Criminal Justice System

The Criminal Justice System has many roles and responsibilities on a daily basis, whether it is the police officer protecting our streets or an attorney defending those who commit the crimes, or even all the way up to an F.B.I agent. The System has three component subsystems: Police, courts, and corrections. Each subsystem contains a number of functional area (Stevens). These all tie together in the end and the whole system has to work together. The Oxford Dictionary defines Criminal Justice System as “The system of law enforcement that is directly involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing and punishing those who are suspected or convicted of criminal offenses” (Oxford). This means it is a process; if we didn’t have the police officer to make an arrest then courts would have no trails and so on. There are three major subsystems in the Criminal Justice System. First, it begins with the police officer; he or she is the one responsible for the initial arrest upon a person who is committing a crime. They have a lot of duties weighing on their shoulders. For example the officer has to take precautions every second, even if it is just a simple traffic stop. They never know what to expect but are trained to handle difficult situations if it occurs. They risk their lives on a daily basis; in every community in the United States, the law enforcement personnel and firefighter’s regularly put their lives in harm’s way to protect the public. The risk of a fatal incident for law enforcement personnel and firefighters is three times greater than for all workers (U.S. Bureau). During 1922-97, over 1,100 law enforcement personnel were killed in the line of duty, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI). In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court declared that whenever a person is taken into police custody, before being questioned he or she must be told of the Fifth Amendment. The words an officer must say are: “You have

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