Structure of Criminal Justice System - Assignment Example

? Criminal Justice System Structure of Criminal Justice System Introduction The system of criminal justice is divided into three parts, the legislative part that is responsible for the creation of rules and regulations, the adjudication portion that comprises of the courts and the correctional portion that includes sanctions and punishment levied on offenders (May, 2008, p.24). All these three portions of the criminal justice system operate together while complying with the rule of law and they ensure that the legal rules and regulations are followed by members of the society. The main function that all these three branches of the criminal justice system try to serve is to deter crime. Body Before a criminal is finally subjected to any form of corrections, he/she has to go through an entire structure of criminal justice system. The very first contact that a probable offender or a suspect makes with the system of criminal justice system is with the law enforcement agencies such as police who are responsible for carrying out an arrest after investigating a particular deviant act.. The law enforcement agencies are divided into different levels and they deal with different levels of crime. For crimes that do not pose immense threat to the security of a nation and are less severe in nature, mostly fall under the jurisdiction of police, while crimes such as international terrorist activities that pose a threat to the national security are handled by federal level law enforcement agencies such as Federal Bureau of Investigation. The law enforcement agencies that fall under the category of policing are even responsible to ensure that harmony within society members is created and maintained (Stojkovic, 2012, p.58). The policing branch of criminal justice system tries to serve the function of deterring crime by arresting suspects and offenders and presenting them in front of the court of law. After passing through the policing system, the criminals and suspects are taken to courts where dispute settlement arises and administration of justice takes place. Several individuals are involved in the process of courts, these includes: prosecutors, judges as well as defence attorneys. The main duty lies with the judge who has to be objective and assign sanctions to criminals and ensure that the sanctions assigned are in compliance with the kind of crime being conducted and the severity of the crime. The courts of the criminal justice system even operate for serving the function of deterring crime. They do so by allocating severe punishments as well as rehabilitation of the offender. In case of severe punishments, criminals may be sentenced for life time in order to set an example for other possible offenders to ensure that future offenders may be deterred from indulging in criminal activity as they may see life imprisonment as a higher risk than the advantage of committing a crime. Once the courts assign sanctions to the offenders, the offenders are then transferred to authorities that are responsible to administer the sanctions that have been levied on the offender. Over the years, the correctional settings and the correctional portion of the criminal justice system has evolved with several changes in techniques of punishment. In previous years, lack of resources resulted in sanctions such as exile as well as execution, much modernized ways of punishments include: community work, jail time, as well as incarceration and rehabilitation. The main function served by this portion of the criminal justice system is to alter the behaviour of the criminals while trying to ensure that they are not released from their sanctions until they are ready to be normal and non-deviant members of the society. The main aim of all these measures of punishment have remained the same over the years. The aim has been to deter crime and to ensure that the streets of a particular nation and the citizens of their nation are safe and secure from criminal activities. Conclusion The structure of the criminal justice system is divided into three portions, the policing portion, the courts and the corrections and all these three portions operating with the aim of serving the function of deterring criminal activity. Restorative Justice Introduction The term restorative justice is used to refer to the process of justice that pays emphasis to the needs of both the victims as well as the criminals instead of resorting to punishing the offender (Zernova, 2007, p.53). This task will focus on how the ideology of restorative justice can be applied to criminal justice system and this writing will even focus on the strengths and limitations of this form of justice. Body Under restorative justice, justice is served by active participation of the victims as well as the criminals in the process of satisfying the needs of both the entities. Under such system, offenders are not punished or are not required to serve jail time; instead they participate in activities such as obtaining an apology, returning resources that they have stolen or by providing community service. The underlining feature of this form of justice is to provide the criminals with a chance to refrain from committing future criminal activities. This kind of justice is based on the belief that a crime is committed against individuals as well as the society and not against an entire state and those being harmed are the individuals and the community and their grievances need to be addressed. This form of justice can result in the satisfaction of the victims while increasing the accountability of the criminal. For example: