The Criminal Justice System

Police have a critical role in the criminal justice system and the criminal investigation process. Police’s role is to prevent crime and enforce legal regulations. Police are provided several types of powers to fulfil their duties towards the community. These authorised powers are used to stop, search and detain a person when they’re certain a crime is committed. This ensures that citizens have their rights and privacy protected however, this power contains several advantages and disadvantages. Whilst this power allows police to catch more individuals who disobeys the law, couldn’t this power also violate an individual’s privacy and rights?

Police makes the decision whether to investigate a crime based on the likelihood of success, available

resources and priorities or the severity of the offence. Police can use several methods and authorised powers to assist their investigation. Most of NSW Police’s powers are listed out in the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW). Main police powers in investigating crime are: arrest, search and seizure, access to information, interrogation, and use force if necessary to carry out duties.

(Source: http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/leara2002451/)
To maintain fairness within the community, police arrest an individual due to reasonable grounds consisting on; an individual looking suspicious, leaving from a crime scene, and to prevent a crime that’ll potentially happen.

But what an officer defines as reasonable grounds can be deemed unreasonable by other members of society and the opposition. Police have a wide judgement in deciding whether to arrest an individual or not, particularly when it comes to minor offences. This can be discriminatory. An example of this is illustrated from Hayden Cooper’s article “CCTV footage of violent arrest questions police training and exactly what happened to a young girl” in

2015.

(Source: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/cctv-footage-of-violent-arrest-questions-police/6345508)
Melissa Dunn has been arrested with hindering and resisting police, a legally justifiable decision by Constable Hugh Michelson in accordance to the law.

However, the means in how Constable Michelson arrested Dunn is questionable. It is depicted from the article and CCTV recordings, of Dunn running away from Constable Michelson. Then followed by Constable Michelson pulling Dunn’s hair, positioned Dunn into a headlock, then thrown to the road. The judge stated that Constable Michelson has used an “inordinate amount of force against Dunn. This case has initiated numerous concerns towards police authority and the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in achieving justice.

The justice system is argued as ineffective as police have too much power towards the community. Main argument is the implementation of police’s authority, such as DNA evidence and surveillance camera can be deemed as a violation of privacy. However, due to the increase of technology and police authority, police have been enabled to resist against technology based crimes such as white-collar crimes. Another positive factor is that police can apply more situational crime prevention techniques, decreasing rate of crime within the community. This is illustrated from the graph

below.

(Source: https://palbuddhistschool-my.sharepoint.com/:o:/r/personal/dos_pal_nsw_edu_au/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B2C8A198D-0CDD-4068-BDC4-319921354D56%7D&file=2018%20-%2012%20Legal%20Studies&action=default&RootFolder=%2fpersonal%2fdos_pal_nsw_edu_au%2fDocuments%2fClass%20Notebooks%2f2018%20-%2012%20Legal%20Studies&wdo=6)
The graph indicates the rate of robbery rate for NSW per 100,000 population, within the period of 1990 – 2016. Throughout 1990 – 2001, there has been a gradually dramatic increased rate of robbery in NSW. The rate of robbery without weapon within the period of 2001 – 2004, experienced a dramatic drop. Throughout the period of 2005 – 2016, the rate of robbery is gradually decreasing.