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Is the United States criminal justice system fair
The construction of the criminal justice system
The construction of the criminal justice system
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Recommended: Is the United States criminal justice system fair
Based on the definition, criminal justice system is described as the set of processes, bodies and institutions that aim to secure or restore social control (Pakes, 2004). Its aim would be clear after having this definition and it is to safegaurd the social stability by having different parties to control the rules of the society and punish the offender to prevent them from breaking the law again. There are many laws to rule the activities of citizens and deterring them from committing a crime. The existence of those laws are used to give a guidance to people that what things will not be morally accepted and prevent people from doing it by setting up related punishments. It can protect the safety and the property of citizens as generally …show more content…
I would say the concept of “fairness” is quite important in the criminal justice system. In the legal system in Hong Kong, the evidence given by prosecution should be accepted prima facie before mention in court. It is related to the concept of ‘no one is guily before the judgement’. Legal officers will consider the case with reasonable doubts and evidences provided. If the people arrested really committed the crime, the criminal justice ststem will give the criminal a reasonable punishment. No injustice cases will be tolerated. No one should be able to put an innocent man in jail by making up some fake evidence.
The safety of the society can be restored by sentence the criminal imprisonment and also provide rehabilitation services to them. Under the criminal justice system, there are prisons, detention centres, rehabilitation centres, training centres, drug addiction treatment centres to help different criminals to correct themselves. It is aimed to separate the dangerous people from the society and also provide chances for them to remove their bad behaviours. After the punishments, they are expected not to commit crimes anymore and the safety of the society is
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However, I saw some lawyers need to seek help from their assistants for the number and page of document bundle and what is the content of that particular DVD. It may not be a surprise for lawyers or even judges but it really surprised me and made me curious as I always think lawyers are professional and they always prepared very well before any courts. Maybe there are some reasonable arguments for barristers to seek help from others but I think this will probably ruin the image of lawyers because the general public do not know anything about the daily routine of
Criminal law attempts to balance the rights of individuals to freedom from interference with person or property, and society’s need for order. Procedural matters, the rights of citizens and powers of the state, specific offences and defences, and punishment and compensation are some of the ways society and the criminal justice system interact.
All the laws, which concern with the administration of justice in cases where an individual has been accused of a crime, always begin with the initial investigation of the crime and end either with imposition of punishment or with the unconditional release of the person. Most of the time it is the duty of the members of constituted authorities to inflict the punishment. Thus it can be said that almost all of the punishments are an act of self-defense and an act of defending the community against different types of offences. According to Professor Hart “the ultimate justification of any punishment is not that it is deterrent but that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime” (Hart P.65). Whenever the punishments are inflicted having rationale and humane factor in mind and not motivated by our punitive passions and pleasures then it can be justified otherwise it is nothing but a brutal act of terrorism. Prison System: It has often been argued that the criminals and convicted prisoners are being set free while the law-abiding citizens are starving. Some people are strongly opposed the present prison and parole system and said that prisoners are not given any chance for parole. Prisons must provide the following results: Keep dangerous criminals off the street Create a deterrent for creating a crime The deterrent for creating a crime can be justified in the following four types Retribution: according to this type, the goal of prison is to give people, who commit a crime, what they deserved Deterrence: in this type of justification, the goal of punishment is to prevent certain type of conduct Reform: reform type describes that crime is a disease and so the goal of punishment is to heal people Incapacitation: the...
2. Did you easily find the National Criminal Justice Reference Service when you searched for NCJRS on the search tools?
Within the Federal Government there are three main branches; “the Legislative, the Judicial, and Executive” (Phaedra Trethan, 2013). They have the same basic shape and the same basic roles were written in the Constitution in 1787.
If given this prompt at the beginning of this semester I would have answered with a resounding yes, the criminal justice system is racist. The classes I have previously taken at LSU forced me to view the criminal justice system as a failed institution and Eric Holder’s interview in VICE - Fixing The System solidified that ideology. The system is man-made, created by people in power, and imposed on society, so of course there will be implicit biases. The issue is that these internally held implicit biases shaped the system, leading the racial and class disparities. VICE – Fixing The System addressed heavily the outcomes that we see in today’s society based on these implicit biases. Additionally, this documentary focuses on the ways that mainly
Saint Augustine once said, “In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” The criminal justice system in America has been documented time and time again as being a legal system that borders on the surreal. We as Americans live in a country where the Justice Department has failed to collect on $7 billion in fines and restitutions from thirty-seven thousand corporations and individuals convicted of white collar crime. That same Justice Department while instead spending more than 350% since 1980 on total incarceration expenditures totaling $80 billion dollars. America has become a place where a 71-year-old man will get 150 years in prison for stealing $68 billion dollars from nearly everyone in the country and a five-time petty offender in Dallas was sentenced to one thousand years in prison for stealing $73.
