Criminal Justice System Critique

Question 1 

Ideally, criminal justice is a system that acts to enforce the criminal laws of the united states. Criminal justice is divided into three broad categories: law enforcement, courts, and the corrections. Law Enforcement is composed of police, and they are the initial contact with the actual criminal activity. Law enforcement officer’s role includes investigating crimes, gathering and protecting evidence, taking reports of various crimes, arresting offenders, and giving testimonies in courts of law. Courts are usually overseen by judges, and their roles include the rule of law is followed, adjudicating what happens in the courts, hearing evidence presented by attorneys, overseeing trials and sentencing offenders convicted of various crimes. Corrections, on the other hand, is tasked with separating convicted criminals from the rest of the society. Corrections system is composed of professionals whose role is to help rehabilitate offenders, supervising convicted offenders in prisons, on probation or on parole in the community, and overseeing daily routines of the inmates. 

Question 2 

Mass incarceration is a term used to refer to a substantial increase in the incarcerated people in the United States’ prison over the last forty years. 

Question 3 

Justification of punishment is generally given for intentionally punishing those convicted of wrongdoings. Therefore, justifications for punishment as meet by incarceration are incapacitation, deterrence, restitution, retribution, and rehabilitation. 

Question 4  

Incarceration helps to reduce crime because when offenders are sentenced to serve a higher proportion of their sentences in prison, it will dramatically reduce crime because more offenders would be behind bars for longer. 

Question 5  

Sutherland would say that incarceration is one way of trying to reduce crime instances in the society, but it is not the most effective and appropriate way of addressing the root cause of the various criminal offenses. In this regard, Sutherland would be against incarceration idea because according to his differential association theory, “those criminals in prison would become delinquent of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law” which is a common scenario in prisons today. 

Question 5 

Hirschi would say that incarceration is a not an effective way of punishing criminals as this amounts to primitive practices rather than trying to take proper control of the situation at hand. Therefore, Hirschi would be against the use of incarceration because as his social control theory advocates “individuals break the law due to a breakdown with their societal bond which specifically are an attachment to other individuals, commitment to following rules, involvement by typical social behaviors and belief in a basic value system”. Thus, Hirschi would advocate for proper control of the four key bonds as a measure to crime control than subjecting offenders to unnecessary conviction as they are likely to commit the same crimes when they are released. 

Question 6  

One thing that I can change as a measure of reforming the criminal justice system is holding prosecutors and police responsible for deliberate misconduct accountable. This is because prosecutors and police who deliberately engage in misconduct are rarely held liable for their actions. Such deliberate misconduct includes hiding, destroying and fabricating evidence as well as using coerced confessions which usually lands innocent people in jails.