Introduction
Justice as applied in a court of law, refers to maintaining or administering what is just by adjusting impartially conflicting claims or assigning merited rewards or punishment. Governments usually have the legislature arm where laws are made by either the member appointed for or elected by citizens through voting. Criminal justice, involves practices in the system which the government uses to direct social control, crime mitigation and deterring or questioning those who violate the laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation. Criminal justice does not uphold its basic obligations since its arrest, adjudication and correction of law breakers is pre-occupied. A system comprises stake holders and in law or judicial process this system must comprise the administrative system, non-legal personnel and the administrative processes, programs and policies that they control. Administration of justice is only enclosed on criminologists, lawyers, police and judges. The justice system does not integrate the administrative system, non -legal personnel who are a key to decision making. The American criminal justice system is termed as a system but does not uphold all the integration enclosed in a justice system. In this paper, we are going to alienate whether the American criminal justice system is a system or not basing on reformers opinions.
The majority white in America in the 19 th century presented the improved criminal justice system to provide justice and tranquillity among its citizens especially the African American. American system of criminal justice is mostly termed as power over correction to law breakers. It is divided among four decision makers in the government that is the legislature, prosecutor’s office, courts and correctional agencies. In the process of justice, decision making is one of the most key component. Most people do not agree that both the courts and correctional agencies are in play here. They tend to have more powers than the legislature who make the law. Sentencing is known be to fixed or presumptive. In the fixed the set laws gives the exact penalty on each offence. In presumptive the set laws allow a normal sentencing for each wrong doing but allows limited departures from the set norms(Alschuler, 1978). The call for reforms in this system involves the fact that the other bodies especially the prosecutors’ offices, have had a greater influence on criminal sentencing than any of other agencies including the state legislature.
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Discussion has been amerced on the amount of discretion the criminal justice officials should have. Believing that they have not been putting a lot of discretion when passing justice to offenders(Roberts, 2018). The parole boards are charged with expert penologists and evaluates an offenders conduct, response and treatment in prison. The reports can instigate a release or not, the question being how fair can these officers carry this duty. Parole boards can act to show its powers in a way to reduce the strength in sentencing made by the varying lookouts of judges and prosecutors. If the released which has been criticized as hold on the former criminal rather than a form of policing where there is a supervision Period during the transition from prison to streets and allowing it to be viewed as regular check rather than a parole discretion. Persons psyche and behaviour are an awesome task to predict but how certain are we that the individual in question is just faking his behaviour to get out of the jail efforts (Cole et al . ,2018). Rehabilitation as set by the American criminal justice system is a far-reaching objective, but it very doubtful to put the government’s power on an offender’s personality over his wrong doing. Rehabilitation efforts by the governments do not seem to work since most prisoners are not victims of social ills to respond to this kind of treatment. Some offenders get lessons from the experience of being arrested, convicted or being punished while others from the fact that they are aging and maybe religion conversions but not from either medical or any other treatments. Parole boards are not useless, but they have not achieved their intended purpose and extremes.
Judicial sentencing has been argued as having discretion where the judges passes their sentencing without considering the level or magnitude of crime committed (Neubauer & Fradella, 2015). It’s thought that the original intent of the judiciary was for the judges to show their ruling through much intent by measuring the degree of the crime and pass judgment’s according to the laws set by this legislatures’. For instance, if an offender has robbed a bank while another one stole from a woman purse the judgment will not be the same. The judges will have to prove by arguably following the evidence. Judges would say that this offender is less capable than the other and deserves a less time in the penitentiary than this. Other offender seems easy to be rehabilitated than Others on and therefore can serve a shorter time. But arguably, the judges give judgement according to what they think. The intent being showing their powers maybe or whip a painful blow to the offenders especially The African American who seems to hugely be affected with higher rates of committing crimes. If the judicial sentencing was rather informative than some sort of revenge it would be seemed as a better way of correcting these offenders. Some reformers have recognized the need for judicial discretion where there can be variations in the prison sentences. Say plus or minus up to 20% or an addition or subtraction of months to one year out of the sentences given and of course this degree of flexibility must be asserted. David Shichor (1997) explained, the best solution to the serious crimes committed by offenders Is by adding more years in the prison sentences. Depending on the condition of offence committed, judges must be calculative in determining these sentences.
