What is the Criminal Justice

A crime control strategy that doesn't incorporate fundamental, radical changes in the style and objectives of policing, employment policy and programs, economic development strategies and targets, family and educational policy is not an efficient crime control strategy (Tyler et al, 1997). Because it won't work. Public officials, who try to persuade that people don't need those things for crime control, do not analyze all advantages and disadvantages of its maintaining properly.

The conclusion that effective anti-crime programs must address the sources of criminal behavior in the social alienation, economic inequity, and inadequate social supports has led to the corollary that much of the responsibility for the prevention of crime lies outside the purview of the criminal justice system. The political implications of this realization are great because of the massive funds that are currently awarded to criminal justice in the name of crime prevention.

It is important, however, that responsibility for the prevention of crime is retained by the criminal justice system even as that responsibility is expanded to include economic and social program spheres. The fact that criminal justice does little now to reduce crime rate does not mean that criminal justice programs cannot dramatically affect crime rates.

Consequently, the law and human rights are considered to be the value of a given society, these institutes should take care ensuring men’s inviolability and guarantee security in cases of encroachments and violations. One of the most effective and efficient means of ensuring the rule of law and its official recognition, realization, and protection is a legal procedure (Finnis, 1991). Legal procedure is the standard set of any official procedure of the public, governmental entities (state and other agencies and officials) that are aimed at achieving a specific set of legal purposes.

Such regularity may be noticed where is the highest level of warranty rights of the individual in the most developed legal procedures. And vice versa, in those social systems, where the public, authoritative work is purely arbitrary, and where it does not receive its subject of regulation or being regulated slightly, irrational, and impractical - the human rights are not protected from violations and frequent arbitrariness.

It is known that the main cause of such frequent human rights violations is the low level of practice and theory of any procedural regulation. Therefore, the state must be equipped with a system of procedures, mechanisms and institutions that guarantee the protection of subjective rights in order to preserve and protect human rights.

 However, despite the legal and social significance of this completely legal process, there is some underestimation of its role. In addition, the main grounds of judicial procedures as a legal phenomenon include: 1) the act of focusing on the achievement of the legal outcome -  so called recognition (formal setting), the realization and protection of rights (human rights); 2) the required party (the recipient) of procedural regulations must be state agencies or officials, and other public entities (e.g., political party), which are endowed with  public legal authority to act in someone else's legal interest; 3) there must be transparency and publicity and the availability of certain procedural rights guarantees and 4) the nature of legal procedure service and  its secondary and derivative nature of those rules (Biggar, 2001); 5) it is obligatory to have  preliminary official determination of procedural rules, 6) the hierarchy of detail legal procedures, and 7) availability of its proof as an element of procedural regulations; 8) without fail there must be specific effects of the procedural requirements as the direct result of annulment, which has been  implemented in order to achieve its specific legal procedure.

Moreover, the functional purpose of the judicial process is mainly to order the protection of subjective, violated rights (the rights person). It includes a wide range of procedural safeguards, which correlate with the concept of "due process of law." The most important of them are:  1) the right to justice, 2) openness and competitiveness of judicial procedure, and 3) the presumption of innocence, and 4) the right to appeal (the right of appellate jurisdiction), and 5) the case proving (Hegtvedt, 1995).

As a result, the court procedure is distinguished by the high level of assurance (procedural rights) to achieve a legal result. One of these key qualities of the judicial process should be a high degree of hierarchy and its detail scheme: it includes a number of successive stages, proving the violation of law, the guilt of the offender, all other necessary circumstances, the rules of relevance and admissibility of evidence.

If the authority wanted to make sure that those who commit crimes are encouraged to commit them again, it would establish a slow and frustrating system of justice that apprehends offenders and administers sanctions in a random fashion. It would invoke more severe punishments for poor people and minorities. It would employ community outsiders to maintain order, deploying them in militaristic and alienating ways. People would ignore substance abuse and other mental health problems of offenders by failing to provide adequate treatment options. We would primarily utilize one punishment, incarceration for offenders and institute systems of automatic sentencing so that individual circumstances or needs could not be taken into account in developing a plan that might facilitate offender reform. We would separate offenders from their families and their communities, thereby depriving them of the necessary support they would need to institute changes in their behavior. We would nourish rage and despair by forcing the offender to live in crowded conditions with few options for filling idle time. We would maintain this policy by ignoring the bulk of all criminal justice research in the last twenty years (Walker, 1991).

This hypothetical portrait is a description of criminal justice in the United States. It describes a policy that costs Americans billions annually and provides little in return.

