Discretion plays in important role in balancing the rights of the community with the rights of the victim and offender. Discretion is judgement which is exercised in criminal investigation by people in authority, such as police, the director of public prosecutions (DPP) and in the trial process by magistrates and judges. In Australia the role of discretion within the criminal investigation system and trial process has many advantages and disadvantages in the way authority deals with achieving justice for individuals. Police powers play a crucial role in the criminal investigation process as they have discretionary legal powers of arrest. The NSW police force is given special legal powers under the law which enable them to carry out their duties effectively, majority of these powers are contained in the law enforcement (powers and responsibilities) act 2002 in order to investigate crimes, make arrests, and gather evidence against the accused.
This is the main question asked in control theories. “Rather than asking the typical criminological question, “What makes people criminal?” these theorists share a conviction that deviant behavior is to be expected. What must be explained, they say, is “why people obey rules” (Williams & McShane, 2010, p. ). What I’ve understood from all of this is that society has placed certain constraints and rules upon each citizen and we are to live our lives according to said rules. When we break or deviate from any rule, no matter how minor it is, then we are committing acts of criminal behavior.
There is also agreement on an adversary system, procedural due process, and one’s day in court (Zalman, 2008). The most important function of the crime control model is as stated by Packer (1968), ‘the repression of criminal conduct by the criminal process’” “because public safety is essential to personal freedom” (Zalman, 2008, p. 5). The presumption surrounded by this value system is, in American society there will be a breakdown of public order if law enforcement does not keep a tight reign on criminals and their activities, and citizens of this
Society uses these two (2) common models to determine what a criminal act is. The consensus model is used by the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and it shows that the same values and beliefs are shared by the majority. The general norms and values come from society as a whole. Defining the Consensus Model it states that crime is anything that goes against the values and beliefs of society and is considered damaging to society. The Conflict Model is used to determine the content of criminal law.
Assess Functionalist Approaches to the Study of Crime and Deviance Functionalists such as Emile Durkheim, Robert Merton and Albert Cohen all attempt to explain the nature and extent of crime in today’s society. In essence, Functionalists argue that society is based on value consensus and social solidarity which is sustained via socialisation and social control mechanisms within society. Emile Durkheim states that whilst crime is obviously a social negative with the ultimate power to destabilise society, he stands by the claim that crime is inevitable, universal, and integral to a healthy society and even having positive benefits. He claims that crime occurs in society due to two fundamental reasons; firstly, not everyone is effectively socialised to the same norms and values which leads to people being prone to deviation and secondly, due to the diverse lifestyle and subcultures in contemporary society, subcultures act out different norms and values and what members of that subculture regard as normal, mainstream culture may deem it as deviancy. The Functionalist approach to the study of crime states that crime has two positive functions for society.
The first explorations of deviance and crime was done by Durkheim who identified two different sides of crime for the functioning of society: positive and negative. According to Durkheim, crime was necessary for society. He argued that the basis of society was a set of shared values that guide our actions, which he named the collective conscience. The collective conscience provides boundarie which distinguishes between actions that are acceptable and those that are not. The problem for any society is that these boundaries are unclear and change over time.
Crimes committed outside the jurisdiction of our country is when Australian citizens commit crimes in other countries, some of which may still be tried and sentenced in Australia. An example of this is the case of Schapelle Corby and the ‘Bali Nine’. Transnational crime involves crimes that break the law in more then one country, for example people trafficking, drug trafficking and money
Perspectives of Social Problems and Social Responsibility Within criminology there has been multiple theories suggested to explain the numerous motives behind why crime exists in our world. The two most central arguments surrounding criminal activity is whether the crime is the individuals fault, or if it is the fault of the society that they grew up in. These views are termed social responsibility and social problems, and will be discussed in this paper along with their respected perspectives that withhold why their view on criminology is the paramount reason on why criminals commit crimes. The view of social responsibilities approach to crime termed by Schmalleger essentially states that crime is an individual responsibility, and in terms of the criminal, victim, and justice system we all play a role within the social aspect of criminal behavior. Although he feels that this way of looking at crime is not fair to the victim or the justice system, but that the media over the years has influenced this way of thinking, giving the conception that certain conditions surrounding when, where, or how the crime took place may be the factor in why it happened in the first place.
When the group with the most power changes, the acts that are considered to be criminal change. Society is affected by the concept of the “choice theory” because it needs to figure out what punishment fits the crime to keep other criminals from committing the same crimes. Society need to make this laws to have control over law and order within their societies. It allows them away to keep law abiding citizens saver in their own
This is referred to as “social control” and its intent is to force those living in the communities to act in a way that is in line with the social norms and in accordance to society rules. “Of those various ways that societies and their members try to control behavior, criminal punishment is the most formal, for crime is perhaps the most serious type of behavior over which a society must gain control” (Clear, Cole, Reisig, and Petrosion, 2012, p. 8). This implies that corrections assist our society in determining those behaviors that are considered acceptable. However, as Emil Durkheim suggest, “crime is normal and that punishment performs the important function of spotlighting societal rules and values” (Clear, Cole, Reisig, and Petrosion, 2012, p. 8). I am in agreement of this, because it is obvious that crime will continue to happen, and as a society we must find productive ways of address the issues and dealing with those individuals in violation of established