The criminal justice system is composed of three parts – Police, Courts and Corrections – and all three work together to protect an individual’s rights and the rights of society to live without fear of being a victim of crime. According to merriam-webster.com, crime is defined as “an act that is forbidden or omission of a duty that is commanded by public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law.” When all the three parts work together, it makes the criminal justice system function like a well tuned machine.
In this paper, I propose to talk about how all the three parts of the criminal justice system works and also delve a little bit on the issue of racism in context of the criminal justice system as a lot of
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The court is the second component of the justice system – once the suspect is arrested, s/he is referred to as a defendant. It is now up to the court to decide if the police had enough evidence for probable cause for arrest – if the determination is positive, then the defendant gets an opportunity to plead innocent or guilty. Once the court establishes that the defendant is innocent, s/he is released; on the other hand if the defendant is found guilty the court decides the type of punishment and then the defendant is turned over to the Corrections for the follow up of the punishment.
While the defendant is in the custody, Corrections is responsible for probation, prison and parole. When the defendant is found guilty and sent to prison, s/he will be housed away from society for a given period of time and while in prison, corrections is responsible for humane treatment of the defendant. Correction also takes up the responsibility of rehabilitation of that individual and tries to make them productive members of the society. Based on their behavior, the
There are three significant issues concerning law enforcement, namely enacting the law, police discretion, and assessment of criminal behavior. Different entities create and enact laws that are specific for the societies those laws represent.
There are three components for the criminal justice system is the police, the courts and then corrections. The police enforce the law by apprehending offenders, investigating crimes and also trying to prevent crimes among other things. The courts conduct fair and impartial trials; they determine criminal cases and decide if an offender is guilty or innocent along with many other things. Corrections carry out sentences that have been decided by the courts, they protect the public, and they rehabilitate; reform and reintegrate convicted offenders back into society (2011 CJi Interactive)..
The Criminal Justice System is a set of legal and social institutions used to enforce a defined set of rules limitations (3). This system in the United States is divided into three subsections: Federal, State, and Military. Each state's criminal justice department is then divided again into separate juvenile and adult systems (3). The system begins when the crime is committed and observed which leads to an investigation and arrest here the accused enters the system. The first step is after the arrest is made the criminal is held in jail until they can go to Criminal court, this usually happens within twenty four hours of the arrest unless it’s a weekend. In that case the trial will be held on Monday. While the prisoner is waiting for trial they get brought to central booking where their fingerprints and photograph are taken. At this time
“13th” is a documentary directed by Ava DuVernay. It is named after the 13th Amendment to the American Constitution which outlawed slavery unless you are being punished for a crime. The film focuses on racism in the United States’ criminal justice system. According to DuVernay, the part of the 13th Amendment that says “unless you are being punished for a crime” is a loophole that has been used to allow slavery to continue in the early days during reconstruction and even now. This loophole coupled with the criminalization of the black man has led to mass incarceration of minorities. The United States which has only five percent of the world’s population but has twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. The prison population of the United States has exploded from 300, 000 in 1972 to 2.3 million now. Each component of the criminal justice system, law enforcement, the courts and corrections, has contributed to the perpetuation of slavery through its contribution to mass incarceration.
The United States criminal justice system can be described as flawed in many ways. Some of these flaws have a larger impact on the people of this country than others. Two of the largest problems we have currently revolve around the issues of wrongful convictions and prosecutorial misconduct. The whole criminal justice system revolves around making sure people follow the laws put in place, and if they do not punish them for their wrongdoing. This system is also about affording the same rights to every person that goes through the criminal justice system.
The United States considers itself to be the best country in the world. This sense of nationalism is present because of the country’s history of opportunities and their emphasis on the power of their people. Safety is a crucial aspect that peopleconsider when choosing where to live. The United States provides their citizenswith national safety throughthe enforcement of their criminal justice system.As a result of their intentions of maintaining a secure living environment, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world by far. While the United States strives to bring safety to others, their system has many concerning issues such as over-sentencing, racial discrimination and recidivism that need to be solved.
