Is Criminal Justice System a Fair and Just System - Essay Example

Name: Course: University Name: Country: Criminal Justice System-A Fair and Just System Defining crime is by no means an easy task. Generally speaking almost all the societies have certain norms, beliefs, customs and traditions which are implicitly accepted by its members as conducive to their well-being and healthy all- round development. Infringement of these cherished norms and customs is condemned as anti-social behaviour. According to the legal definition, ‘crime’ is any form of conduct which is declared to be socially harmful in a State and as such forbidden by law under pain of some punishment. With the emergence of crime, the society also decided to set up various systems or branches of social control that will prevent the occurrence of crime in any particular society. This is known as the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system refers (1) to the various systems used by the government in order to maintain social control in a given society and also help in the enforcement of law and for the administration of justice. The responsibilities of the enforcement of law, social control and that of administering of justice are put on the shoulders of the police, courts and correction agencies. Like all other forms of justice, process and fairness the pursuit of the criminal justice is also the same as that of an ideal system of justice. The modern criminal justice system has its origin since the ancient times only with the incorporated new form of punishment, policing reforms, and the added rights for victims and offenders. These changes are a result of the changing views of the society regarding the customs of the society, the economic conditions of it people and the changing political ideas. In the very early period of the criminal justice system, the punishment which was most common was sending the culprit into exile. Then after that period, during the middle ages, payment to the victim or the family of the victim was considered to be the most common form of punishment given to the criminal performing any violent crime. Then there was the ritual that the persons who were unable to pay such amount were punished more severely and it even included harsh penalties and corporal punishment. It has been in record that the first police force had been established in London by Sir Robert Peel, in 1829. There were police established the departments of police in Boston and New York City in 1838 and 1844 respectively. The police department did not have the same respect as it has now in the earlier times because of the prevalence of the rampant corruption in the community. But with the passage of time, the police department had begun to professionalize itself and had also started adopting new and better technologies and moreover had understood the importance of training and had started working on it. But irrespective of these changes, the police always had remained the followers of the highly domineering leaders and it had resulted in the lack of faith and respect between the police and the community. But with the various unrest of the people of all the communities against the police system it has improved a lot and are now one of the most efficient system of social control and of justice in any society. They have had introduced various reforms in order to win the faith of the people towards them and to make themselves a prominent figure in the field of criminal justice. The moot reason of having a criminal justice system is to bring a criminal into the eyes of justice and make him suffer for the wrong he had committed. Humans as a community are the most dangerous species even worse than horde wolves without a proper system which regulates their activities. The proper system of criminal justice which makes a criminal suffer for his crime deters the rest of the community to repeat the wrong he had committed. This helps the society to prevent crime and makes it a safer place to stay. A proper criminal justice system which makes the guilty suffer for his crime, even prevents the impulsion of the relatives of the victim to have their revenge over the criminal as, they would have faith on the system which would make the criminal get his due. No system of justice of any country is absolutely fool proof or immaculate, there is bound to be a hitch in it. The system of criminal justice in many countries suffers from the inadequacy of the executive tier of the system being at the hands of the legislature. The judiciary system of some countries follows the concept that, even though a thousand guilty may have been acquitted, let not a single innocent suffer conviction. In this type of system adhering to the above concept and making a criminal suffer punishment for his crime is most difficult, as entire the judiciary is based on unequivocal evidence which proves the crime. The onus of proving a case of crime is always with the State. It is an established fact that, with the corruption at its peak in the legislature, the executive (police) who works under the banner of the legislature can be twisted and evidences to prove crime can conveniently be fabricated to allow a criminal go scot-free. The criminal justice system in Australia (2) is two fold. There exists the Federal criminal justice system and the relevant state system in all the Australian states and the territories. Generally speaking, the administration of law in Australia lies in the hands of the relevant State and the police services of the territory, the State and Territorial corrective or penal services and the National Crime