Essay about Criminal Justice Authority Evaluation

Police officers are faced each day with a variety of situation in which they must deal; therefore we should ask ourselves the following questions: Should police officers enforce the law equally in all situations? In what situations should police officers be allowed to not enforce the law? What types of situations would they be required to fully enforce the law? Why does police discretion exist? What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what is the relationship between police discretion and police ethics?

There are three significant issues concerning law enforcement, namely enacting the law, police discretion, and assessment of criminal behavior. Different entities create and enact laws that are specific for the societies those laws represent.

Before proposing a reform to the American criminal justice system, we must first examine the problems that plague the process of justice on all levels. American society plays an important role in shaping the criminal justice system. Their beliefs and values determine the type of deviants and the consequences of the crimes. Often their beliefs contradict each other.

The criminal justice system is composed of three parts – Police, Courts and Corrections – and all three work together to protect an individual’s rights and the rights of society to live without fear of being a victim of crime. According to merriam-webster.com, crime is defined as “an act that is forbidden or omission of a duty that is commanded by public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law.” When all the three parts work together, it makes the criminal justice system function like a well tuned machine.

Exactly what does discretion mean when it comes to a police officer whose job it is to enforce societies written laws and statues? Who decides how much discretion is allowed and when it can be used? What kind of issues concerning an individual officer’s discretion might have an effect on his or her whole department? After answering these questions, I hope to show why discretion is a necessary part of a police officer’s job.

assistance of council, and procedural bars, venue, and jury selection, as well as potential racism by jurors. According to ( Tabak, 1999) “these reasons apply in cases in which the death penalty may be sought.” When illustrating the use of prosecutorial discretion two crime types that can be

In the criminal justice system, discretion is often performed by the police, prosecutors, judges and juries, correctional officials and

Even though more attention is being directed to citizen oversight boards and what they have the capacity to do, little attention is being devoted to how the police officer him/herself feel about them. There is no accurate number as to how many police oversight agencies there are in the United States. Although, by 2001 almost 80 percent of large departments had some form of citizen oversight boards (De Angelis, 2007). This number shows that many agencies are moving to find a way to hold police officers accountable for their actions. Since most

Discretion is used in many different ways in the criminal justice system. It is used to balance the rights of victims, offenders and society. Discretion allows law enforcers, attorneys, judges, correction officers and probation officers the opportunity to make some decisions based on their own opinion whilst still acting within the law. There are many areas in the law that use discretion, for example police discretion in the investigation process, the judge’s discretion when sentencing and the decisions on whether or not to set bail. Discretion is very useful in ensuring that everyone’s rights are balanced but it can sometimes cause some issues which mean the rights are left unbalanced.

Perez (1994) unraveled this sentiment of the police officers against civilian review boards. In his survey of police officers in six jurisdictions, he found that sixty four percent of police officers believed that police officers should investigate complaints. As to the preferred composition of hearing boards, thirty seven percent of responding officers believed that only police officers should be part of the hearing board. Majority (sixty three percent) of the officers favored a combination of civilians and police officers as hearing board members. It would appear, therefore, that for police officers to consider the board as competent, membership has to include individuals who have law enforcement background (Lenzi, 1974).

In today’s society the criminal justice system is seen as the biggest enemy there is, but I see the system as is. The system is here to protect civilians, but along the way the system has picked a few bad apples for authority. As a young woman growing up in North Philadelphia, I have witnessed many illegal doings done by the system. As a young girl witnessing authority taking advantage and not understanding how the system worked puzzled me. A family member and I once attended a high school basketball game in 2010, which irrupted into a huge fight outside. The fight became overwhelming for the security at the high school, so the police were called immediately. As the fight was taking place my family member and I were walking home when suddenly

In the early-1900s new technologies which to was help better the policing within the community had

Firstly, it is important to note that it is possible for the same judge to make different decisions on identical cases, or for different judges to differ or disagree in their decisions on identical cases. Each judge has his or her own backgrounds, beliefs, and tolerance. This makes prediction of how

The prosecuting attorney has a great deal of power in relation to his or her jurisdiction of service. The prosecuting attorney has responsibilities to the public who demand integrity, zeal, and a continuous effort in establishing justice, truth, and fairness The prosecuting attorney evaluates the weight of evidence against the accused and the nature of the charge in deciding whether to prosecute or not.

The term judiciary not only describes the court system but is also refers collectively to the professionals that make up the bench, including the judges, magistrates and various other adjudicators. This group along with the staffs forms the core of the judiciary bench. Professionals in the judiciary, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, must execute justice by upholding the law in an ethical manner. “Their separate depictions of various courts suggest the metaphor of a pyramid: at increasingly higher levels of the judiciary, the range of operative goals narrows and variation among judges diminishes. At the lowest levels, in this metaphor, interest in the content of legal policy is one of many motivations for judges ' behavior, motivations whose importance differs from judge to judge. At the highest level, in the Supreme Court, only an interest in the content of legal policy influences the behavior of any justice.” (Baum, 1991)