The Three Main Components of the Criminal Justice System

Three main components make up our criminal justice system: Law Enforcement, Courts, and Corrections. An easier way to put it in is the three C’s, cops, courts, and corrections. They all work together and go in hand with one another in some way, which is by apprehending, trying, and punishing offenders. They all work to deter and prevent crime. Police detect crime and detain offenders, courts adjudicate, sentence punishments, and the correctional system punishes or rehabilitates.

Law enforcement, or cops, is usually the first contact we encounter with the criminal justice system. When there is some sort of emergency, we call 911. Law enforcement is its name itself, enforcing laws upon society. Police are here to protect all citizens from harm and implement rules and policies in society to prevent any crime. Police usually respond to the calls dispatch sends out and arrive at scenes of a crime or any other situation and arrest an offender if a crime was committed. Police have many tasks to do; some may include arrest, investigating crimes, talking with individuals, consisting of witnesses or victims, minor traffic stops, and many more. Their primary focus is, as I said before, to deter crime and protect.

Law enforcement is a great thing to have in this world, and it is a start to protecting citizens, but there are some downsides. There are many errors in the system, but it is better than the past when training was not required back in the day. Some crucial things the system could work on is more training and education on topics that pertain to safety and procedures. There is a lot of racism in the world; we all know that it is a flaw in the system that they hire police officers that are racist and will not protect black citizens. Some may not be racist, but just afraid of the stigma they put on people of color and shoot first before thinking. For example, a black man, Philando Castile, was fatally shot on July 6, 2016, after an officer said he saw Castile reaching for a gun. I should also note that his wife and four-year-old daughter was in the car with him. Philando stated to the officer that he did have a firearm beforehand. As Castile was moving, the officer was afraid for his life because he stated he saw Castile reaching for a gun, saw it in his hands, and then fired seven shots, killing Philando Castile. Castile did have a weapon, but it was in his pocket the entire time and was not touched, according to paramedics that retrieved it from inside his pocket. There is a heart-wrenching video of all of this on the internet, along with another video of the wife and daughter in the back of the police car. You can hear the daughter comforting the mother in the video, saying, “I don’t want to get shooted”. The officer was investigated, and they reported he acted in reckless behavior and was charged with second-degree manslaughter. There are many other cases related to this in which the officers were afraid for their life, so they shoot first and think later. I believe that is the biggest flaw in law enforcement.

The second component in the criminal justice system is Courts. There are many different courts in their jurisdiction; some include federal, state, local, and smaller courts such as drug courts, family courts, tax courts, etc. They all consist of prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, and a jury. No matter what court it is, they all have the same purpose: determining whether an offender is guilty or not. Officers play a small role in this stage as well; they send over the information to the defense attorney, which then determines the charges. The defendant, the offender, will either plead guilty or not guilty, and a trial date will be set. If the defendant pleas guilty, they could be given a plea bargain, which can give the offender a reduced sentence.

As I have stated before, courts have jurisdiction, which is the legal authority to hear and decide a case. For example, federal courts have federal jurisdiction and listen to cases pertaining to federal laws. State courts have state jurisdiction and can only hear cases pertaining to state laws. The same goes for all the other different courts. The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest in the American court system, and they make the final decision for the defendant’s appeal.

Courts often enforce rules and laws upon society to deter any crime and often sentence the offender to a punishment as severe as what they committed. However, I do not always see that. For example, I believe people who are sent to prison for possession of any type of drugs get way too much time than they should; it is also inconsistent; everyone gets different sentences, which is just wrong, in my opinion; it is absurd. If we also look at Brendan Dassey’s case, which was in the Netflix documentary “The Making of a Murderer”, the Supreme Court declined to hear his case and never gave any reason to why. As they said, his IQ is lower, and he was scared the entire time when police were trying to get a confession out of him. He might not have known what he was really doing. I think courts need to get a better handle on mental illnesses and go deeper rather than a “he said she said” kind of deal or went off a forced confession.

The last component of the criminal justice system is the Corrections. Corrections is when an offender is found guilty and sentenced to some form of punishment, whether that be prison or jail, house arrest, probation, or specific programs. If offenders are sentenced a year or less, they are usually sent to a local jail; anything more than one year is prison. There are also community-based corrections, which can include probation, halfway houses, treatment programs, etc. These types of corrections help with overcrowding and are cheaper than sending someone to jail or prison. Most corrections, mainly community-based, tend to focus on rehabilitation and prevent prisoners from recommitting a crime.

If we go back to what I said before in the court section, sometimes the sentence an offender is giving is absurd. I often feel like correctional facilities are not very rehabilitative as they say they are. I believe corrections should all be rehabilitative, but only if they see fit. There are many truly evil people out there, which they would probably never get through rehabilitation and will never be able to reenter society. I think if a person doesn’t show a lot of behavioral problems, they could easily pass rehabilitation rather than being stuck in prison for ten years. One of my favorite movies to think about is The Mustang, which is based on a true story. He was sent to prison for murdering his wife, and he was put in a wild mustang program that was apart of the prison. He shows many anger issues, obviously, but you can see he changed into a different person when working with the horse. I think that is what more correctional facilities need; rehabilitative programs like that.

Now that we have wrapped everything up, it shows that the criminal justice system all correlates somehow, and each component needs some improvement and a better understanding of topics and knowledge of certain things. Law enforcement needs more training regarding safety and knowledge of specific issues, and to not be afraid of a color, courts should be more consistent, and corrections should correlate more rehabilitative programs into the prisons we have in the U.S.

Sources:

Burke, Alison S, et al. SOU-CCJ230 Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System. Open Oregon Educational Resources.

Berman, Mark. “What the Police Officer Who Shot Philando Castile Said about the Shooting.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/21/what-the-police-officer-who-shot-philando-castile-said-about-the-shooting/.

Here is the link of the four-year-old daughter after Philando’s shooting:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/06/22/girl-comforts-mother-after-philando-castile-police-shooting-sje-lon-orig.cnn