Alternative Arguments For Traditional Prosecution

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Alternatives to Traditional Prosecution The prosecutors have other duties in a court of law besides filing the charges. These duties and strategies include the diversion, deferred sentencing, and the deferred prosecution. These strategies provide the offenders with an opportunity to fulfill some of the obligations. The obligations are the exchange to the prosecutor’s decision to avoid the formal charges (Buzawa, 2012). Diversion is a court program that provides with an alternative to the prosecution. Each court has its well-defined diversion programs and the different set of the eligibility requirements. In some cases, the diversion programs appear to be very formal and structured. Some of these formal programs include the Mental Health Diversion and the Extra Judicial Sanctions often offered by the Youth Court. There also exist types of diversion that are very informal and at times may involve offering a service to the community or donating to a charity. However, despite the presence of differences, all the diversion programs have some common characteristic such that they all belong to a category of alternative prosecution. The court recognizes these alternatives in that it does not deal with all types of the offenses brought before it. Additionally, it can argue out that helping the community sometimes make up for the harm caused by an offense. Therefore, diversion refers to the programmatic and informal methods that steers the offenders out of the criminal justice system. Diversion has existed since the emergence of the community-based corrections (Friman, 2010). The push for the diversion programs followed the recommendation by the president’s Commission on the enforcement of the law in the year 1967. Additionally, there were... ... middle of paper ... .... Despite the presence of some diverging features concerning the alternative to the prosecution, they all serve similar purposes in the criminal justice system. References Buzawa, Eva Schlesinger, Carl G. Buzawa, Evan Stark, and Eva Schlesinger Buzawa. 2012. Responding to domestic violence: the integration of criminal justice and human services. Friman, Hakan, and Darryl Robinson. 2010. An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure. Cambridge University Press. http://www.myilibrary.com?id=272492. Welch, Casey, and John R. Fuller. 2014. American criminal courts legal process and social context. Boston, Mass: Anderson Publishing/Elsevier. http://www.contentreserve.com/TitleInfo.asp?ID={87D1EF0B-F44D-42C6-8A8F-F46D5BACCB4F}&Format=50. Britz, Marjie. 2009. Computer forensics and cybercrime: an introduction. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.

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