Authority. The Commonwealth of Australia does not expressly vest powers regarding all the matters but bestows such powers of legislative nature on the States and Territories. Most commonly speaking, this law is the one that governs the daily lives of most of the citizens of Australia. The responsibility of upholding the Law and keeping peace and also preventing any kind of breach of law and also that of the investigation of crimes where the law has been breached is on the Police services in Australia. Further there is the scope of bringing the alleged offender before the criminal court if that offender is detected by the police. There has been a hierarchy provided for the courts in all the States of Australia. The most basal court in the hierarchy is the Courts of Summary jurisdiction which has their jurisdiction in both civil and criminal matters. They normally hear the matters that are related to small property, small claims, small debts and even minor criminal offences. The upper court in the hierarchy is the District Court or the Country Court as it may be called in some places. These courts are entitled to substantial although the criminal and civil jurisdictions are limited. The District Courts are followed by the State and the Territorial Supreme Courts and the Federal Court of Australia. Both these courts have the jurisdiction of both the original and appellate nature. The original jurisdiction means that the matter arisen can be brought directly before the court in the very first instance. It need not go through the process of coming to a particular court through the lower courts. Whereas the appellate jurisdiction indicates to the fact that the matters are brought to a particular court as a result of an appeal granted from any lower court. Australia’s highest court is the High Court which also is subject to both appellate and original jurisdiction. Here are basically two main functions of the Australian High Court. One is that it has special importance in the matters which are concerned with the constitutional rights and features. Secondly it is the general court of appeal for the Australian citizens from the supreme courts. Apart from this hierarchical form of the judiciary, it is also noteworthy to know that each of the States, Territories and the Commonwealth has also taken care to build up various Tribunals and other mechanisms in order to deal with the varied number of jurisdictions similar in nature to the courts. These tribunals and other mechanisms are empowered with specialist tasks including that of licensing, dealing with arbitrations and also taking care of the cases where there is a child charged with criminal offence. Thus it is very clear from the hierarchical system that Australia (3) is consisted of a federation of territories and having a central national government which also have the separate State and Territory governments. The justice system is thus divided between the central government and the various State and the Territory governments which also are relatively attached by the enactment of the penal laws and by the way of their enforcement by the police, or by those agencies which have been set up as the individual law enforcement agencies. The Director of Public Prosecution and their staff are entrusted with the main function of the prosecuting of the criminal offenders. These are again extended in the levels of the national, state and territorial basis. With the Federal Court having no criminal jurisdiction the criminal prosecutions of either the State or the Federal are dealt with by the State or the Territory courts. In the similar manner, the offenders who have been sentenced to any kind of detention or in other words, the prisoners, and also those offenders whose trial is pending, are dealt with by the State and Territory judicial system and also by the State and Territory corrective services. There is no existence of any federal Prison and the offenders of the Federation and the State have mostly the same entitlements and rights, subjected to certain differences in the practice. It is a very critical point to understand but the fact is that in the Australian judicial system and taking into account its penal system, all of the agencies, including in it the Directors of Public Prosecution, the law enforcement agencies, the Courts, the oversight agencies and even the correction services are totally independent of the working of each other. They have a particular limitation of their powers and functions which they cannot exceed and even they cannot be directed by any of the other agencies as to the manner of their performance, by any of the State or territorial as well as the central government and even by the other agencies. The law enforcement agency constitutes of the Federal and the State agencies. The federal statutory law entitles to the federal agencies their specific area of jurisdiction at the federal or central level. The various agencies included in it are the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Security and Investments Commission and other agencies. In the similar manner, the States also have their own Police Force and Crime Commissions and other agencies. The Directors of Public Prosecution both at the Federal and the State level have their independence, responsibilities and their powers and also those of their staffs, regulated by the statute. The primary role that they play in the criminal justice system is the prosecution of the offences that the law enforcement agencies have investigated. The Courts in Australia are basically three-tiered system with the inclusion of the