Criminal Justice Overview Paper
Alyson L. Hagar
12/03/2014
CJA/394
Contemporary Issues and Futures in Criminal Justice

In the early days of police work, officers were only able to work on hunches, instincts, overly-obvious evidence and confessions. With assistance of technology police work as completely changed. Overtime technology has become a growing constant in society and individual’s day to day living. From DVD players, to smart phones, iPods, and cameras, accessibility of these items is at ease. Almost every person who owns a phone has a phone with a camera built in. What is now considered a convenient feature of our cell phones has now become an aide in crime fighting and police mistreatment. Dash cameras, body cameras, cell phones, street and traffic cameras have all entered society with a fury. This increased use of technologies has greatly affected the criminal justice in both positive and negative ways. In previous years, police officers had to mainly rely on two way radios for any police call or accident. There was not the cruiser laptop or cell phones to gain instant access to mug shots or pictures of potential suspects or victims as well as direction or maps of areas of the town. Officers in the past had to be more inclined to learn and memorize the area they are patrolling as well as multiple routes in and out of that area. They would also have to rely on the dispatchers descriptions of the potential suspect. Sometimes this would cause problems because someone would be stopped if they resembled the suspect. False arrests would be hard to prevent in those scenarios. With present day technological advances, officers can have mug shots, Identification photos, as well as detailed descriptions of the suspect. They may also gain the access to possible vehicles last known associated with the suspect ad the descriptions and license