Theoretical models of criminal justice

Introduction

The system of criminal justice is an intricate application system and study of laws (to uphold justice and regulate crime) that persistently change with time due to the debut of crime awareness and new laws. The system varies from nation to nation with a clear disparity between criminal justice and the jurisprudence by which every nation uses to govern and set up their authority (Feely, 2017). It contains different goals and aims that triggers justice delivery. Through this, the innocent is shielded whilst the guilty are punished and convicted. The main purpose is to bring forth all offences to justice and assure the public of security from criminals of any form through court orders such as fines collection, custodial punishment and supervision of community (Trueman, 2015). Its objectives comprise crime reduction, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of dispensing justice to offences, improving the satisfaction of the victim with the cops, raising criminal assets recovery, and explicitly handling race disproportionality.

The system of criminal justice of Wales and England entails major agencies working as a team to enforce the law and deliver on criminal justice. They involve; the service of crown prosecution, the cops, the service of national offenders’ management, which is mandated to cover probation and prison and the board of youth justice, that supervises the offending teams for the youth (Trueman, 2015). Different voluntary teams, for instance, the National Association for resettlement and upkeep of the offenders and the victim's aid operate some of the initiatives and services within the system of criminal justice. A lot of criminologists denotes that the system of criminal justice of Wales and England successfully led to crime reduction and improved criminals punishment and this was noted through an examination of data from the board of national criminal justice, which projected a positive deviation of two per cent from March 2008- June 2009 in confidence level amidst individuals in Wales and England.

Criminal Justice systems Models

Different criminal justice theoretical models attribute to effective understanding of the system of criminal justice. These model demonstrate a hypothetical but clear scheme for trying the evidence presented by verdicts made by thousands of individuals that are involved in the criminal process every single day (Davies et al., 2005). They offer important ways to adapt to the criminal process intricacy, offer a direction to judge the positive or actual criminal justice system operation, describes discourses and ideologies, which encompasses the criminal justice and give room for simplification of details and highlights of trends and common themes. Professor Herbert Packer of Stanford University, in 1968, presented two important systems in the criminal process thereby naming them as the model of due process and the model of crime control.

According to the model of crime control, the most essential role of criminal justice is to safeguard social freedom and curtail criminal conduct. Professor Herbert made an assumption that criminal law was able to regulate crime without considering the fact that a lot of crime victims could not be vigilant enough to report criminal acts to the police as denoted by studies of victimization. Law enforcement failure to regulate criminal conduct is the root cause of public order breakdown, human freedom disappearance and neglecting of legal controls (Roach, 1999). It is used for the liberal aim of shielding individuals and their assets from any form of harm and improving social stability and order. It clarifies that the criminal process operating efficiently should be centered on suspects screening, guilt determination and shielding relevant disposition of individuals sued with crime (Davies et al., 2005)

This model is centered on the conviction and is able to compromise the conviction of innocent individuals in order to accomplish its objective. It finally maximizes the criminal's number terminated and brought to justice however at a cost of compromising the suspects of crime (guilty or innocent) being prosecuted maliciously. This is because of the models that uphold the notion that every person is guilty until proven innocent (Santos, 2007). The justice system is encouraged by this type of model to totally give support to the action of the police to the extent of assuming the formal procedures of collecting information on different occasions. It should be noted that effectiveness in stopping criminal acts through the application of models of crime control contains higher risk and chances of convicting the innocent wrongfully. It gets the guilt presumption as a factual base that the dominant objective of diminishing crime can be accomplished via a summary process without enormous efficiency loss (Roach, 1999).

The model of crime control is regarded to be a scheme established to punish individuals and transform the nature in which society reduces crime. It also aims at convincing the public that through convictions and apprehensions, the system of criminal justice will be efficient and beneficial to society as a whole. However, this model is substantially important owing to the fact that it assists persons to prevent crimes by assisting them to make appropriate decisions in their lives to diminish the opportunities and chances for crime occurrence (Santoso, 2007). In the 1770s, England employed the model of crime control with a presumption that no one is innocent until proven innocent. This presumption was based on the law of foster crown that entailed treaties that reiterated, in every murder charge, the truth of murder must be proven first, all accident circumstances, infirmity, or necessity to must be convincingly proven by the prisoner unless they originate from the evidence presented against him. The exposition of Prof Packer on the two models made it coherent that the current system of criminal justice in England is firmly grounded in the mode of crime control. Examples of enacted laws to enhance crime regulation by the government of the UK consist of criminal evidence and police act 1984, that granted total power to the police to search and stop contrary to the act objective ( Act, C.J., 1916. Criminal Evidence and Police Act 1984) and the 2005 Act of organized crime and police (Santos, 2007).

Packer reiterated that the model of the due process would mimic an obstacle if the model of crime control resembled the line of assembly. The due process was established to ensure that the rights of persons are depicted and the freedom of fair trial accorded to them. The model of due process emphasizes the fact that power is often subject to abuse thus debuts a significant decline in the efficiency with which the process of crime works in the interest of curtailing the formal oppression of individuals (WiseGeek, 2019). It differentiates between the legally and factually guilty and has little faith in the accuracy and reliability of the verdicts made in the initial stages of the criminal process. The model of the due process takes little regard to guilty and efficiency plea. The Supreme Court is the validating authority and the court that assist in constitution interpretation (King, 1981).

