The Use of Science and Technology in Keeping Criminal Records

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Today, technology has affected our global surroundings in a number of ways. Technology has created a more advanced society and economy. We use technology in every aspect of life today. New innovations and technology helps create a safer atmosphere and reduces the rate of crime. Technology is the usage and knowledge of techniques or is systems of these things. Usage of technology in the criminal justice system is not new but more apparent today. Technology in criminal justice will continue to challenge us to think about how we turn information into knowledge. Due to new technology, criminal investigations are able to maintain and improve their processes. Forensic science, DNA, other

Technology used in policing enhances law enforcement organizations’ ability to function because it has improved police databases, reports, tracking, and forensics (DOJ, 2004). In addition, a less-lethal weapon is designed to disable, capture, or immobilize a suspect without killing them. However, occasionally deaths do happen as a result of less-lethal weapons which include kinetic energy, electrical, acoustic, and chemical weapons. Furthermore, violence, disease, and infected evidence are dangers that law enforcement officers face today.

The idea of using the science has been started before the debuting of Sherlock Holmes in 1887, who had introduced about the forensic science to help criminal investigation. In history, the work of forensic scientists was performed by medical personnel. Until the end of eighteenth century, the attempts of French medical jurist Antoine Louis, crime solving Chinese book “ Hsi Duan Yu”(the washing way of wrongs), etc gave ideas about determining time of death, analyzing blood stain, identifying chemical used in crime, etc. After eighteenth century, the modern chemistry paved new way of identifying crime like the idea of measuring height, length of right ear and outstretched

The National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) act nationally upon the police service by promoting consistency between police forces. This will help the police forces around the country know how to record crime and by providing victim-orientated approach to crime recording. The NCRS has three basic principles:

Even though America’s prisons are illustrated as a credible approach for individuals and institutions to bring justice, it has done a poor job to properly convict people for criminal acts and instances of violence, and to provide victim’s with satisfaction for due justice. Karakatsanis further evaluates upon the process of convictions in America. For instance, he examines the techniques that help support a court verdict, when he writes, “For many decades, American courts have allowed criminal convictions based on policing and forensic techniques that lack a scientific basis. Even after these methods were formally exposed as unscientific by the most prestigious collection of American scientists, police, prosecutors, and courts continued to use them every day nonetheless” (Karakatsanis (265). In accordance with Karakatsanis, the process for criminal convictions are largely flawed. In particular, eyewitness testimonies from police and evidence from forensic lack a significant scientific groundwork, and such approaches have been heavily scrutinized and criticized by the scientific community. Even with such criticism, there have been a lack of an institutional reform to rectify these imperfections. Subsequently, the methods for criminal convictions are often unreliable. Subsequently, plausible consequence may include how criminal suspects may be wrongful convicted of a crime that they were never involved in, and the victim’s or the victim’s family’s desire for justice may never

Without having a criminal justice system there would be no order. Being in the law enforcement field, if it's being a police officer, probation officer, or even a correctional officer it is essential that everyone communicates with everyone. By colloaborating with each other it ensures that everyone is on the same page when it comes to things. Working together this way helps to create the same justice that we have for our victims but in our communities as well. In order for the criminal justice system to function effectively all three components of the criminal justice system is an essential part.

Over the past several years forensic science has included both negative and positive aspects in the incarceration of individuals. Testing of blood types commonly used with sexual assault cases, in the 1980s, with using blood types A, B and O frequencies were distributed and a database was created. Although the database could administer a percentage of individuals with common blood types it was unable to differentiate specific people.

The most efficient and acceptable means for the collection of evidence to be permissible and admissible to a court of law through trial proceedings is to maintain a credible chain of custody. However, the chain of custody is an insufficient factor without proper discovery retrieval and/or collection of evidence. When offenders respond to a scene in which there is evidence to be collected, only officers properly trained in the process are allowed to collect the evidence. In the State of Georgia, law enforcement officers undergo a strenuous police academy course in which they learn the fundamentals of collecting elements such as fingerprints and bodily fluids. In addition to learning the fundamentals of collecting elements at a crime scene, they are also instructed and trained on how to properly take crime scene pictures. These pictures are important because they show the courts where an element or piece of evidence was discovered in reference to the whole sight of the scene. Once the officer collects the elements/evidence according to his or her training they place the evidence in either a plastic or paper bag to be submitted into evidence. Upon the collection of evidence there is a legible record of each person that handles the evidence from start to finish

The license plate reader, LPR is a mobile plate hunter that comprises of a camera(s) placed on the outside of a squad car that is then connected to a computer database inside the squad car. The plate hunter has the capacity to recognize the character on a number plate and rapidly relay the information to the database computer that would verify of the owner or the automobile has any record or if the vehicle has been reported stolen/missing. This ability is even possible when the squad car is moving at 75 mph and can check up to 3, 000 number plates within an hour. Any offending incidence is brought to the attention of the officers by a siren or alarm the computer makes; stolen or revoked license. (Hanlon 2007)

The article I chose was the “The Myth of the National Criminal Database” and “National Crime Information Center”. I knew that the FBI had some large amounts of information, but never knew they worked with other branches of law enforcement that actively. The National Crime Information Center, or NCIC was created mainly to share important information to the criminal justice professionals around the country. Currently there have been over 12 million transactions of files every day in the NCIC system. When the files are put in the system than its store in a data system. It ensures that the NCIC system is safe. The people who are part of the justice system can only access the system. The only way they are going to access the system is by beginning

Do you remember when our policemen had to ride around on horses to get from place to place? Most probably have heard about it, but think to themselves ‘all I have ever known as police cars and motorcycles’. For over a century the world has been making advances with technology in all areas of life, and the field of criminal justice has not been an exception to this technological advances. These advances in technology has taken the criminal justice field a long way from riding a horse bareback to driving armored cars. These advances along with many others have almost completely changed how things are handled in all aspects of the law.

Principally, changes in political climate with various governments occupied through times of war, plague and famine, have led to rapid changes in social values, priorities and economic environments. These factors are considered to be paramount during the application of historical methodologies, not least to studies pertaining to the CJS and its subsidiaries. Moreover, “In 1948, Sir Leon Radzinowicz... [believed] ...lessons of the past can assist the modern criminal justice system” (as cited in Godfrey, Lawrence and Williams, 2008, p. 16). Criminologists research to understand whether policing was and is pragmatic, idealistic or both and how it has become so rooted into the constitution despite its often hostile critique.

Arrests records are made and stored when a person is arrested. They are stored in the records of the police force or law enforcement agency that performed the arrest, and they are only kept temporarily. Details concerning the arrest will not usually be stored in a court, as many arrests do not result in cases being brought before a judge. The exception to this rule is when the arrest was as a result of a warrant issued by a court, in which case the arrest will be recorded to show that warrant is no longer active. Otherwise a person could be released without charge only to be immediately rearrested!

In this current generation, technology is steadily becoming a major asset to our future in a wide range of areas, and has been embedded in our lives currently to the point of being close to a necessity. In Criminal Justice, the use of technology has proven to be of tremendous help in many areas of the field. The incorporation of the computer systems in criminal justice tremendously has improved the general communication between agencies as the new methods of transferring information among departments. In addition, it has become much more resourceful and efficient in that it is much simpler to acquire the data at a more rapid rate, hence, speeding up the time it takes to prevent or solve crimes. The intent of this paper is to deliver an