Criminal Justice Systems - Essay Example

Running Head: Criminal Justice System [Name of writer] [Instructor] [Date] Criminal justice systems Criminal justice systems consist of a set of social and legal institutions in order to enforce the law under a given set of defined rules and policies. Criminal justice is the study or application of Laws with respect to behaviour of criminals. It is important that criminal justice system contains the word of “Justice” so the laws which are applied to those accused of a crime must be fair. Always remember that justice also represents not only such trail that is fair with the citizen of the country, but also justify deserved penalty for the criminals (John Randolph Fuller. 2005) There are many subsystems of CJS exist that is based many institutions of the public containing staffs, agencies which enforce law plus the courts of trial and appellate, offices of the public defender and prosecution; agencies involve in probation and parole; and the custodial institutions (which includes jail and prisons etc). Being a pert of study, every one which has any relationship with law knows that it always includes behaviour linked with criminal, so they have to study the criminal justice. Such lawyers who have special interest in prosecution or defence of suspected criminals usually choose criminal justice in their degree program. It is necessary to have good knowledge about the laws, rights and privileges of victims and suspects in justice in both the court and law enforcement systems as well (Sarre & Tomaino 1999). Standards of the Justice System In order to get the effectiveness and efficiency of the system, the justice system provides some standards which have to follow. Following some standards are given below. As the Justice system is very powerful, so there is need to make sure that there must not be nay abuse of power. A justice system should remember the basic rights of the citizen of the state. In order to achieve a specified result every process which is followed must be based on fairness. (Goldsmith, Israel, & Daly) Expectations from Justice System Following are the list of expectations from Justice System. It must provide protection and security to the community It must have the ability to minimize or control crimes in the society. It provide the protection to the accused and gives offenders in such a way that is based on fairness. Must have the ability to enforce the law properly. By interacting with the community and its standards approve the law in a symbolic way. Goals of the Justice System Following are some targets and goals which are given for the justice system. (Sallmann and Willis) To give punishments of such individual who did wrong things. Give punishments to offenders in order to control crimes and criminal activities Make declaratory judgments for such behaviors which are not acceptable at all and to reinforce the norms and values in the society. Provide protection to citizen, their business, societies from unconsensual wrongs deliberately inflicted. Maintain the peace in the public from affront-causing disturbance (Justice Kirby) Constraints on the Criminal Justice system We can see that the Criminal justice system is not able to implement properly. The reason behind this is that there are many constraints in the criminal justice system which makes the weakness of the system. These constraints can be internal and may be external as well. Fists lets take a look at the internal constraint which the Criminal justice system is facing in the world of today. Internal constraints There are so many factors in the internal system which influence in the criminal justice system. CJS always make decisions with respect to circumstances of any specific case. But according to critics this thing always results in the form of discrepancies and inconsistencies, and secondly it also happens that media will pounce upon these apparent anomalies. Next is the concept of such cultures which are Occupational in nature. These cultures have very strong influence in existing traditional fields. As we know that is not possible that every person always shows professional and well mannered behavior in the society. So it makes the issue for the proper implementation of Criminal justice system (Bryett, Craswell, Harrison & Shaw 1993). External constraints A part from internal constraints there are so many External constraints as well. According to Braithwaite, the Western criminal justice system is an abject failure, and it is the root cause of the tearing, bleeding rift between black and white communities (Braithwaite, 1992). One of the biggest external constraints of Criminal justice system is the Government. It also contains the local Government as a external constraint. Usually it has been seen that Government raise the hurdles in the proper implementation of Criminal justice system because of its own benefits. Time cycle of detention Defendants in a criminal proceeding are prison until they wait for the output or decision about trial. This is happened when the courts did not grant them bail, or may be because the bail is set at an amount that is not affordable to that person. In such cases time is dependant on many factors. So the defendant person has to pass time in prison, during awaiting the finalisation of the trial. There are many different things that include the investigation speed of the police, the trial duration, and the amount of postponements, which the defendant’s asked while his or her trial. These factors simply lengthen the awaiting trial process for the defendant, and the fact is this that the prosecution has very limited or infect have no control. In many cases, how ever there are delays in the finalisation of trials, and the reason behind is this that the courts’ rolls are badly managed, something over which the prosecution has some influence. Critical evaluation of performance According to a survey conducted by Institute for Security, in order to get the attitudes of the public towards the CJS and the punishment of criminals as well. According to the report of the survey, in the time period of two-year, on average every third adult person suffers from crime (Robert Tillman). Most of the crimes which were done were reported directly to the police, but the respondents who were satisfied with the police’s response were less than a third of those who did so. This report also states that such crimes which were reported in the areas which are rural, most finishes inside the court. How victims of rural crime, are not satisfied with the procedure of the court. There were only a small number of respondents, who felt that the criminal justice system was performing very well and up to their expectation. Most respondents were critical and against the government’s performance of fighting with crime. Performance of the government was criticised by urban and white respondents, but right on the other hand while rural and black respondents keeps the positive attitude. When various professions were evaluated which were working in the criminal justice system, it was found that respondents were mostly critical against the officials of the prison and from police as well (James P. Lynch and William J. Sabol 1994). In the criminal justice system it is not very easy to identify reliable and fair performance indicators. The task of the CJS is to reduce, eliminate and minimize the ratio of crime. There are so many issues which directly influence on the performance of the criminal justice like societal values of societies which are prevalent, level of unemployment, and in entire population, the total proportion of young men and some other factors over which are not in control. Hence, it is not so easy to find out exact and accurate indicators of performance for one part of the CJS. There are some factors on which the performance of an individual part of the criminal justice system (like police, law enforcement agencies and security agencies) is dependant or influenced, on these things, there is no control of the individual part or the system. There are some other very important system parts which have great influence on the performance of CJS. For example, proportion of crimes which are recorder, (John J. Donohue III and Peter Siegelman) is a performance measurement that is widely used for prosecution service. However, the ability to secure a conviction not only based on the skills of the prosecutor, but infect it is also depends on the proficiency of the investigated case done by the detective services, and the reliability as well as honesty of the state witnesses. On such factors there is a very limited control of the prosecutor. For the prosecution service the conviction rate always remains a useful performance measurement tool. How ever it is consequently possible to develop such a performance indicators for individual parts of the criminal justice system, until the limitations of the indicators are recognised. On the basis of two important indicators, the performance of the criminal justice system can be measured. Firstly, it based on the number of cases that the police solve sufficiently. Secondly, the number of cases that result in a successful prosecution. References: Aims of the Criminal Justice System, Daily (2006) in Goldsmith, Israel, & Daly, Chapter 13 (pp. 265-282). Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents. John Randolph Fuller. 2005. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ John J. Donohue III and Peter Siegelman, “Is the United States at the Optimal Rate of Crime?” Northwestern University School of Law, October 24, 1994 draft, p. 22. /Introduction: The Criminal Justice Process, Earle, Sarre & Tomaino (1999) in Sarre & Tomaino, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-21). James P. Lynch and William J. Sabol, “The Use of Coercive Social Control and Changes in the Race and Class Composition of U.S. Prison Populations,” paper presented at the American Society of Criminology, November 9, 1994. Robert Tillman, “The Size of the ‘Criminal Population’: The Prevalence and Incidence of Adult Arrests,” Criminology, Vol. 25, No. 3, August 1987. United States Sentencing Commission, Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, February 1995, pp. 129-134. Weaknesses in the System: Internal Structures and Processes, Bryett, Craswell, Harrison & Shaw (1993), Chapter 5 (pp. 31-41). Read More