Why Do We Need a Criminal Justice System

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Essay question: Why do we need a criminal justice system? The criminal justice system is a much needed tool of society to maintain order, security and peace of mind. The criminal justice system helps to sustain the norms within a specific social structure. There are three main arms of the criminal justice system; they include policing, courts and correctional services. There are also international, federal and state levels of the criminal justice system (White & Perrone, 2010), in this essay I will focus on some roles of a criminal justice system which are: enforcing law, protection of the community, crime control and preventing crime from happening. I will emphasize how much we need a criminal justice system. According to White & Perrone (2010) enforcing law is done in several ways depending on the perceived causation. There are three theories that are used to describe criminality, they are: the individual theory which incorporates the thought that people make rational decisions whether to partake in criminal or non-criminal behaviour. This theory also includes factors such as mental illness and childhood abuse. Another theory is situational theory; which focuses on specific events that may contribute to criminality such as being labelled ‘delinquent’ or a ‘menace to society’, lack of parental supervision and the peer groups and social networks can contribute to criminality. The third theory is social structural; this theory covers factors such as, unemployment, racism and poverty. All of these factors can contribute to a person partaking in criminal behaviour. With all of these theories taken into consideration it is easy to see that crime is inevitable and a criminal justice system is needed in order to protect people in society. The Australian criminal justice system has two main theories towards law enforcement and punishment; the first is a
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