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Canada criminal justice system
Aspects of criminal justice system
Criminal justice court system
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Every country has a justice system in place in their society in order to maintain peace and equality. The Criminal Justice System gives civilians the opportunity to receive integrity through a legal system while giving them a fair chance to deal with negligence and misconduct. There are several components that work together to enforce the purpose played by the Criminal Justice System. Most obviously, it includes the rules and laws entrenched in the Charter and Constitution in which prosecutors and judges base their decisions. Secondly, it consists of the parliament who is responsible for putting these laws together. Then come the enforcement agents such as police officers and defense attorneys who regulate society using these rules. Lastly, there would be no use for the Criminal Justice System if the world was perfect, but fortunately, it is used to help victims and the accused. The document in the Criminal Justice System that withholds all of the offences and penalties for crimes committed in the country is called the Criminal Code of Canada.
Over the years, the Law Reform Commission has reviewed laws and proposed them. The commission brings up ideas for laws that would help prevent future crimes. Everyone has a different perspective on what the term “crime” could actually represent. In the textbook, crime is defined as “any act prohibited or punishable by law” and this time, the Law Reform Commission is seeking to make environmental harm apart of the criminal code to be considered a crime. Therefore, those who deliberately intend to damage the environment could face imprisonment. This proposal is familiar to the Government of Canada since it has been reviewed in the year 1985 when it stated, “the natural environment should no...
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...tained a streak of sustaining a strong society when suggesting their laws into the Criminal Justice System. Nonetheless, the recent proposal discussed on whether environmental harm should be criminalized has sparked controversy. There are many pros and cons that can be acknowledged in this case. One main thing is certain; the environment is very sacred to every human being and should be well cared for. Thus, there are many other techniques that can do this rather than it simply being placed in the Criminal Code. Civilians need to have a fair chance to deal with problems and as a whole; they can come together to help this environmental issue. Non-legal regulators can work together with society to better our world. Taking legal action would make things more complicated than need be when considering a law that has more negatives to our justice system than positives.
Canada’s criminal justice system largely focuses on rehabilitation, but Bourque’s harsh sentence is similar to the sentencing practices of the United States (Gagnon 2015). This is troubling as Canada’s rehabilitation focused criminal justice system appears to be working. Canada has a low rate of recidivism for offenders who have been convicted of murder (Gagnon 2015). Research shows that Canada’s rehabilitation focused criminal justice system has also worked with crimes that are not as severe as murder. Between 2010/2011 and 2013/2014, there was a 12% decrease in completed adult criminal court cases. Most cases in adult criminal court involve non-violent offenses (Maxwell 2013/2014). Similarly, in 2013, the police-reported crime rate was at it lowest since 1969 (Statistics Canada). The homicide rate is also declining, as in 2013, it represented less than 1% of all violent crime (Statistics Canada). Notably, probation was the most common sentence given in adult court cases and custody sentences were less than six months (Maxwell, 2013/2014). These types of sentences showcase the rehabilitation focused thinking of the Canadian criminal justice system and reinforce the impact and possible repercussions of Justin Bourque’s
Crime control and due process are two different ideal types of criminal justice. One could say they are extremes on a continuum. The role of crime control is to get the criminal off the street and to protect the innocent. The due process model of criminal justice is like an obstacle course, you have to keep going through legal obstacles to ensure in the end you convict the right person. In Canada the police lean toward crime control and the courts lean toward due process. This causes tension between the police and the courts. I will argue for both crime control and due process, putting more weight on due process If we did not have due process in Canada, people in positions of power, could manipulate the system for their own personal or political gain and railroad the innocent off to prison.
Wrongful conviction is an issue that has plagued the Canadian Justice System since it came to be. It is an issue that is hard to sort out between horrific crimes and society’s desire to find truth and justice. Incidences of wrongful conviction hit close to home right here in Saskatchewan as well as across the entire nation. Experts claim “each miscarriage of justice, however, deals a blow to society’s confidence in the legal justice system” (Schmalleger, Volk, 2014, 131). Professionals in the criminal justice field such as police, forensic analyst, and prosecutors must all be held accountable for their implications in wrongful convictions. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions such as racial bias, false confessions, jailhouse informants, eyewitness error, erroneous forensic science, inappropriate, professional and institutional misconduct and scientific limitations that society possessed prior to the technological revolution (Roberts, Grossman, 2012, 253 – 259). The introduction of more advanced DNA analysis has been able to clear names and prevent these incidences from occurring as often. As well as the formation of foundations such as The Association of Defense for the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC). Unfortunately, mistakes made in the Canadian Justice System have serious life altering repercussions for everyone that is involved. Both systematic and personal issues arise that require deeper and more intense analysis.
