173 Reflective Journal. Week 1: Aims of the criminal Justice system This week was essentially an introductory topic and provided me with a basic understanding of the aims and operations of the criminal justice system. I learned that there is a number of different steps within the criminal justice system and the involvement of all the parties involved such as police, judge and jury and the defence. According to John Champion the main purpose of the criminal justice system is to process and prosecute individuals who commit crimes against society and to deal out suitable punishments for these individuals. This is a pivotal part in terms of maintain the functioning of society and to ensure that people don’t go around breaking laws wherever and whenever they want.
Within the due process one may not be treated cruel, unfair or be given unreasonable treatment. Every accused person is entitled to fair procedures, and the due process applies to the criminal justice system as the trials, parole hearings, and administrative hearings. Due process main goal is to protect the innocent from being wrongfully convicted but may be looked upon as focusing on the rights of the accused and ignoring the rights of the victims. Crime control model is taken back a little and is the complete opposite of Due Process Model, which the crime control model focuses on the initial arrest, prosecution, and the conviction of a criminal. Due process priorities stand with protecting an
It is their duties to ensure public safety and maintain order. Secondly, are the Courts, which sentences criminals based on evidence gathered by the Police and Lawyers. Thirdly, are Correctional Institutions, which detains or rehabilitates criminals. The graphic illustration below outlines the Criminal Justice System and its key components: Police The first component is the police, which serve as the gate keepers for the Criminal Justice System. The term police originated from the “Latin word politia” which means civil administrations’’.
Criminal Wrong Doings Jennifer Hyler CRJ 201 Ginger Jarvis July 24, 2011 Criminal Wrong Doings The criminal laws control criminal acts and channel human behaviors. Criminal laws also orchestrate punishments and sentences to the ones who commit wrong doings crimes towards someone’s person or personal property. A criminal law assumes that wrong doings not only damage the surrounding people, but society as well. All violators that commit a crime such as murder or rape must be punished. Criminal laws also have two written laws that are split up into two different categories.
Justice is to maintain order and to punish the criminals in which have committed the crime. Justice being served is a common term in which is used in the English language. In my opinion, justice being served means the person who committed the crime is being punished to the full extent of the law and the victims or the family of the victims can rest more peacefully knowing that the criminal is behind bars and will not hurt anyone else again. Justice to me is greater than the terms
Assess the usefulness of official statistics to our understanding of social problems. Illustrate your response with sociological arguments and evidence. To assess the usefulness of official statistics to our understanding of social problems, I will first look at what official statistics are, I will then look at crime and suicide as two examples of social problems. I will look at how both Positivists and Interpretativists use these statistics and how useful each of these sociological approaches find them. Official statistics is the name given to the numbers of crimes reported to or unveiled by the police themselves, which lead to a conviction, caution or are dealt with in some formal way by the law.
Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain? Official criminal statistics are defined as “Statistical data compiled by the police and the courts and routinely published by governments as indices of the extent of crime” (Munchie, 2001, p194). “The working class, the young males, and members of some ethnic minorities are all more likely to commit crimes than the middle class, the elderly, females and whites – according to official statistics”. (Haralambos and Holborn, 2004, p338). In assessing the question “Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain?” several factors will be considered: including how the statistics are collected, the divide between males and females in crime statistics, the over representation of ethnic minorities and any problems in looking at the true extent of crime using statistics as an indicator for this.
Along with those programs came the NCVS or National Crime Victimization Survey, this survey is a self-reporting survey which victims report their own incidents. Although each are used to record crime for the nation, they each have their own uses and are used differently. The UCR crime reports are used in many ways, they provide law enforcement with date for use in police operations and planning for the future. The news and media also utilize the reports as well to inform the public about crime. Data is recorded by cities, counties, colleges, and states and submitted to the UCR.
Officers can even deceive suspects while being interrogated. Due process, on the other hand, will not allow the District Attorney or lawyers to be deceptive in any way. Everything done is held to the highest and strictest degree of what the law entails. Crime control and due process both share traits. In the crime control model, all parties involved are afforded, in any stage of crime control, a lengthy list of rights.
The criminal justice system is made up of a collection of federal, state, and local public agencies that are charged with the top level responsibility of crime control. These agencies process suspects, defendants, and convicted offenders and are interdependent in that the decisions of one agency affect all the other agencies. The criminal justice system consists of three main parts: law enforcement/ police; courts and corrections. These three distinct areas that are made up of many separate agencies, operate together to try to ensure that justice is served. There are two theories of criminal justice that show ways in which the 3 main parts of the system work together.