Once, speaking to a national meeting, New York State Governor Mario M. Cuomo said, “There is no silver bullet to kill this dracula. We need more police, we need more prisons ... and well do it, but we know it's not the answer. Government has to help, how I don't know. Maybe there isn't an answer” (Walker, 1991).

The word "police" is currently used to identify that institution of social control

attempts to prevent crime and disorder, preserve the peace, protect life, property, and personal liberty. Crime prevention, a function which involves all activity that attempts to keep crime from happening, is not a newly identified function of police. It might be helpful if we were to consider a change of name for the police as they come to assume a more broad role than that of "thief-catcher," and as they change from a law oriented to a people oriented operation. Perhaps the policeman should be re-named "human affairs officer," or "public welfare officer," "public service officer," "public safety officer," or "human relations officer.

Police methods are now being examined by legal, managerial, and academic researchers. Many outmoded procedures have survived the test of time and are as ineffective today as they were 50 years ago. Some myopic police agencies look to increased efficiency and applications of modern scientific technology to solve all problems of modern policing %u2015 without giving sufficient attention to the values of a democratic legal order, and without giving sufficient attention to the professional development of police personnel.

While the Public Agenda Foundation found that the public sees the police as the strongest link in the criminal justice system, it also learned that citizens view the courts as the weakest link. The process that occurs after arrest is generally considered to be inefficient and fraught within equities. The public holds defense attorneys and prosecutors equally responsible for these problems. Further, it is the observation of community crime prevention practitioners that distrust of the criminal justice system is one of the primary causes of fear of crime. What happens after a crime is committed and an arrest is made is critically important in terms of the way the community views the maintenance of justice and order. At this point in the proceedings there is much the criminal justice system can do to restore and maintain community trust by adopting accessible and streamlined processes, providing adequate options for the offender and proper support and information to the victim.

Court processes send a message to the community that chaos does not reign. Such processes can provide the mechanism to fill what may be the greatest gap in the criminal justice system, early intervention. When the courts are responsive and draw from a broad menu of community resources, many offenders, even serious ones, can be diverted to programs that can effectively prevent continued criminal behavior. The programs for rehabilitating juveniles’ sex offenders developed by Fay Honey Knopp are a stellar example of such effective alternatives. The sex-offender programs have been successfully implemented in many cities and in states including Minnesota, California, New York, and Colorado (Tyler, 1986). Through peer counseling and other therapies, the source of the sexual dysfunction is isolated in the offender. Then steps are taken to realign the youth's sexual perceptions. The recidivism rate for these programs is less than 10 percent. And because most sex offenders commit hundreds of crimes in a lifetime, Knopp's successful treatment programs have already contributed dramatically to the reduction of crime.

Again, courts should also be involved in promoting programs that mediate disputes between individuals in lieu of judicial proceedings because they reduce court costs and time and have the potential to reduce violence and jail time as well. More important, these programs empower individual citizens to solve their own problems creatively, thus reducing the need for police or other professionals to intervene. Perhaps the best model for community mediation is the San Francisco Community Board Program, an independent program outside the criminal justice system that trains community mediators and handles a broad range of neighborhood disputes. Last year, the Community Board Program dealt with more cases than the number of jury trials in the local municipal court.

Anyway, if we want to make sure that those who have committed crimes do not commit them again, what do jurisdiction does? What punishments work best at reducing repeat offenders? How does jurisdiction hold offenders accountable while promoting individual reform? How should jurisdiction decide who should participate in sentencing programs within the community and who should be incarcerated? How does jurisdiction facilitate the maintenance of family ties for those in jail or prison? What kinds of employment and educational training are needed?

Lowering these rates dramatically must be one of the primary goals of criminal justice policy. Their determinations to achieve this goal are manifested in programs built on strategies we know to be successful in reducing the likelihood of an offender's committing a new crime. Such programs include a variety of options that are built on principles of community, jobs, and family. They provide a structured environment in concert with living-skills programs and offer a significantly increased potential for an offender's reintegration to the neighborhood and family life. Residential corrections programs and work-release programs are used in some jurisdictions as alternatives to incarceration in jail or prison. These programs allow offenders to work during the day and return to a monitored facility in the evening. This deprivation of liberty holds offenders accountable for their crimes. However, these programs also provide a supportive and learning environment that can be geared toward dealing with the problems of a variety of offenders including those who are alcohol or drug abusers, mentally handicapped or mentally ill, or victims of domestic assault. These programs are also especially effective for property offenders who commit economically motivated crime because the programs support self-discipline while inculcating work skills.

Less severe punishments that have also proved immensely successful in rehabilitating offenders are supported by the work programs and community service sentencing programs. These programs provide offenders a supervised employment situation within either the public or private sector. They instill accountability and good work habits and have been shown to be effective with many nonviolent offenders, particularly drug offenders.

