Conceptual or Theoretical Framework - Essay Example

According to this model of criminal justice system, actors and criminal justice institutions share very little information between themselves a fact that ensures constant conflicts between these institutions (Samaha, 2005, 56). A good example of conflict within the criminal justice system is that existing between the police and the court officials. The model argues that police desire to put criminals in prisons while the courts may desire to release the criminal due to lack of enough evidence.

System conflict theory when applied to the use of forensic sciences in solving crimes in the society can be useful in explaining the conflicts within the criminal justice systems and the society and in particular conflicts between the courts of justice and the police/investigators. In civil litigation and criminal prosecutions, evidence collected by forensic specialists is used to support the claim that a collected evidence specimen can be matched to a particular person, group or other source (Fridell, 2000, p. 23). Forensics encompasses different fields including DNA forensics, forensic pathology, computer forensics, forensic toxicology and forensic odontology, among others (Stuart & Nordby, 2005, p. 67). For example, forensic pathology is applied by criminologists and other actors in the criminal justice system to determine the manner and cause of death such as in the case of homicides or murder cases (Chisum, 2006, p. 98). Though contemporary criminal justice systems are increasingly making use of forensic sciences, no forensic method, save for nuclear DNA analysis, can be argued to exhibit the capacity to demonstrate a connection between an evidence specimen and a source or an individual with a high and reliable degree of certainty.

In this respect, criminal courts have periodically nullified or questioned evidence