The American Criminal Law System
The American criminal law system has three branches. These include the judiciary, the criminal justice system, and prisons. The three companies work within the bounds of the law and collaborate with other governmental bodies that deal with crime, prosecute criminal activity, and suggest rehabilitation programs to offenders. According to the following explanation, each branch of the criminal justice system has a significant position to play:
The Judiciary
It is the branch that serves as the offender's initial point of interaction with the criminal justice system. It serves as a crime investigation and determines when to make an arrest based on the available proof and eyewitness testimony. This branch consists of the police officers, sheriffs, and the federal agent (Oliver, 2017).
Court
The court acts as a place where disagreements and constitutional matters are heard before the judge or a jury. The case can be heard in a local or state court, or in the federal courts. Courtroom acts as a place where proofs are assessed testimonies are given and processes recorded in detail to rebuild offense questions. The court consists of the judges, defence lawyers, prosecutors, and members of the jury.
Corrections
This is the branch of the criminal justice system that plays the role of protecting the community through assigning a suitable punishment to lawbreakers which maybe; life sentence, short-term imprisonment, probation and rehabilitation. The corrections comprise of the probation officers, correction officers, and the parole officers.
B. How Each Branch Interacts and Compliments One Another
The law enforcement, the court, and the corrections work hand in hand in the supervision, imprisonment, penalizing, defense, trial, and apprehension of those charged with or suspected of engaging in illegal activities (Peak, 2012; O'Leary and Newman, 1970). The law enforcement carries out the arrest and crime reduction after an investigation in which the law enforcement present the evidence gathered regarding the case and the offender to the court whereby the prosecutor in charge will decide if there will be any charges filed. After the judgment is made by the prosecutor which maybe death sentence, incarceration in prison or jail probation, fines imposed or restitution, the matter is handed over to the corrections system depending on the punishment given for the correction system to take over. Corrections decide whether the offender will be under parole officer, community correctional facility and serving full sentence depending on the court’s decision.
C. How One Branch May Affect the Other Two
If the law enforcement system is malfunctioning, then there will be no case to present to the court as it is stipulated in the law. A case will be filed in the court after the police officers or investigators have found out information concerning the case and the offender; which will equally affect the corrections system as they will have no responsibility of keeping offenders that their case has not been presented to the court. The same applies if the court or the corrections system is malfunctioning (Peak, 2012). Thus, if one branch fails, then the rest become dormant as well since they work dependently.
No part of the system is more essential than the other since each part of the system depends on one another to function normally. If one part of the system makes changes, the remaining two systems will be affected both in decision making and general activities of the branches involved.
References
Oliver, W.M. (2017). Policing America: An introduction. New York, NY: Wolters Kluwer.
O'Leary, V., & Newman, D. J. (1970). Conflict resolution in criminal justice. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency,7(2), 99-119.
Peak, K. (2012). Justice administration: Police, courts, and corrections management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education