Another key strategy that is undertaken to reduce recidivism rates among prisoners is dealing with alcohol and drug abuse. According to the Department of Justice, 54 percent of all inmates convicted of violent crimes were drinking prior to the offense; 25 percent had used drugs. Of those convicted of assault, 62 percent had been drinking prior to the offense; 22 percent had used drugs. Of those convicted of manslaughter, 68 percent had been drinking prior to the offense; 19 percent had used drugs. Of those convicted of robbery, 48 percent had been drinking prior to the offense; 31 percent had used drugs. In 1982, after Joseph Califano, Jr., completed his study of drug and alcohol abuse in New York, he warned that "the link between alcohol and crime is real and too often ignored or brushed under the carpet... there should be no dispute about the need to take action against the misuses of alcohol in our overall efforts to fight crime." However, in most cases, offenders with alcohol or other substance abuse problems may enter and leave the criminal justice system many times without ever being diagnosed or treated for addiction. Recidivism is the result. Because of the prevalence of this problem and the fact that it goes largely unaddressed, the potential for successful programs in this area are enormous. Perhaps no other path is as clearly defined as this road to a rapid reduction in recidivism. States, however, dedicate only minimum resources to the problem of substance abuse in offenders. In many cases, even the successful self-help programs (Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous) are not available to offenders. Substance abuse must become a priority of the criminal justice system. Every criminal justice agency should develop the capacity to identify, at an early stage, offenders at risk for alcohol or drug abuse. Full-fledged treatment programs for these offenders are developed. Substance abuse problems are often rooted in family dysfunction, and drug and alcohol programs provide an excellent way to deal with the final factor that can contribute to reduced recidivism, for example, strong family ties for offenders. In virtually all the research completed on recidivism in the last thirty years, perhaps no factor has proved a more consistent predictor of reduced recidivism than the maintenance of the offender's family ties. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is often a constant stumbling block to this process. Prisons are generally located far from the urban inner cities that are home to most offenders. Visiting practices are difficult to establish, and information about prison procedures and access are difficult if not impossible for families of inmates to obtain. Even correspondence is difficult. There is rarely appropriate space for prisoners to visit with their children, and child care is rare. There are few transition programs that help prisoners return from institutions to their families. These needs and more must be attended to if we are serious about helping offenders live crime-free lives.

Parenting classes for both men and women offenders along with family-reunion programs that provide offenders with space for long-term family visits are among the strategies currently being explored to strengthen the family ties of offenders.

Some estimate that as many as 70 percent of all offenders come from families where they were physically or sexually abused or both. Because the potential for recreating the cycle of family violence and abuse is so great, intensive family counseling is also vital for offenders. As much as possible must be done to support the creation and maintenance of a family life for offenders that provide incentives to abandon a criminal life-style.

Along with aggressive programs to strengthen family ties, providing adequate educational and employment training, and dealing with alcohol and drug abuse, strong prerelease programs must be established to assist offenders in making the difficult transition from jail or prison to the community. Prerelease counseling programs to assist inmates in developing job interviewing and work-related skills and in making the emotional adjustment that release entails should be available. Temporary release programs that allow prisoners to reintegrate into the community gradually while still in jail or prison are also employed. These work programs must be located in communities where prisoners will reside upon release.

 Effective parole programs focus not only on supervision, but also on family ties, drug abuse, and employment. The Neighborhood Work Program, a parole program developed by the Vera Institute of Justice, is a good start. Neighborhood Work supports and monitors employment for parolees. The program grew out of the Vera Institute's finding that not only a job, but a job that provided a way out of a dead-end labor market, was crucial in reducing offender recidivism (Finnis, 1991). There are many other crime prevention efforts that are appropriately undertaken by the criminal justice system. Expanding programs for victims of crime, violence-prevention classes in schools, and the prevention of domestic assault are a few. However, the most immediate need is to redirect the huge fiscal resource currently appropriated to enforcement, the courts, and corrections to efforts that will reduce crime.

Therefore, in conclusion it should be mentioned that, however, one proclamation and legislative consolidation of the list of human rights does not suggest its actual implementation. That talk about human rights should be brought up only where it ensures the fulfillment and is protected from disturbances. Providing the same human rights requires the establishment of a mechanism to ensure first of all, that such conditions (guarantees), in which human rights are, will be implemented and not violated, and secondly, get optimum protection in the event of their violation. In a broad sense, the state apparatus as a system of state bodies and officials serves such function, and its essential purpose is to maintain and ensure law and order.