Criminal Justice Systems in a Global Perspective - Essay Example

? Criminal Justice Systems in a Global Perspective Criminal Justice Systems are affected by many factors that might be present in a country. This is because criminal activities arise from a wide range of issues such as; economic activities, political matters, and social issues too. Therefore, issues arising from these three areas will affect criminal justice systems either positively or negatively. Globalization is one factor that affects criminal justice systems gravely. This is because; globalization has made the whole world be like a small village. Individuals can travel from one country to another by taking direct flights. Therefore, this increases criminal cases such as illegal immigration and drug dealing and human trafficking (Ndiaye, 2007). These cases are mainly caused by the wide spared globalization. They affect the criminal justice systems of the United States significantly because; they demand a lot of time and thus; other areas of the systems have to be foregone. Globalization has also increased cross-border terrorism, which affects the American Criminal Justice System considerably. This is because while people move from one place to another while conducting trade, assessing all the people entering the country becomes difficult. Therefore, globalization leaves a loophole for terrorists to enter a country. Illegal immigration on the other could also be said to arise from extensive globalization since; people enter a country as traders or business people with fake documents and yet the authorities fail to realize it (Ndiaye, 2007). This can be attributed to the multitude of cases burdening the Criminal Justice System such that; it fails to exercise keenness in its work. However, globalization can also be said to have a positive effect on the American Criminal Justice Systems. This is because with globalization, law enforcement agencies are now able to obtain information about people within a very short period. In addition, globalization connects the American criminal justice system with criminal justice systems of other countries in the world. Therefore, the system has become stronger since it can borrow different ideas from the other systems. Through globalization, the American criminal justice system also coordinates well the criminal justice systems of other countries to ensure that criminal activities are acutely reduced. The civil law is a type of law that deals with the kinds of disputes that are not termed as criminal cases. Therefore, the law solves disputes arising from matters such as contracts, divorces, ownership of property, child custody and compensation for property or personal damage. The law is normally based on the ruling of court but sometimes it is based on the federal statutes. Basically, civil law serves as a remedy of solving problems among people. Common law is a type of law that deals with similar cases as the civil law. However, the difference between the civil law and common law is that judgments in common law are based on prior judgments made by other judges on similar or closely related cases. Therefore, judges depend on their predecessors’ judgments to decide cases in court (Quigley, 1989). However, sometimes judges have to look outside the set precedents in order to avoid the issue of rigidity in solving cases. Islamic law is a type of law that mainly solves Muslim cases based on their holy book, the Quran. The law, which is widely known as the Sharia Law, solves all kinds of cases irrespective of whether they are criminal or civil. For instance, it solves matters concerning crime, politics and financial issues. The law also solves personal matters such as fasting, prayer and hygiene. In the Sharia law, plaintiffs and defendants are not required to hire lawyers to represent them. Instead, the individuals normally represent themselves in the Sharia court. Socialist law is a type of law used in communist states such as China. Although the law is based on the civil law, it has been slightly modified in order to fit the ways of communism. The socialist law is considered a new and additional law to the two previous laws; the civil law and common law. The key difference between the civil law and socialist law is that the latter argues that only a single political party should dominate a country (Quigley, 1989). Worldwide criminal justice systems have also been significantly affected by the increasing use of technology. Individuals engage in habits such as pornography and cyber theft, which all single down to cyber crime. Despite the attempt of worldwide systems to stop cyber crimes, the issue continues to be rampant since; technology has a large number of flaws, which are difficult to eliminate. However, countries have still formulated legislations to curb the issue of computer and cyber crime (Kabay, 2011). However, most criminal justice systems assert that the way in which each cyber crime case is handled will depend on the nature of the case. This is because; offenders may rely on factors such as automatic agents, where the perpetrator may actually be a system instead of a human being. In addition, constant changing of technology may cause the legislation formulated to be obsolete and inapplicable. Therefore, criminal justice systems face many challenges in solving cybercrime cases (Kabay, 2011). Globalization has been the key subject of discussion over the past few years. This is due to the way in which it has caused major changes in the whole world. Globalization has caused the rising of matters such as ethnic conflicts, dispossession and political upheaval. Therefore, a large number of crimes have risen within most of the world economies due to globalization (Ndiaye, 2007). This causes different states to look into the issue of police more seriously. Generally, the police are meant to maintain public order and safety in the society. In addition, the police are also responsible for enforcing the law among the people, and identifying and investigating criminal activities among the citizens. On a worldwide scale, policing has become more difficult in each country due to the increasing rate of criminal activities. Police have to diversify their skills in order to be able to deal with different types of criminals. Globalization has also enabled the police to network and share ideas and information worldwide. Therefore, the rate of coordination among the police around the world has developed greatly. Policing systems on a worldwide scale have also developed due to the increasing use of technology (Sullivan, & Wirtz, 2009). Prior to this, policing systems mainly depended on walkie-talkies for communication. However, these devices could not communicate over a long distance thus, leading to poor communication. Therefore, with the current technology, policing systems have embraced more advanced communication systems leading to effective communication. Piracy in Somalia has been one crime that criminal justice systems have struggled to stop since1990 without success. The issue of piracy was growing very fast in the country to the extent that, the internal community had to be involved (Kellerman, 2011). Statistics show that in the year 2010 alone, close to 11 billion dollars on average were used in different areas such as military protection and cargo insurance aimed at reducing piracy in Somalia. Administering criminal justice in this area has been very difficult especially because Somalia receives solid support from sources such as Al Qaeda and Yemen (Kellerman, 2011). The country’s history of political instability also fuels the crime of piracy along the coast. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is also an internationally recognized crime that gravely affected the country’s justice system. Under the international law, a genocide is recognized as a crime against humanity. The crimes committed during the genocide destroyed the nation as a whole since; people were killed, women raped and property destroyed. Indeed this was a crime that had a global impact on justice systems since; many lives had been lost and yet, the key perpetrators could not be well identified. In conclusion, it is clear that globally, criminal justice is affected by variety of factors. Criminal Justice Systems should improve on the effectiveness of their services in order to ensure that they solve cases accurately and fairly. In addition, the systems should also see to it that criminal cases are reduced and brought under control. References Kabay, M. E. (2011, January 17). Cybercrime and the U.S. criminal justice system. Retrieved June 6, 2013, from http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/2011/011711sec1.html?page=1 Kellerman, M. G. (2011). Somali Piracy: Causes and Consequences. Student Pulse, 3(9), 1-1. Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/a?id=579 Ndiaye, B. (2007). Impact of globalisation, types of crimes relating or emerging from it – for example illegal immigration, human trafficking, cross-border terrorism on the American Criminal Justice System . NY: Fort Hays State University. Quigley, J. (1989). Socialist Law and the Civil Law Tradition. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 37(4), 781-808. Sullivan, J., & Wirtz, J. (2009). Global Metropolitan Policing: An Emerging Trend in Intelligence Sharing. Homeland Security Affairs, 5(2), 1-7. Retrieved from http://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=5.2.4 Read More