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America’S Criminal Justice System Today Is Constantly Being

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America’s criminal justice system today is constantly being questioned and scrutinized by citizens. America’s Criminal Justice system is based on morals and beliefs. These original morals and beliefs didn 't come out of anywhere. Europe was a huge influence on America and our criminal justice system. Throughout the years the system has evolved along with our country.

America 's Criminal Justice system started during colonial America, with the early colonists coming from England, France, and the Dutch Republic. Our original morals for our law system were pulled from the English Common Law System. The English common law system was a set of rules to solve issues that arose within society. Common law is a strategy that focuses on past …show more content…

These laws were effective. However, rising populations and colonists moving further west made politicians recognize that without a system to implement and enforce these laws they would be ineffective.

The first part of this system was to add sheriffs Sheriffs would follow up on complaints or information of criminal activity throughout their communities. However, Sheriffs were paid mostly from tax collecting. Corruption easily to snuck into the system as sheriffs would be paid to assist in controlling land owners. Next to come along were the judges. Judges were rarely professionals, most were political or religious leaders believing their role in the community was to enforce God’s will. Serious crimes were handled by multiple judges and legislative courts. Legislative courts covered territories throughout the country, not states. This meant they held more power. These courts rarely met up, slowing down the judging. What would a judge be without a court? Courts were established during the 17th century. The courts would hear the altercations between locals. Unfortunately, legislative courts were not very useful when handling legal business. The legislative courts had more than one judge and were rarely able to set up meetings. At that time the legal process included a crime being reported, then a judge would look at the evidence

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