During a criminal proceeding, a victim testified and informed about the psychological and the financial issues she faced due to being hit and run by the offender. The offender then informed the court that he was driving under the influence of alcohol and was impaired. The court held and the victim accepted that a compensation of $0.2 million will serve justice. One of the main strengths of restorative justice is that it increases the accountability of all the parties involved including the community, the criminal as well as the victim. It allows reconciling and restoring the destroyed relationship between the criminal and the victim as well as the criminal’s behaviour with the community. In case of restorative justice, the quantity or quality of justice is decided by the victim and thus fulfilment of justice results in his/her optimum satisfaction. One of the major criticism of restorative justice is that it might not deter crime as the criminals might believe that restorative justice is an easy way to come out of an issue and the penalties that criminals may pay under such system may not be severe enough as compared to sanctions such as jail time as well as corporal punishment (Fattah, 2001, p.329). Fernandez states that “restorative justice is insufficient to deal with cases of domestic violence as outcomes are not formal” (Fernandez, 2010, p.10) Those who criticize this system even believe that in case of murder this system cannot be used as the victim (the deceased) has already died and satisfaction of his should cannot be experienced by him/her and instead the proceedings of restorative justice will arise between the family of the deceased which does not leads to the satisfaction of the deceased. Restorative justice is even criticized for erosion of legal rights of the offenders and the victims that have been created by the law and it can even be criticized for unequal share of power between the criminal as well as the victim, where the victim may fear the criminal and may avoid obtaining enough compensation for the harm done. Conclusion In case of restorative justice, justice is served in order to satisfy the needs of the victim as well as the criminal and sanctions are levied on the criminal by the victim. These sanctions can be inform of money that has been stolen by the criminal. Restorative justice aims at benefiting the community as well as individual victims. It is different from other kinds of justice system in which the aim is to satisfy the state. Miscarriage of Justice Introduction Miscarriage of justice refers to the conviction as well as sanctions faced by an individual who may not have actually committed a crime (Turvey, 2008, p.510). This task will focus on why miscarriage of justice has frequently occurred even in proper criminal justice systems and will even discuss the cases where incidences of miscarriages have occurred. Body There are various reasons due to which miscarriage of justice may arise including failure to take into consideration important evidence. For example in the case of Frank Button, he was later quashed from the conviction he was experiencing because the DNA evidence in his case provided insight that he did not commit rape of a thirteen year old girl. Hill states “Frank Allan Button was convicted due to his presence at the crime scene and DNA evidence was ignored” (Hill, 2004, p.110). In this case miscarriage took place as the investigators in this criminal activity did not go forward to test the DNA obtained from the bedding of the place where the crime actually occurred. Another reason due to which miscarriage of justice may occur is regarded as the fabrication of confession evidence. In the case of Frank Button, Button made a particular confession to his nephew, but his nephew denied any such occurrence of event and police officials even did not look into the matter. A third reason for the occurrence of miscarriage of justice includes the failure of the investigators to properly investigate the evidence. For example: In the case of Stephen Downing, the forensic experts concluded that downing was the murder as the blood on his clothes was of the victims and the blood could only land on his clothes because he was the killer (Algarra, 2002, p.79). Although, Downing was the one who informed the law enforcement officials of the murder and later it was figured out that the blood was transferred on his clothes because he picked the victim in his arms. In the same case another reason of miscarriage of justice occurred because police had used wrongful means of investigating the suspect and even denies him his right for counsel. At first Downing was taken to prison where he was not informed that he was being held as a suspect and the police did not even provide him with his right of taking assistance from a lawyer. In Stephen Downing’s case, downing ended up spending over 18 years in prison and was not even allowed parole because he was not ready to plead guilty for a criminal act that he did not even commit. Other reasons for miscarriage of justice even include biased representation of the one who is defending by law enforcement agencies as well as media. In the case of Anderson, he was convicted because of a false confession made by a fellow member of the religious group they both were part of, his confession was unreliable, but police still took his confession and registered it as reliable because of their previously held believe that Anderson was the one responsible for bombings (Hocking, 2000, p.261). Judicial miscarriages even arise because law enforcement agencies may resort to depend on theories of policing and may not take the