The Criminal Justice System The criminal justice system is a system of laws and rulings which protect community members and their property. It determines which events causing injury or offence to community members, are criminal. Criminal offenders may be punished through the law by fines, imprisonment and/or community service. (Sallmann, P. and Willis, J. 1984, Criminal Justice in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.) (Source in Figure 1, chart of the Criminal
In order to understand the criminal justice system, you must first define it as whether and how it works. Criminal justice system is divided into two (2) model, a model of consensus and conflict models. I will try to identify each system and explain how they sought justice. Criminal justice system consists of three main levels, the police, justice and corrections. There are two models of the criminal justice system, which tries to explain how justice is achieved.
The criminal justice system is a big part of why we have order. If there was no criminal justice system and its components that keep it running, the population would run wild. There are three major components of the criminal justice system, the criminal courts, corrections, and law enforcement. These components help uphold the law and protect people from others who do break the law. The world is not perfect, but there have been many examples in real life and in literature and films that show what a world would be like without a stable justice system. The outcomes of those worlds are filled with anarchy and conflict, therefor they never end well. With these components, it leads to a stable criminal justice system, which would not exist
Prior to the over a thousand days spent on Rikers Island, including brutal nights in solitary confinement, Kalief Browder could remember his walk down East 186th Street that was suddenly interrupted by the NYPD who accused him of robbing the person who sat in their cop car, a person who Kalief claimed to have never seen in his life. Unable to make bail, Kalief suddenly found himself on his way to Rikers Island. In 2010, he soon became one of the 5,695 victims of the Bronx criminal court system even though the only evidence that was had was the memory of the alleged victim (Gonnermen 1). As discussed in class, the Criminal Justice System can be looked at as a contract within itself that contains two parts of its social contract, part one as crimes with the punishments to those crimes and part two as the due process to how the legal system handles the suspect of a crime. Even though the Criminal Justice System has been studied and training has been implemented to government officials on how to follow it properly, up to present day the Criminal Justice’s contract with society still causes trauma within society.
The criminal justice system and the process have molded the laws of the United States to its current existence. The judicial system is designed to punish those who commit crimes against one another and for those who break the laws in other ways. According to Pearson (2012), crime can be defined as conduct in violation of the state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse. Pearson (2012) also states, that “crime” depends on where you are, which means it is a daily routine for society and directly affects a person, place, and any witnesses associated with it. The American criminal justice system has many elements with crime as the
The criminal justice system has evolved on the decades. From initially being constituted by the victim to eventually becoming constituted by written laws. There have been several changes made within the justice system, so in the following I will discuss my perspectives of the researched information and the noted changes of a system that was created by the people for the people.
The American criminal justice system is a multilayered complex that interconnects courts, law-enforcement agencies, and corrections of federal, state, and local governments in the common goal of reducing crime, punishing wrongdoers, and rehabilitating offenders. The criminal justice system has three separately organized components which include law enforcement, the courts, and corrections. Each of the three components of the criminal justice system has distinct tasks and these components are not independent of one another. What each one does and how it operates have direct bearings on the work of the other components. For example, courts can deal with only those whom the police arrest, and correctional institutions handle only those who are
The criminal justice system has built specific procedures over the years, which it implements to ensure that all policies and laws are followed without interruption in effort to support a speedy trial. It is crucial that each one of these procedures is conducted with utmost professionalism until it is complete. In this paper I will outline the criminal justice system from investigation and arrest through probation and parole. A deviation during any one of these procedures could result in a criminal going free with impunity.
The criminal justice system is a system of law enforcement that is directly involved in prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and punishing people suspected of crime or convicted of felony offenses. The criminal justice system is made of three major components; law enforcement, courts, and corrections. All have subcomponents that work together in order for the system to function properly and maintain order. The three major components have big backgrounds that lead up to the way they function now.