Criminal Justice Process Paper

Our society for the most part has a set of written laws by which it operates under. Laws govern our behavior in society and list punishments by which individuals that break them will be prosecuted and sentenced. Our criminal justice system is essential made up of three major intuitions which see a case from the beginning and through the trial and finally to the punishment phase ("How Does the Criminal Justice System Work?," 2014). Our society needs laws and punishment for those who violet the laws otherwise we would live in a world of chaos. In this paper we will examine various aspects of the criminal process from arrest through sentencing and appeal.

This first week the assignment was to Define crime, its relationship to the law, and the two most common models of how society determines which acts are criminal, Describe the government structure as it applies to the criminal justice system, Identify choice theories and the their assumptions in regards to crime, Describe the components of the criminal justice system and the criminal justice process, Identify the goals of the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice system consists of models and theories that often contradict one another. Of these models are the crime control model, the due process, model, the consensus model and the conflict model. In this paper these models are evaluated and defined, as well as each entity in the criminal justice systems role within each model. Policing, corrections and the court system all subscribe to each model in some way and in a hurried manner in cases that dictate such a response. As described by Erik Luna in the Models of Criminal Procedure, the following statement summarizes the aforementioned most appropriately.

Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

The 5th amendment declares No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person

For the past 50 years, America’s criminal justice system has encountered several significant changes dealing with courts and policing. According to Marion and Oliver (2006), the historical Supreme Court rulings like Mapp v. Ohio and Miranda v. Arizona mold the way courts and law enforcement handle individuals charged with committing crimes. This paper will discuss the evolution of courts and law enforcement reflects the diverse and changing need for today’s population which is first importance, the urgency for cooperation and communication among criminal justice agencies and law enforcement within the country. Individuals must

Factually, the due process mission of this model is protecting guiltless individuals from wrongful prosecution within the system. The Fourteenth Amendment incorporate the Bill of Rights that supports the Due process model set by the framers of the Constitution (Bill of Rights, 1868).

Fred is drunk and driving his dad’s car. Fred is a 21 year old student at Columbia College. Fred rams into a parked car at 10th and Rogers. Thinking no one saw him; Fred moves his car and parks it on an adjacent lot. He sprints to his dorm room in Miller Hall. A neighbor saw the wreck and Fred running to the dorm. Police are called and they arrive ten minutes after the wreck. The officers see several empty beer cans and a bottle of tequila (half full) in the front seat. The tags are traced to Fred’s dad, who is called by police. Dad says that Fred is a student at Columbia College. Police run Fred's record and determine that he has two prior DWIs within the past five years. The third DWI in 10 years is a felony. Police contact

The criminal trial process is an interesting process that takes place in Courtrooms all across the United States and throughout the globe. This study intends to set out the various steps in the criminal trial process in the American justice system. A trial is described as a "legal forum for resolving individual disputes, and in the case of a criminal charge, it is a means for establishing whether an accused person is legally guilty of an offense. The trial process varies with respect to whether the matter at issue is civil in nature or criminal. In either case, a jury acts as a fact-finding body for the court in assessing information and evidence that is presented by the respective parties in a case. A judge presides over the court and addresses all the legal issues that arise during the trial. A judge also instructs the jury how to apply the facts to the laws that will govern in a given case." (3rd Judicial District, 2012)

The trial process begins with the selection of the jury. After the jury is selected the next stage is the opening statements. Since the prosecution has the burden of proof as to the defendant 's guilt, the prosecutor 's opening statement is given first. An

When a crime is committed against another person, then justice must be served to those who committed the crime. In some cases the crimes involve sexual attacks on grown adults while some offenses are against minors. In these examples the underling connection is the committed crimes of sexual abuse or sexual assault on adults and minors. When these crimes are brought before the justice system they are processed and the convicted are given a sentence to carry out but sometimes those sentences may not provide efficient time to produce the required outcome of correcting the individual or may be determined that there is no fixing the convicted disorder. The United States Supreme Court decision to hold a mentally ill, sexually dangerous

Since (at least some) justices change their attitudes over time towards public opinion, it would be logical to think that justices tend to show a change in attitude when the public cares more strongly about a particular issue. Interestingly however, cases that are considered salient are not any more likely to exhibit attitude change from justices than non-salient cases (Giles, Blackstone, and Vining Jr. 2008). This essentially means that justices that experience a change in position on a particular issue towards public opinion, are not pressured in any way by how “important” the public sees an issue to be. However, public opinion is certainly more clear and more likely to change if the public rallies behind a particular issue and deems it

The criminal justice system serves a couple of purposes, it allows investigating and punishing of anyone that is committing a crime also, it protects the citizens and tries to detour the public from criminal activity. What is a crime? It can be anything from illegal gambling to a very serious matter all together such as murder. Our elected representatives and congress make decisions about acts that can be punished by government. For all this to run smoothly there are a couple of objectives that the criminal justice system follows.

Justice is the next main debate that the couple discusses. There is some confusion about it that they try to clarify. Justice is what happens when someone does something wrong and they have to pay for what they did to someone else in a fair way (Barash 140). It is the price you pay from becoming the predator instead of the prey in today’s age. They argue that it is different from payback, but deals with punishment. That justice is, “payback with a purpose” (Barash 142). Punishment is deliberately inflicting pain (Barash 141). The victim in payback then could get punishment on a non-guilty person, which is wrong. On the other hand, justice is to obtain peace and have someone pay for a crime in a fair and equal way for their crime (Barash 142).

Although during the recent years theories and laws continue to evolve, there is one aspect that remains the same: children, juvenile, and adult non-violent offenders are given the opportunity to partially or completely bypass certain sanctions of their punishment. As there is an increase in prison overcrowdings, there is also an increase in expenses for the taxpayers of the community, causing great concern. If inmate population is to be maintained under control, the continuous use of community corrections programs is inevitable. Overall, research demonstrates that the percentage of the prison population frequently diminishes with the use of community corrections programs. Supervision of these programs is, therefore, offered at a significantly lower cost than incarceration as it oversees “offenders outside of jail or prison” (Community Corrections, 2014).