Essay Example on Fighting Crime: Analysing US Federal Structure's 6 Models

Introduction

The United States federal structure has invested heavily in the criminal justice system to fight crime. Crime is a societal problem, and the government employs a complex system made up of courts, prosecutors, attorneys, police, and other participants to fight it. To curb crime and dispense justice in the society, the system follows a process which can be analyzed using six main models including the crime control model, due process model, bureaucratic model, medical model, status passage model, and power model. Using credible sources including Law and Order TV Show, this paper analyzes the motivation of public defenders, plea agreements, criminal justice models and wrongful conviction in judiciary.

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A Public Defender

Public defenders are lawyers who defend people who cannot afford one in the law courts (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). Usually, public defenders tend to be charitable, and some of them does not serve as public defenders to get rich or become famous. The work of a public defender is always demanding and sometimes, frustrating. It involves working with people from indigenous margins of society. Most of the people that public defenders deal with are affected by deep poverty, substance abuse as well as many other problems. Therefore, people who are aspiring to become public defenders should possess more than just academic requirements.

Some public defenders derive the motivation to serve in that capacity from the pleasure that comes with helping the underprivileged people in society. Most of them desire to help people who have been isolated and abandoned in society with their legal issues. Public defenders portray a high level of commitment and dedication to the mission highlighted in the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). That is another requirement to perform duties of a public defender effectively. They are committed to helping the less fortunate in the community by mastering the emotional and intellectual energy to defend them.

Process Model and Control of Crime

The main focus of the crime control model is to have a highly efficient system to reduce crime as well as control crime in the community. The main aim of crime control order is to ensure the society is safe and there is public order. However, the due procedure method calls for a fair and just criminal justice system that does not go against constitutional rights of citizens. The due process model can promote and inform people on the enactment of policies that makes the system to inculcate human rights into consideration. The rights can include providing every accused person with an attorney or take action against prisons that go against the rights of inmates. Many researchers have found crime control model to be better than due process because it focuses on reducing crime in communities rather than just paying attention to the rights of offenders (Kaylor, 2014).

The crime control model allows for lawmakers to create policies focused on controlling crime. The Law and Order television show depicts crime as a significant threat to the country's social order, and it advocates for it to be handled in a punitive way. In practice, the government is strives to obtain equilibrium in both models. On the one hand, law enforcement officers are required to give suspects notice of any charges and a chance for an individual to present his or her side of the story. Additionally, the government tries to avoid any procedure, law capricious, and arbitrary decisions. Therefore, the increase in criminal activity in the wake of increased immigration, urbanization, as well as industrialization in the United States has informed a shift in the paradigm toward a "law and order" model (Kaylor, 2014). According to research, crime affects the quality of life of citizens by a great extent. Therefore, the fight against drugs, crime, as well as terrorism has increased the need to focus on crime control.

Wrongful Convictions of Innocent Persons

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, the country's registry receives more than four letters from prisoners about their wrongful convictions per week. Researchers have also confirmed that many innocent defendants have been jailed for crimes they did not commit, and most of them have never identified. The main reasons why innocent individuals are convicted of crimes include eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, junk science, bad lawyering, snitches, and government misconduct (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018).

The leading cause of wrongful convictions in the country is eyewitness misidentification. The blame cannot be shifted to the eyewitness entirely because the human brain is not like a recorder. Experts recommend proper preservation and methodological retrieval of information from the witness just like they would do with any other evidence. Additionally, false confessions are a big contributor to the number of wrongful convictions. Innocent defendants may be coerced to plead guilty, make outright confessions, or make incriminating statements (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). These factors are not exhaustive. Cases are different, and a case can lead to a wrongful conviction because of one or a combination of reasons. Junk science is also always applied properly, especially when flawed forensic testing methods are used. Therefore, it is prudent for forensic experts to use precise testing methods that are backed by scientific validation and adequate assessments of their reliability or significance to law.

Plea Bargaining

Felonious impartiality today in the U.S.A is majorly for a system of pleas rather than a system of trials. It has also been revealed that 95% of convictions in the country result from plea agreements. Plea agreements are at the center of the US criminal law practice, and it has remained slightly regulated even after the Supreme Court imposed constraints in the due process clause (Turner, 2017). Many researchers have observed that coercion makes most defendants accept plea agreements. In Law and Order TV show, the governor designed a plea agreement to avoid a sex scandal. There were instances in the show when plea bargains occurred, and most defendants accepted them for lack of a better option.

Research has shown that are defendants likely to plead guilty when a major difference concerning the conveyed verdict and the actual judgment once the jury occurs (Turner, 2017). Defendants also fall for plea agreements when the negotiated offer involves probation only while the probable sentence after the trial is imprisonment. Additionally, a plea agreement is attractive to defendants when there is a possibility of just imprisonment in place of post-trial capital, punishment.

Conclusion

After careful analysis of information from credible sources, it is clear that the scope of public defenders' skills is beyond the conventional qualifications. The control model is better than due diligence model since wrongful convictions are mainly caused trough misidentification and defendants accept plea agreements because of a better pre-trial offer. The criminal justice system is complicated, and the government tries to strike a balance between many models to ensure stability in the country. It is important for the government and policymakers to consider implementing favourable human rights and control factors in a balanced manner to fight drugs, crime and terrorism for the citizen's better quality of life.

References

Kaylor, E. H. (2014). Crime Control, Due Process, & Evidentiary Exclusion: When Exceptions Become the Rule. Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association, 2013(2013), 6. Retrieved from https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=nyscaproceedings

Neubauer, D. W., & Fradella, H. F. (2018). America's courts and the criminal justice system. Cengage Learning. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eg9EDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Neubauer+%26+Fradella.+(2018).+America%27s+Courts+and+the+Criminal+Justice+System,+(13th+ed.)+Cengage.&ots=-uNFQtlBWS&sig=k1OvDXHdx4CArcavao-eW_GQkwc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Turner, J. I. (2017). Plea bargaining. Academy For Justice, A Report on Scholarship and Criminal Justice Reform, Erik Luna ed. Retrieved from http://academyforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/4_Reforming-Criminal-Justice_Vol_3_Plea-Bargaining.pdf