The criminal justice system ensures the safety and protection of society from criminal offenders. The process of the criminal justice system begins when a criminal offense is reported to law enforcement officials. If required, an investigation begins, leading to a warrant and arrest. Following the arrest, bail is set and a preliminary hearing is scheduled. If the defendant is indicted, a trial date is set. Providing the defendant does not waive the right to a jury trial, a jury is selected and the trial begins. If the defendant is found guilty, a sentence is imposed, usually within a few days of the jury’s verdict. If the defendant wishes, he or she can then appeal the guilty verdict and sentencing, thus beginning the trial process again. Police officers, detectives, prosecutors, and defense attorneys make great efforts to ensure justice is served swiftly and fairly, thus creating a strong and effective criminal justice system.…
Someone can be affected by their surroundings, whether it is the community, they live in or peer pressure. In addition, someone’s genetics can have an influence on his or her behaviors. That person could suffer from a mental illness that causes irrational behaviors. There are also the individuals that just want to do it on their own free will (Schmalleger, 2011, p.…
Crime is a very fragile word that could be portrayed into many different understandings. The definition of a crime; According to "Dictionary.com" (2014), " is an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state, and that is legally prohibited" (Noun 1.) Law means having a set of rules and regulations in which communities and society as a whole abide by. Crime can be understood as acting against those laws (rules) that have a punishment in return for those actions. There are two models that are most commonly used by society to determine whether certain acts…
The police have to asses whether a crime has been committed and if so proceed with an Investigation.…
According to the University of Phoenix CJi Interactive activities (2014), the definition of a crime is “a conduct in violation of the criminal laws of the state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction, for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse”. It is a complex and very difficult definition to agree upon because there are many points of view and controversies in defining what crime is. From a psychological standpoint, it suggest that the crime is a way of expressing the inability of an individual to follow the social norm. The psychological view…
The Court process begins once an investigation is under way, a search and/or an arrest warrant; signed by a judge is issued. The offender will be arrested, booked and placed into custody. The prosecutor typically has 48 hours (barring mandated court closures, legal holidays and weekends), file charges and bring the accused before judge. At the pretrial the offender is advised by the judge the charges against him/her, their rights and the defendant will enter a plea of guilty or not guilty and may or may not be afforded the opportunity for bail (How Criminal…
The criminal justice system in the United States of America is a complex system concerning law, policing, courts, and corrections. Each action and change within these areas affects the entire system. Each system works together to ensure that the ultimate goals of the criminal justice system are met. The goals of the criminal justice system are to prevent and control crime, and to maintain social order. While maintaining social order, the system must ensure that the individual rights and liberties of people are protected. This includes the individual rights and liberties of people who are mentally ill. Mental illness is an all too common issue that affects approximately 11% of the United States. (James & Glaze, 2006) The criminal justice system is constantly changing. New decisions are made and new laws are created. The criminal justice system deals with the mentally ill on a constant basis and there are new laws, rules, and amendments…
In the United States different groups of people think differently of the drunk driving recidivism in the criminal justice system. One of the groups of criminal justice system indentifies the different problem of DUI recidivism as a lack of using “close monitoring”. According to AAA DUI Justice Link, the close monitoring include: “formal intensive supervision programs, home confinement with electronic monitoring, dedicated detention facilities and individual oversight by judges and continuous alcohol monitoring.” All the criminal justice stakeholders, such as prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation, law enforcement, and many others, is a group of people whose uses a team-oriented approach to systematically change participant behavior. They…
There are three components of the system and they are all valuable in the criminal justice system. The primary component would be the police force. The police officers are given the responsibility to capture criminals, investigate, and testify in court about the actions that were witnessed. In some instances, police officers are given the obligation to jail the criminals directly from the street while they wait for their trial dates. The second component is the court system. The court system is usually composed of a prosecutor, judge, and a suspect who is generally referred to as the defendant while in the court. The prosecutor is known as the officer that is assigned by the government in order to prosecute all offenses brought to court. The prosecutor’s responsibility is to present the accusations that would justify that the defendant is guilty. On the down side, if the prosecutor cannot provide enough evidence or if they struggle to prove the…
The Criminal Justice System is the system of law enforcement that is directly involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing and punishes those who is suspected or convicted of criminal offenses. The two main systems are the State and Federal: The state criminal justice systems handles crime committed within their state boundaries while the Federal criminal justice system handles crimes committed on federal property or in several states; Federal crimes compared to state crimes are more severe and the jail times are longer. The Jury plays a central role in the justice system,in a trial the jury hears evidence, testimonies, and determines whether it satisfies the crime. (Burns, Ronald G. The Criminal Justice System. Upper Saddle…
Clinton increased funding for prions to be built, more money given to law enforcement. The number of people arrested spiked. By ninety-ninety, there was over one million, one hundred thousand, one hundred, seventy-nine thousand, two hundred prisoners. Federal law’s set a trend that was overdone; he was wrong for his ninety-ninety-four criminal bill.…
After the initial contact investigators investigate the crime scene. Following the crime that was committed, investigators gather evidence at the scene where possible (Schmalleger 2011 pg.18). Once the investigators gather the evidence, they will conduct a follow up investigation and attempt to reconstruct the sequence of activities (Schmalleger 2011 pg.18). The investigation could take years to complete and involve numerous investigators. At the conclusion of the investigation an arrest can be made and warrants are issued for those suspects who were not apprehended at the scene of the…
“The first five Criminal Justice Acts of the century were spaced out over nearly 50 years, from 1925 to 1972, whereas the last five have come in less than 20 years since 1972 and the current Act is the third in only five years” (Davies, et al., 2010:29). There have been many important legislative changes affecting the criminal justice system since the 1990s. Many of these provided numerous reforms to sentencing, creating a systematic process. There are three legislative changes that could be considered the most significant to the criminal justice system today: the Criminal Justice Act 1991, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and the Criminal Justice Act 2003.…
Johnson, K. (2011, April 12). Study: Prisons failing to deter repeat criminals in 41 states. USA…
Reform is a necessary part of criminal justice system due to the fact that certain problems still exist in the courts. For instance, in the month of January 2006, a US judge sentenced a defendant based on racial inclinations. According to this judge, it was necessary to teach the defendant a lesson because he was embarrassing Martin Luther King. While this was more of an extreme case, there are still numerous scenarios within the criminal justice system that demonstrate a need for reform. Many juries, judges, police administrators are not blind to race and this severely obstructs the administration of justice.…