Today our world is filled with crime. The people committing these crimes must have a consequence for their illegal actions. The system in place to keeping everything fair and safe is called the criminal justice system. This was put in place to ensure there is fairness and justice served to people who break the laws set up by the government.
The criminal justice system is a group of institutions that work together to protect a society, prevent and control crime, and maintain justice; enforcing the laws regulated by society. As the years have gone by and society has evolved; so have the criminal justice system and its methods to accomplish its role in society. This short analysis will evaluate the main facts that have been affecting the criminal justice system for decades and have influenced the evolution the justice system is enduring in a changing society (Muraski, 2009). Amongst the changes in the system, we will discuss the effect the changes have had on the citizens and how their perceptions have evolved as well.
It seems as if much of society believes criminals are playing a game; rolling the dice to see what they can get away-with cat and mouse. It may appear to many, arrest and prosecution are somewhat random and arbitrary. Unfortunately, the general views on the criminal justice system seem sour. In particular, within the court system, these views are based on the idea defendants of means can and do beat charges with the ‘best defense money can buy’, while poorer defendants plead to charges and serve their sentences. Repeated exonerations using DNA evidence, highly publicized incidents involving police shootings, with unindicted officers have done little to discourage these
The criminal justice system is composed of three parts – Police, Courts and Corrections – and all three work together to protect an individual’s rights and the rights of society to live without fear of being a victim of crime. According to merriam-webster.com, crime is defined as “an act that is forbidden or omission of a duty that is commanded by public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law.” When all the three parts work together, it makes the criminal justice system function like a well tuned machine.
The major goals of the criminal justice System and their relevance, to the protection and well-being of society While efforts are directed towards deterring those who are not yet involved in crime the criminal justice system, which is divided into three major institutions, police, courts and prison works at alleviating crime by placing sanctions on those who breaks the law with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts in an attempt to reduce criminal activities. However, the focus of this paper is to discuss the major goals of the criminal justice system and their relevance to the protection and well-being of society; these goals, according to Marion & Oliver (2011) are deterrence, to teach morality, incapacitation, punishment, rehabilitation,
According to David Garland, punishment is a legal process where violators of the criminal law are condemned and sanctioned with specified legal categories and procedures (Garland, 1990). There are different forms and types of punishment administered for various reasons and can either be a temporary or lifelong type of punishment. Punishment can be originated as a cause from parents or teachers with misbehaving children, in the workplace or from the judicial system in which crimes are committed against the law. The main aim of punishment is to demonstrate to the public, the victim and the offender that justice is to be done, to reduce criminal activities and to deter people from wanting to commit any form of crime against the law. In other words it is a tool used to eliminate the bad in society or to deter people from committing criminal activities.
Laws serve several purposes in the criminal justice system. The main purpose of criminal law is to protect, serve, and limit human actions and to help guide human conduct. Also, laws provide penalties and punishment against those who are guilty of committing crimes against property or persons. In the modern world, there are three choices in dealing with criminals’ namely criminal punishment, private action and executive control. Although both private action and executive control are advantageous in terms of costs and speed, they present big dangers that discourage their use unless in exceptional situations. The second purpose of criminal law is to punish the offender. Punishing the offender is the most important purpose of criminal law since by doing so; it discourages him from committing crime again while making him or her pay for their crimes. Retribution does not mean inflicting physical punishment by incarceration only, but it also may include things like rehabilitation and financial retribution among other things. The last purpose of criminal law is to protect the community from criminals. Criminal law acts as the means through which the society protects itself from those who are harmful or dangerous to it. This is achieved through sentences meant to act as a way of deterring the offender from repeating the same crime in the future.
The basic performance measure of criminal justice system is rate of crimes and re-offending. These parameters show the main guidelines of community safety on which all main components of the criminal systems is depends. The main source of prevention of crimes in society is police force, which is often displayed as the only type of law enforcement. The criminal justice structure is, in fact, quite complex, with a few important pillars within the structure.
Just like today, thousands of years ago crime followed humans and was present in any culture. It did not matter where in the world or how advanced the nation was, crime was unavoidable and expected. Societal norms, values, and cultures shape and reflect a countries legal system and how they deal with criminals and punishment. Many past empires and countries have made significant contributions to the formation of modern criminal justice systems around the world. The history of crime and punishment has evolved tremendously over time and can be reflected from sets of ancient laws, harsh punishments, and inequalities of certain groups of people from the past.