Essay Sample on U.S. Criminal Justice System: A Vast, Complicated Structure

Introduction

According to Neubauer and Fradella (2018), the structure of the United States (U.S.) criminal justice system (CJS) is both vast and complicated. The CJS is the umbrella name of the numerous public agencies that implement public policies regarding crime (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). For instance, law enforcement officers (primarily the police) apprehend suspected criminals; the courts decide if those the police have arrested are guilty according to the law and determine the appropriate punishment to impose on the guilty; and the corrections department carries out the sentence that the courts impose on the guilty (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). It is impossible to discuss all the components that make up the CJS within limits set for this assessment; thus, this paper concerns only the law enforcement part of the CJS. Mainly, it presents a brief explanation of what law enforcement entails, the role and purpose of law enforcement agencies play as well as their correlation to the other core CJS organs, especially the judicial and corrections subsystems.

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The Law Enforcement Component

Its Functions and Purpose

Neubauer and Fradella (2018) posited that the term law enforcement describes the persons and agencies that enforce existing laws and uphold civic order and wellbeing. As such, law enforcement is the component of the CJS responsible for implementing measures to prevent, uncover, and investigate crime as well as arrest and detain offenders (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). This component comprises federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and personnel (Cole, Smith, and DeJong 2018).

According to Goldstein (1977, as cited in Cole et al., 2018, p. 218-219), the police have the duty to:

• Prevent and regulate activities that threaten people's life and endanger property - dangerous crimes;
• Assist people facing imminent harm;
• Uphold constitutional rights, including safeguarding freedom of speech and assembly;
• Ease the movement of individuals and vehicles;
• Assist vulnerable members of the society, including individuals under the influence of alcohol, drug addicts, the disabled, the elderly among others;
• Settle disputes affecting citizens, groups of people, or between individuals and government;
• Detect impeding issues that pose severe risks to the public or government agencies; and
• Establish a sense of security among members of the public.

Cole et al. (2018) summarized these functions into three categories: maintaining order, enforcing the law, and community service. They argued that the core purpose of these functions is to prevent crime (Cole et al., 2018). The functions Cole et al. (2018) listed above stems from a broader perspective. If one takes a narrower viewpoint in reviewing individual agencies, one finds that each law enforcement agency has a specific set of responsibilities. For instance, the FBI, which is the most prominent federal law enforcement agency, is responsible for investigating all national crimes that U.S. laws have not delegated to any other agency (Cole et al., 2018).

Following the 9-11 attacks, the FBI shared a list of 10 areas that forms the core of its mandate with the public. These include protecting the U.S. against terrorism, foreign intelligence activities, espionage as well as cybercrimes. Also, implement measures to combat all levels of corruption, international and domestic criminal organizations, white-collar, and significant violent crimes (Cole et al., 2018). The agency also seeks to enforce civil rights and provide support to other national, state, county, municipal, and international (e.g., Interpol) (Cole et al., 2018). Lastly, it endeavors to upgrade its technological capacity, to enhance its capacity to execute its mission more successfully (Cole et al., 2018).

Its Interrelations With Other CJS Components

The subsystems that make up the CJS have different goals and needs, but their roles are interdependent. As a result, the effective operation of the CJS depends on how well these components cooperate. Three characteristics that define the operations of CJS illustrates how law enforcement correlates with the other components of the system. These are discretion, sequential tasks, and filtering (Cole et al., 2018).

Under discretion, the different bodies decide on the case by case basis. For instance, the police have to decide on how they will handle a given crime (Cole et al., 2018). The decision that the police makes affects the other organs. If the police decide that they ought to investigate a crime with the suspects in remand, they must engage the court for a bail hearing. If the court gives the suspect bail, the police should take measures on how to prevent the suspect from interfering with the evidence collection. If the court denies the suspect bail, the correction department comes in to hold the suspect pending formal charge. A decision by one component that affects the others means that how one component uses its resources may depend on the decision the other.

The decision-making process in the CJS follows a specific sequence (Cole et al., 2018). For instance, the police must first arrest suspects, then submit them to the prosecution together with the evidence they have collected (Cole et al., 2018). The prosecution weighs whether the evidence they receive from the police is enough to charge those arrested (Cole et al., 2018). Police decisions, thus, impact the prosecution workload, which in turn affects that of the courts. If the police fail to make individuals whom the court has convicted, the correctional officials would not be able to punish them.

As a result, the police are like filtration apparatus as it decides individuals who would pass through the other CJS subsystems and those who would not (Cole et al., 2018). If the police decide one has committed a crime, this decision initiates the CJS process (Cole et al., 2018). Otherwise, the process remains inactive. The police are, therefore, a sort of CJS' gatekeepers.

References

Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & DeJong, C. (2018). The American System of Criminal Justice. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Neubauer, D. W., & Fradella, H. F. (2018). America's courts and the criminal justice system (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.