Criminal Justice System, Questionnaire Example

The criminal justice system ensembles three major arms that work together to ensure the maintenance of law and order in the country. The interplay between three institutions ensure that the provisions of the constitution are respected. The three arms depend on each other for effective delivery of justice to the people in a country. The courts depends on the police to conduct investigations to ensure that there enough evidence that pertaining to any case that is presented before the court, the corrections department depends on the court rulings to get individuals should be taken for the correction process (Brodeur, 2010).

A simple flow of the processes and operations can be expressed as follows, reporting stage where the police receive crime information from the individuals affected by the criminal acts, or a crime witnesses can give information. The next phase is investigation where the police officers search for evidences and relevant information that relate the suspect to the crime in question. After investigation an arrest is carried out depending on the nature of the evidence and the type of the crime. When an arrest is successful the next stage is prosecution where by the evidence presented by the police officer are evaluated. After the evidence has been weighted, the next phase is adjudication where the stakes of the criminal are determined depending on the magnitude of the crime committed. At this stage, the criminal can launch a plea or the process can proceed to trial where all the evidences are scrutinized and court gives the necessary step of action depending on the crime (Garland, 2008).

The last stage where the correction department comes in is post trial stage where the criminal can be sentenced or be taken to probation. When the criminal is sentenced, the correction department ensures that effective corrective measures are used to transform the individual (Brodeur, 2010).

References

Garland, D. (2008). “Of Crimes and Criminals”. In Maguire, Mike, Rod Morgan, Robert Reiner.  The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press. p. 20.

Brodeur, J. (2010). “High Policing and Low Policing: Remarks about the Policing of Political Activities,” Understanding Policing. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. pp. 284–285, 295.