Criminal Justice Policy Process

Criminal Justice System and Policy Process

Crime refers to a set of acts that are carried out against the laws which are normally implemented and generally accepted by the entire society overall. Crime can also be defined as 'the conduct of a person or persons who do not meet the requirements of the given society and violate the laws of that particular society'. As a result, the crime may differ depending on criminal code of each country. A criminal is who commits crime on several occasions can be regarded an anti-social person, since his or her actions undermine the normal functioning of the society, endangering a different nature to its members.Crimes are carried out in every country of the world and throughout the history. It is not observed in other organisms, in which aggression is limited and prevails only to feed and protect the species and territory.

Sources of Criminal Law

Substantive criminal law comes from the following sources.

1.Common law, also known as the unwritten law, can be found in the common law of states.

2.Statutory or written law comes from the statute of each state and in the statutes of the government.

3.Commercial, Health, Sanitation, financial, and tax administrative regulations are also a source of Criminal law. The state and federal regulatory agencies have endorsed these regulations.

Purpose of Criminal Law

The main purpose of the criminal law is to protect the public from criminal activities, to establish justice, and ensure peace and domestic tranquility. According to the U.S. Supreme Court; the fundamental responsibility of any state is to ensure protection of the individual and its property. Other objectives include the discouragement and dissuasion of people from committing crimes, protection of society from harmful and dangerous people, punishment to the criminals, and rehabilitation and reformation of them (Laswell, 1936).

Criminal Justice System and Policy

A criminal justice system consists of the social and legal institutions that enforce the criminal law in confirmation to the defined procedures, limitations and rules. In the U.S, there are separate state, military and federal criminal justice systems. Each of the states has separate systems for juveniles and adults. This system also consist of subsystems which comprises of either one or more of the public institutions and their staff members which include police and agencies responsible for enforcing laws. The responsibility even lies on appellate and trial courts, public and prosecution defender offices; parole and probation agencies; custodial institutions and departments responsible for all the functions (Jones et al, 2005). The key players of a criminal justice system comprises of both private and public actors such as private defense attorneys, bail bondsmen, defendants, private agencies who offers supervision, treatment or assistance to the criminals. It also provides assistance to the victims and officials that represent or assist the offenders. There are few agencies whose work includes the enforcement of the criminal law, for example, driver and bureaus for vehicle licensing; agencies responsible for allotting the taxation and the resources.

Criminal justice system is the state's legal apparatus for the use of public ...