Overview
Federal policy in sentencing and the requirements in the constitution form the framework of the American criminal justice system (Pound, 2018). Reformers have argued that these policies are not effective to the local level. Federal policy dictates the proper processes and behaviour of the criminal justice system. It is achieved through mandates, law cases and their rulings can be effected on federal level. But due to environmental changes this can be directly translated to the local level since federal resources are mostly available, but the state resources are limited. Instances has been witnessed where there is overcrowding in prisons, evaluation methods which are poor, loss of administrative capacity and recognition. Therefore, resulting to the system being unable to be operated. Ritzer (1993), explained that efficiency, calculability, control and being predictable are the basic four dimensions of punishment, but this is not witnessed in the criminal justice system. The sentencing and statues of the federal, the sentencing Reform act of 1994, states that if an offender not having been culpable any other time (termed as first-time offender) should not be imposed with a sentence. However, the act states out serious offenses which has resulted in a purpose opposite to what it has stated. For example, the act authorises probation as an option of sentencing while the federal states and guidelines restricts the use of the same as a primary option of sentencing to certain offenders.
Reformers have been complaining about the non-citizen laws and statutes in sentencing policies. This affects the federal policies of detention. They cannot be able to use the standard policies and procedures in trying, considering and adjudicating them and this increases the criminal alien offenses (Schmalleger, 2017). Reformers feel that this clause of the law should be corrected. The alien offenders have increased in numbers as they know they can be sentenced under the federal statutes. It has been revealed that U.S citizens are receiving alternative sentences more likely than non- citizens which can lower if this non-citizen effect is eliminated. Non-citizen offenders must be deported to their countries. Meaning they must be held in prisons before this is accomplished, which has resulted in many concerns in the sentencing policy since there are many caseloads in the federal and increase in the prison population comprised by non-citizens.
Reformers have also complained about sentences imposed to offenders, even though there are other alternative sentences. This is because there has been over dwelling on punitive policies such as defining sentences, strike laws for nonaggressive offence, philosophy on war on drugs and minimums on mandatory. Since there are human rights, its justified to completely assess the mitigating conditions to ensure crimes are equal to the punishment offered, and therefore judges are provided discretion by sentencing guidelines to ensure societal standards are not endangered. Therefore, determinate sentencing has been seen to affect the way of sentencing in the united states.
Conclusion
The above discussions show that the American criminal justice system needs a lot of changes and frankly enough it’s not a system as not all the stake holders are involved. Arguably the criminal justice system lacks bureaucracy and there must be collaborate with other administrators to ensure that there is response to environmental factors, a system that can address complex problems, capitalise on public methods of administration and ensure a collaborative relation in the intergovernmental agencies.
Work Cited
Alschuler, A. W. (1978). Sentencing reform and prosecutorial power: A critique of recent proposals for" fixed" and" presumptive" sentencing. University of Pennsylvania Law Review , 126 (3), 550-577.
Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & DeJong, C. (2018). The American system of criminal justice . Cengage Learning.
Neubauer, D. W., & Fradella, H. F. (2015). America's courts and the criminal justice system . Cengage Learning.
Pound, R. (2018). Criminal justice in America . Routledge.
Ritzer, G. (1983). The “McDonaldization” of society. The journal of American culture , 6 (1), 100-107.
Roberts, J. (2018). Public opinion, crime, and criminal justice . Routledge.
Schmalleger, F. (2017). Criminal justice . Pearson.
Shichor, D. (1998). Victimology and the victims of white-collar crime. Criminology on the threshold of the 21st century , 331-351.