Larger dependency is placed on finding a legal fact in the criminal process judgment phase. Judicial officers work on innocence presumption rather than guilt in treating the accused person. The model of due process is similarly concerned with equality this is because every accused individual regardless of social or financial status should be treated equally by being represented by a lawyer in a court of law. It puts a lot of restraints on the police to shield the suspect's rights and reduce those illegitimate findings in station houses and in the streets. The cops are barred from nabbing and detaining persons in order to improve their case. The accused is often informed about his legal right to contact counsel and remain silent, in any form of communication between the accused and the police (King, 1981)

The important principle contained in the model of due process is majorly based on the rule of law that reiterating that the government with an exception of law violation cannot punish anyone, this implies that the legal rights of a person are to be accorded utmost respect and the shall not be encroached in a legitimate proceeding (King, 1981). The human rights act that was enacted in 1998 largely promotes a model of the due process since the recent authorities had been given by the act upon magistrates and judges to shield rights of individuals to a fair trial and also internalize and make verdicts on cases in regard to the articles of the act. While essential values contained in the current English system of criminal justice pursue the model crime control, some due process model's value is still held by the system, particularly the trial proceedings fairness that is emphasized by the Human Right Act, article three (Refword, 1998).

Other than Parker's two models, two models of the system of criminal justice have been proposed by Ken Roach. The two models are based on the varied concepts of the rights of the victim. These models include the victims’ right punitive model and the victims' rights non-punitive model (Roach, 1999). Just like Packer's crime control model, Ken Roach models provides a positive operation description of the system of criminal justice, prescriptive statements about values designed to guide criminal justice, and discourses description, that encompasses the criminal justice (Feeley, 2017). The victim's right punitive mode gives a response to the crime control insufficiency to serve and shield victims, certain the expressive and retributive essence of punishment and the necessity of the victim's rights to be given consideration alongside the accused rights. Rights model of punitive victim represents the model of crime control by assuming that criminal law enactment, punishment and prosecution assist in controlling crime. However, victims’ rights non-punitive model diminishes the plight of both punishment and victimization by emphasizing on restorative justice and crime prevention (Trueman, 2015)

Michael King, the theorist, studied the system of criminal justice and posed the argument that there was many other different criminal justice system models. The theorist did an analysis of the criminal system and later published six models theory that closely relates to the theory of Packer including; the model of due process that entails exacting justice between similar parties, the model of crime control that entails preventing reoccurrence of crime and punishing the wrong (Davies et al., 2005). The model of bureaucracy that entails regulating criminals and crime, the medical model that entails rehabilitation of offenders, the model of status passage that entails publicly condemning the criminal and crime and the model of power that entails domination maintenance by the governing class and reinforcement of class values. It should, however, be noted that these are the only available models and have not been put into place and therefore cannot be considered to be more effective than the theory of Packer owing to the fact that none has been implemented (King, 1981).

Conclusion

There are numerous criminal justice system models, that outlines the functions of the system of criminal justice in preventing and curtailing crime through punishment and prosecution of individuals found to be guilty of criminal offences. Additionally, they highlight the benefits and the essence of the criminal justice system of shielding and serving citizens through crime reduction. An appropriate system of criminal justice should aim at sensitive models in order to deter the innocent from becoming the system victims. As outlined above, the formal process to the system of criminal justice contains numerous criminologists. For instance, King and Packer who accept the idea that individuals should have their rights depicted and offered a similar chance and opportunity to defend themselves through the system of justice and in a court of law. While the model of crime control enables the government to successfully overpower crime at a societal level, a legal process should be put into the system of criminal justice in order to serve as a protection for the innocent. It will also act as a method of a survey on system agents to cut down power abuse that majorly arises from crime regulation.

The rights model of punitive victims is a recent model since it applies the risks and rights to account for criminal sanction. It is however similar to the old model of crime control due to the fact that it mimics the Packer's assumption that states that criminal laws regulate crime. The extended model of the King has outlined that there are existing issues with the work of Packer and that criminal justice system models be widened and handled with high consideration. King models, on the other hand, create criticism since it may result into further pressure on the system of criminal justice to implement procedures and rules; the variation that can be put into account is that the model of due process acknowledges that policing is the most efficient way of tackling crimes. It is also an important injustice maintenance amidst society. The model of crime control, however, believes that policing contains a negative impact to the society and a lot should be done in order to convict the individuals who have commit crime and diminish the activity of crime.

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References

Davies, M. Croall, H. Tyler, J. (2005). Criminal Justice: An introduction to the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales. London: Longham

Davies, M., Croall, H. and Tyrer, J. (2005). Criminal justice: An introduction to the criminal justice system in England and Wales. Pearson education.

Feeley, M., 2017. Two models of the criminal justice system: An organizational perspective. In Crime, Law and Society, 119-137.

King, M., (1981). The framework of criminal justice. London: Croom Helm.

Roach, K. (1999). Four Models of the Criminal Process. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 671-684.

Trueman, C. N. (2015). The Criminal Justice System of England and Wales. Retrieved [online]