The Criminal Justice System in Modern Day Society

According to Schmalleger (2015) the American experience with crime during the last half century has been especially influential in shaping the criminal justice system of today. Crime is defined as “conduct in violation of the criminal laws of the state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction, for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse,” (Schmalleger, 2015). Therefore, what constitutes a crime is regulated by local, state and federal laws. Moreover, what is deemed a crime in one state may not be a crime in another state; this is because each unit of government is charged with defining what is classified as a crime within that particular jurisdiction. Likewise, each governmental agency is responsible for the detection and subsequent prosecution of crimes that are committed. Society determines which acts are criminal by using two models known respectively as the consensus model and the conflict model. Schmalleger (2015) suggest that the consensus model is based on majority of the people within a society sharing the same values and beliefs. This group of people determined what is considered right and what is considered wrong. If a member of the groups acts in opposition of the agreed upon norms, and the act threatens the safety of well being of the group, the act is considered illegal and therefore is subject to reprimand. The conflict model seems to suggest that criminal acts are decided by individuals who hold the political power to control the actions of others. Schmalleger (2015) points out that in this way of thinking, crime is about social power and not about danger to society. Hence, crimes are only behaviors that the powerful think will threaten their position of power, (Schmalleger, 2015). Under this model, crime is defined by the violation of social norms. Choice theories illustrate the desire for a criminal actor to commit a crime because such crime benefits the interest of the actor. As such, the crime brings more pleasure to the actor than does the punishment for committing the crime. Choice theories help criminal justice professionals evaluate and understand the rationale for why individuals commit criminal acts. Some theories include: early biological, biosocial, psychological, social process, and conflict theories. A relationship exist between what is defined as crime and law which is known as Criminal Law. According to Schmalleger (2015), criminal law, also called penal law, refers to the body of rules and regulations that define and specify the nature of and punishment for offenses of a public nature or for wrongs committed against the state or society. There are two types of Criminal Law: substantive and procedural. Substantive seeks to outline crime categories such as murder, rape, robbery and assault in addition to determine appropriate punishment for each crime, also know as offense. In contrast, procedural deals with regulating due process and ensuring that legal rights and protections are enforced. The criminal justice system is compromised of three components: the police, the courts,

and corrections. These three components must work together to process and resolve criminal

cases, (Schmalleger, 2015). In the United States, there are multiple systems that exist depending

on the specific crime that was committed, the location in which it was committed, and the

victims of who the crime was committed against, to name a few. However, generally speaking

there are two main systems that exist: state systems, which handle criminal cases that occurred

within the state, and federal systems, which deal with crimes committed across multiple states or

on federal property. Depending on the crime, the federal system can adopt cases from the state

system. This is often seen with gun crimes, for instance in a case where one person purchases a

gun legally and then knowingly gives the gun to a person who cannot lawful posses it. This is

known as straw purchasing.

Criminal justice systems utilize the criminal justice process, which is a standard sequence

of events that begins when a crime is detected, (Schmalleger, 2015). Normally, the criminal

justice process will consist of five stages: investigation and arrest, pretrial activities, trial,

sentencing, and corrections. Each stage of the criminal justice process relies on the previous

stage in order to process criminal cases accordingly. Criminal cases can be disposed of at any

stage within the criminal justice process.

The criminal justice system is a system designed to function smoothly from one step to

the next. In theory, the system will function according to plan, however, in practice the system

rarely functions smoothly due to changes in laws, agency policies, interagency conflicts and

changes in the root cause of crime. Therefore, the criminal justice system is really not a system at

all rather it is a policy that regulates the way criminal cases should be processed according to a

set of standards and best practices. The goal of the criminal justice system, while not mutually

exclusive, is to deter crime, incapacitate offenders, provide retribution on criminal perpetrators,

rehabilitate the criminal offender, and restore justice to society and victims of crime,

(Schmalleger, 2015). The safety and well being of our society relies solely on the governments

ability to create and design policies and practices that prevent, deter and respond to crimes that

hurt the very fabric of our society.

References
Schmalleger, F. (2015). Criminal justice today: An introductory text for the twenty-first century (13th ed.).