to obey the law penalizing those who disobey the law. However, the citizens must be free to exercise the freedoms granted and guaranteed by the Constitution. Therefore, the law must give way to reasonable exercise of civil liberties when those freedoms do not cause harm to others.