The main purpose of the U. S. criminal justice system is to enforce the law, maintain social order, and to protect people from injustice. Through the years many laws have been passed and changed, but it appears that there will always be a debate on how society should punish those who have broken the law. To help answer this question are two emerging models that were created by Herbert Parker a law professor; the due process and crime control model. The main difference between them are that the crime control model focuses more on putting the criminals away, protect the innocent and rehabilitation. The due process focuses more on the rights of the accused and rehabilitation.
The courts incline more toward the due process model, the due process model supports all citizens, even the criminally accused by securing their rights and freedom, to assure that all individuals rights are protected as stated in the Bill of rights and makes sure is enforce. Now the law enforcement inclines toward the crime control model, they treat arrest as if they were already guilty; mainly emphasizing on arrest, prosecution and conviction of those who have broken the law.
The due process models wants to guarantee that each individual is protected under the 4th amendment and 8th amendment, which include no illegal search and seizure, the right to a speedy fair and public trial, self incrimination and unusual punishment. As to the crime control model all it wants to do is to deter crime by all means, is less protective of individual rights, believing that individual rights must be put aside for the purpose of maintaining public safety and criminal justice manners, meaning that sometimes one has to give up ones rights for the benefit of society as a whole.
The U.S. justice system is not perfect, is a hard task to separate the innocent from the guilty, many times the guilty have been freed and the innocent put away, because of the way our justice