Debates in Criminal Justice Essay Example

Introduction

The criminal justice system is a term commonly used in Britain and other countries in the world to define three elements of the federal government which include correctional facilities, police, and courts. According to Aos, Miller and Drake (2006, p. 275), the criminal justice system is developed from the law which constitutes of the component of lawmaking; therefore, this component is also regarded as an integral part of the criminal justice system. When individuals file complaints about the unfair criminal justice system, the primary point of blame that raises concern is the structure of the criminal law (Reiner & Cross 1991).

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Criminal law

The society depends on what is defined in the criminal law to identify behaviours considered illegal and establish effective corrective measures for those found violating the law. The criminal justice system is guaranteed the mandate to create order as well as develop a systematic structure for criminal punishment and correction (O'Malley1999). According to Bayley and Shearing (1996, p. 588), the future generation will focus on the past era and define it as a period where a single system ended and replaced by another one. This paper seeks to critically discuss the claim by Bayley and Shearing which suggests that future generations will look back on the current era as a time when one system ended, and another took its place. The paper will also focus on the criminal justice system with reference to privatization and relevant theory.

Role of Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system has a vital role to play in safeguarding society by ensuring that there is social order. The current state in the penal system does not clearly outline the benefits of community. The recent findings indicate that the confidence and trust that the public had vested in the criminal justice system is weakening. The future generation is likely to criticize the current penal system based on unfair practices. This implies that the current criminal justice system should be revised focusing on its effectiveness, competency, fairness, and equality.

As mentioned earlier, the correctional facilities constitute a significant component of the criminal justice system; therefore, the police should be entitled to enforce criminal law effectively. The public has a fundamental and legitimate urge for predictable social order, and this helps to distribute recognizable trustworthy (Stuntz 2011). The government has shown futile efforts in managing the criminal justice system by providing inadequate essential service of right protection. According to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee 2014, the federal government has failed to control the performance across the board as well as achieving the best for its citizens based on the contracts made. As a result, the majority of the citizen have opted for private sectors and firms to meet their demands.

Privatization

Privatization in the criminal justice system focuses on reforming the public sector from a government-centered approach to a market-centered approach. Various factors in policies such as corruption, ineffectiveness, and change from welfare to competition state contribute the privatization. Majority of countries such as the United States, Canada, and Britain have engaged in ceaseless efforts to realize the evolution of their criminal justice systems. These changes are the focus on restoring sanity in their law enforcement and methods of crime control (Robinson 2016).

The democratic countries had shown such efforts because they fear that the future generation will be looking back at the current era and redefine it as a system that was based on one approach of policing that ended when another system was created (Le Vay 2016). Fundamental reforms were introduced in the criminal justice systems to make them more effective and reliable. For instance, it was suggested that actuarial justice is proposed to help in improving the role of the criminal justice system for the public. According to Freely and Simon (1994, p. 87), actuarial justice is linked to risk management which focuses more on preventing criminals from committing crimes than rehabilitating them. This technology of power was introduced to help in calculating the probability of an offense happening using actuarial analysis or existing statistics.

The role of the state in the criminal justice system should be defined. For instance, there are cases where the government influence the type of policies formulated to govern the service delivery of the criminal justice systems. The political influence on criminal justice has been on the increase limiting the criminal justice systems from responding to their duties and services appropriately (Liebling, Maruna, & McAra 2017). As a result, private firms increased to counter the monopoly of government-centered criminal justice facilities in protecting the rights of individuals and service delivery. The managerialism in criminal justice systems aimed at subordinating the social policies to economic policies (Raine & Willson 1997).

The market-centered approach focused on implementing new managerial ideas that will help to reinstate the profile of criminal justice systems for future reference. In this regard, the reforms emphasized outcomes instead of the process. Realistic targets were established alongside performance indicators to evaluate the level of effectiveness among the court systems. The management of criminal justice systems introduced league tables to compare various performances. All these new changes were designed to restore the value of criminal justice systems in accordance with the modern policing structure (Caulfield and Hill 2018).

The objective of privatization is to liberate the federal government from enjoying the monopoly of the public sector. As a result, this will help to provide higher quality services at a lower cost (Muncie, Hughes & McLaughlin 2002). The public will be able to access the services that have been delayed or ignored by the government for an extended period. Marketization focus on providing more affordable and better services at lower costs (Le Grand 2007). Nevertheless, the evidence to support the effectiveness and efficiency of privatized public services is limited. Also, the expected results of marketized services tend to vary from one sector to another.