scenario into consideration while conducting policing activities as it happened in the case of Anderson. Conclusion Miscarriage of justice arises when an individual who has not actually committed a crime is considered as a criminal by the court of law. There are various reasons leading to miscarriage of justice including: failure to take into consideration important evidence, fabrication of confession evidence, failure of the investigators to properly investigate the evidence, wrongful means of investigating and biased representation of the one who is defending. Criminal Justice System is gendered Introduction Both the male and the female gendered are treated differently by the criminal justice system. They are treated differently in the case of arrests, prosecution, convictions as well as penalties levied for crimes. A debate regarding the unequal treatment of genders by the criminal justice system has occurred; there are those who favour such treatments and even those who believe that all criminals should be treated equally. Body According to American Psychological Association only a total of 199,000 US female criminals were imprisoned while a total of 950,000 were on probation (Apa.org, 2009). This is clear evidence of women being treated less harshly and differently as compared to males. One of the most common reason due to which different treatment of females as compared to males are supported is that females commit crimes that are less severe in nature as compared to crimes committed by the male gender. Another reason due to which the criminal justice system promotes relaxed treatment of females is that females have the role of mothers and have the role of brining up their family and are considered much important in bringing up families as compared to fathers. Due to this they are less likely to be imprisoned and are more likely to be cautioned or paroled. This means that the criminal justice system treats women in a relaxed manner so they can continue to perform their social duty of bring up their children (Miller, 2004, p.71). Another reason for relaxed treatment of women by the criminal justice system is that they are considered emotionally weak when compared to the male gender. Since women are considered emotionally weak, if they are provided with harsh treatment in jails and are imprisoned, then they are most likely to face emotional issues and other psychological issues for which the burden of their treatment will fall on the budget of the criminal justice system. Those against equal treatment of male and the female gender by the criminal justice system believe that if policies of punishment will be created equally for both the sexes, then these policies will be created while making the male gender the benchmark and since the male gender is considered to be stronger, harsher punishments will be levied on the female gender which they may fail to bare. There are various reasons due to which differentia; treatment of the male and the female gender is promoted, firstly, those against differential treatment believes that by being lenient towards females and severe towards the male gender, the criminal justice system is becoming biased (Williams, 2004, p.11). William states “when women are caught for certain crimes they are allowed to get away while same activity may be considered as criminal in case of the male gender” (William, 2004, p.51). Those against even believe that if females are left with warnings and are not sanctioned harshly they will continue to commit crimes and they will even commit severe crimes as they may not feel threatened by the criminal justice system. This means that female criminals are even rational choice makers and if they believe that committing a crime is of higher advantage because they may be treated in a lenient manner, then they may be promoted to commit more crimes. Conclusion Criminal justice system treats both the female and the male gender in different manner, those in the favour of differential treatment state that females need to e dealt with relaxation as females commit crimes that are less severe, they can continue to perform their social duty, are considered emotionally weak and harsher punishments will be levied. References Algarra, B. 2002. Citizenship for you. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. Apa.org. 2009. Inequality in prison. [online] Available at: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/10/recidivism.aspx [Accessed: 6 Aug 2013]. Fattah, E., Parmentier, S. and Peters, T. 2001. Victim policies and criminal justice on the road to restorative justice. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press. Fernandez, M. 2010. Restorative justice for domestic violence victims. Lanham: Lexington Books. Hil, R. and Tait, G. 2004. Hard lessons. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate. Hocking, J. 2000. Lionel Murphy. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. May, D. 2008. Corrections and the criminal justice system. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Pub Miller, R. and Browning, S. 2004. For the common good. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press. Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D. and Klofas, J. 2012. Criminal justice organizations. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning - Wadsworth. Turvey, B. and Petherick, W. 2008. Forensic Victimology. Burlington: Elsevier. Williams, L. 2004. Women, crime and the criminal justice system. New York, NY: Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Zernova, M. 2007. Restorative justice. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate. Read More