Society has long since operated on a system of reward and punishment. That is, when good deeds are done or a person behaves in a desired way they SP are rewarded, or conversely punished when behaviour does not meet the societal norms. Those who defy these norms and commit crime are often punished by organized governmental justice systems through the use of penitentiaries, where prisoners carry out their sentences. The main goals of sentencing include deterrence, safety of the public, retribution, rehabilitation, punishment and respect for the law (Government of Canada, 2013). However, the type of justice system in place within a state or country greatly influences the aims and mandates of prisons and in turn targets different aspects of sentencing goals. Justice systems commonly focus on either rehabilitative or retributive measures.
The second component of the criminal justice system is the court system. They court system is composed of lawyers, judges, and juries. Their job is to insure that everyone receives a fair trial, determine guilt or innocence, and apply sentences on guilty parties. The court system will contain one judge, and a jury of twelve citizens. The jury of the court will determine the guilt or innocence of the individual. The jury will also recommend a sentence for the crime the individual committed. Even though the jury makes the recommendation for the sentencing of the crime, the judge will follow pre-determined sentencing guidelines to make a final decision.
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.
As noted by Allen (2016), measures that are implemented outside the courtrooms, especially in a formal procedure, may lead to the provision of accurate as well as timely considerations for youth crime. As such, Canada is keen in the reinforcement of these regulations, as they determine both short and long-term judicial solutions. Most importantly, the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) in Canada plays a major role in the implementation of extrajudicial measures as they may affirm to the occurrence of future issues. According to the Government of Canada (2015a), this calls for an attempt to channel out or divert such offenders from the mainstream justice system to a lesser formal way of dealing with the offenses. This paper attempts to investigate the appropriateness of the extrajudicial measures in Canada, and the reason behind why we established these provisions of the YCJA. It also illustrates an example of a Canadian case, which questions the extrajudicial measures. This discussion canvasses the main argument as for or against the extrajudicial measures in Canada through the adoption of recommendations to the Canadian Government about the proper situations in which such processes should be used.
The criminal justice system is made up of many components that are constructed to ensure justice for victims of crimes, along with criminals. It is designed to guarantee that punishing those who are guilty will protect the innocent. Within the criminal justice system, there is a document that consists of all the jurisdictions of criminal law. This document is called the criminal code and entitles the offences that are acknowledged in the jurisdiction along with consequences that are enforced for these crimes. Throughout the years, there are offences constantly being added to the Criminal Code of Canada and many proposals being made by the Law Reform Commission of Canada.
Improved economy helped Canada’s rate of crime decrease since the 1990’s but different evidence suggests that methods used in response to serious crimes during that time may have influenced the crime trends. The Constitution Act of 1867 contains the authority to enact criminal laws and procedures to be followed by the federal government (Welsh & Irving, 2005). First enacted in 1892, the Criminal Code, continually revised, is used for setting out two main categories of offense: indictable and summary conviction, indictable being homicide and robbery, more serious kinds of crime with involved trials (Welsh & Irving, 2005). Canada is also known for its Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and these police ...
Criminals always have some sort of motivation to execute crimes. Whether it be that they are low on money or that they have a brutal relationship with someone, they know the consequence will never be as grave as a death penalty in Canada. However, what if that changed? What if the punishment of homicide lead to the death penalty? Criminals might re-consider the consequence of executing the crime and decisively disregard it due to the very dreadful amercement. The death penalty could save lives of the criminals as well as their victims. Hence, the death penalty is an adequate way to make criminals bethink their crime and it could potentially ...
Organized crime is a major problem in monetary terms and it costs the loss of billions of dollars every year. Organized crime violates our basic Canadian right to peace, quality of life, personal security, corruption in our political system and governments. Furthermore, weak governments and societal structures are arguably some of the root causes of organized crime. Organized society brings forth organized crime and heavy laws further promote it. The government responds to the violence related to organized crime with strong security measures while paying less attention to the causes of these
The criminal justice system in America is comprised of not just one but of a set of organizations and procedures that have been created by governments in order to mitigate crime and impose penalties for those people who choose to break the law. The United States has many individual criminal justice systems and each jurisdiction i.e. city, county, state, federal or tribal government or military has the ability to dictate how the system works as well as have different laws. With that being said, people in the United States rarely have contact with the criminal justice system and subsequently get much of their ideals and knowledge of what the criminal justice system is and how it works from the media, especially through entertainment television viewing. (Albany) Even though I have been to countless court hearings as a police officer, attending a jury trial as a student was different as I was able to step back and look at it through the eyes of a learner and not an agent of the government.
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.
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.
Efforts to improve the standard of living for humans--through the control of nature and the development of new products--have also resulted in the pollution, or contamination, of the environment. Much of the world's air, water, and land is now partially poisoned by chemical wastes. Some places have become uninhabitable. This pollution exposes people all around the globe to new risks from disease. Many species of plants and animals have become endangered or are now extinct. As a result of these developments, governments have passed laws to limit or reverse the threat of environmental pollution.