In the criminal justice system, the private sectors have played a vital role in the delivery of law enforcement as well as public order. According to D'Amico (2010, p. 132), several contemporary states moved away from privatization and decided to offer criminal justice services to the people using the government employees to counter the growth of market-centered approach of public service delivery. The direct engagement of the government in service delivery was facilitated by the urge to realize nationalization and centralization (Nemeth 1989). However, the United States once experienced a challenge with the private sectors when they assumed the delivery of services. For instance, the private sector participated fully in the delivery of criminal justice services in the labour leasing arrangements between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Robinson, McNeill & Maruna 2013). The outcomes of the activities rendered by the private sectors were considered notorious since they caused brutality and exploited the country (Ryan and Ward 1989)

The government centered approach in criminal justice has been accused of dishonesty in reforming industrial relationship and employment. This occurs in managing the prison staff where rehabilitation is conducted (Lurigio and Swartz 2000). As a result, the private sector becomes an alternative option to engage in matters of staffing and effective delivery of services. The rise of private sectors limits the role of government in delivering criminal justice services to the public (Pakes 2017). There exist significant differences between the arrangement of staff in public and private corrective facilities (Genders and Player 2007). These differences are attributed to the quality of services offered by each staff. The theories of criminal justice provide a well-structured approach that is used in identifying the offense and outlining the procedure to be followed to give punishment or corrective measures Newburn 2003).

Controversial research indicates that prisons that area privately managed do not guarantee the public quality performance (Padfield & Maruna 2006). According to Rynne and Harding 2016, the best and worst performing prions are controlled by the private sectors, which give similar outcomes to the public prisons. In the criminal justice system, the prisons serve as a significant component that emphasizes the discharge of rehabilitation services for the criminals (Ludlow 2015). If the facilities are performing poorly, the entire criminal justice system will be affected. Therefore, there are cases where the private sector also fails to deliver the expected results in the fight against crimes (Matthews 1989). The poorly managed private sectors tend to lower the quality of services offered to the public.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the criminal justice system requires modern policing to restructure and improve the level of service delivery to the public. To revise the criminal justice system, the focus should be directed to effectiveness, equality, and competency. Privatization helps to transform the operations of the criminal justice systems from the government-centered approach to market-based approach. Privatization of the criminal justice systems was introduced as a result of the continuous failure of the public sector to provide access to high-quality services for the citizens. Prisons and other rehabilitation centers managed by the private sector offer improved services to the public, however, there are some which perform poorly because of the type of management.

References

Aos, S., Miller, M & Drake, E 2006, Evidence-based public policy options to reduce future prison construction, criminal justice costs, and crime rates. Fed. Sent. R., 19, p.275.

Bayley, D.H. & Shearing, C.D., 1996. The future of policing. Law and society review, pp.585-606.

Caulfield, L. & Hill, J., 2018. Criminological Skills and Research for Beginners: A Student's Guide. Routledge.

Genders, E. & Player, E., 2007. The commercial context of criminal justice: prison privatisation and the perversion of purpose. Criminal Law Review, 2007(Jul), pp.513-529.

Le Vay, J., 2016. Competition for prisons: Public or private?. Policy Press.

Liebling, A., Maruna, S. & McAra, L. eds., 2017. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford University Press.

Ludlow, A., 2015. Privatising public prisons: Labour law and the public procurement process. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Lurigio, A.J. & Swartz, J.A., 2000. Changing the contours of the criminal justice system to meet the needs of persons with serious mental illness. Criminal justice, 3, pp.45-108.

Matthews, R. ed., 1989. Privatizing criminal justice. London: Sage.

Muncie, J., Hughes, G. & McLaughlin, E. eds., 2002. Youth justice: critical readings. Sage.

Newburn, T., 2003. Crime and criminal justice policy. Pearson Education.

O'Malley, P.A.T., 1999. Volatile and contradictory punishment. Theoretical criminology, 3(2), pp.175-196.

Padfield, N. & Maruna, S., 2006. The revolving door at the prison gate: Exploring the dramatic increase in recalls to prison. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 6(3), pp.329-352.

Pakes, F., 2017. Comparative criminal justice. Routledge.

Raine, J. & Willson, M. 1997. Beyond Managerialism in Criminal Justice. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 36(1), pp.80-95.

Reiner, R. & Cross, M. eds., 1991. Beyond law and order: criminal justice...