Local and Children’s Courts at the basic level, the District and the County Courts above them and the Supreme Court at the top of the three-tier system. The local courts and the children’s courts deal with the matters of lesser degree of offences which are presented before them by the Directors of public prosecution or the law enforcement agencies, for prosecution. Their primary powers vested on them are to determine the custody or release on bail of the pending trials and also includes the imposition of the detention sentences, for the offences of lesser nature that come before them. The District or the County Courts have powers to deal with such criminal offences which are of transitional seriousness. They are even vested with the power, under certain circumstances, for determining the questions of detention or that of the release on bail, for the offenders whose trials are pending, and also to pass sentences that require imprisonment. The Supreme Courts are said to be the superior courts of record which handle the most serious matters of offences. These courts also have the appellate jurisdiction regarding the matters taken up by the District Court and also by the Supreme Court’s trial division. They even are empowered with certain supervisory powers regarding the matters concerning the custody of detainees, who are the persons whose trials have been pending in the court and also of the offenders for whom the sentence has been passed or in other words, the prisoners. Apart from the three tier judicial system, the Australian criminal justice system has incorporated in itself the correctional system. Thus it becomes very clear that the criminal justice system aims at the reduction of crime and the maintaining of the social system (4). The main aim of the criminal justice system is to intervene in the lives of the victims, offenders and also the members of the wider community. The duty of the State agencies and the social institutions is to see to the fact as to how to react to and respond to the offensive behaviours of the offenders. It is very necessary that the various strengths and weaknesses should be discussed very appropriately and there should be assessment done from time to time of the general theories and practices of the criminal justice system. In the system of criminal justice (5) the meeting if the analyses of the ‘actuarial justice’ and the thesis of ‘risk society’ have given rise to the assumption by many people that there is a chance of shift in the global nature towards the models of justice that are based on risks and are also statistical, incapacitating, and repressive. Studying the recent developments that have taken place in Australia, it has come to the forefront that the social conditions and the local political formations which have meant that the justice models that are both risk-based and neo-liberal in nature, deflect so much from the models of justice in the US , both in function and form, that it is no more possible to make any kind of generalisation which may prove to be useful regarding the correctional value and the political nature of such government or even about their uncomplicated transportability across the boundaries of the jurisdictions. Thus the Commonwealth of Australia (6) consisting of the Federalist government being composed of six State governments and a national government, is responsible for the enforcement of its own laws. The basic cases of the commonwealth deals with are those of the drug trafficking and the violation of the laws of social security. These are the most prominent Commonwealth Offences. The offences which occur against the property or a person are regarded as the offence against the Commonwealth. The States are themselves responsible for developing the criminal law as they have enacted codes for the crimes that limit the usage of criminal law. The structure of the legal system of Australia has been greatly influenced by that of the United Kingdom. Moreover, the common law has been taken from the English courts which have been refined and developed since hen by the Australian courts. But it has been observed that since 1963, it has become a rule not to regard the English decisions as being superior in nature or even of the equal nature in authority with the decisions made by the Australian Courts. The criminal justice system can thus be the most just and fair system which can bring about peace in the society and reduce the crime rate and keep up the social control of any society. With all its pros and cons it is the system by the help of which a society can make it prominent and develop itself. References 1. Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, 2006, Wikimedia Foundation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice 2. Australia Travel Search, 11.10.2006, Australian Law and Politics, [On-line], http://www.australiatravelsearch.com.au/trc/law.html 3. Justice Wood, 20.09. 2005, ‘Overview of Australian Justice and Prison Systems’, [On-line], http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/Supreme_Court/ll_sc.nsf/pages/SCO_wood_0504 4. White Rob, Perrone Santina, 2005, Crime and Social Control, Oxford University Press, USA, http://www.oup.com.au/content/General.asp?ContentID=1004&MasterID=964#019551419X 5. o’Malley Patrick, 2002, Globalizing Risk?: Distinguishing Styles of ‘Neo-Liberal’ Criminal Justice in Australia and USA, Sage Publications, http://crj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/2/205 6. Biles David, ‘World Factbook Of Criminal Justice System’ , http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/wfbcjaus.txt Read More