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Models of Criminal Justice (Crime Control (Stressed the role of criminal…
Models of Criminal Justice
Crime Control
Stressed the role of criminal justice in terms of the efficient controlling of crime
a) Disregard of legal controls
b) Implicit presumption of guilt
c) High conviction rate
d) Unpleasantness of experience
e) Support for police
Social function: Punishment
Earlier explored by Jerome Skolnick in 'Justice Without Trial' (1966)
This stresses the role of the system in reducing, preventing and curbing crime by prosecuting and punishing those who are guilty of offences
Stresses the importance of protecting citizens and serving the public by reduction
The police and prosecution agencies may interpret their role primarily as crime fighters responsible for ensuring that the guilty are brought to justice
Problems arise is this aim is pursued regardless of rules protecting the rights of the suspect
Fabricating evidence or neglecting to use search warrants could be seen as justifiable in order to ensure that an offender whom the police 'know' to be guilty is found guilty
This problem underlies many laws governing police procedure, seen most recently in legislative reforms of the 1980s
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) introduced the procedure under which the police tape recorded interviews with suspects in police stations, and the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 led to the establishments of a prosecution agency independent of the police - the CPS
Due Process
Social function: justice
a) Equality between parties
b) Rules protecting defendants against error
c) Restraint of arbitrary power
d) Presumption of innocence
Stressed the importance of the rule of law and procedural safeguards
Represents an idealised version of how the system should work derived from the ideas inherent in the rule of law
Encompasses principles of the defendant's rights found in textbooks and constitutional documents
Presumption of innocence, defendant's right to a fair trial, equality before the law and justice should be seen to be done
Principles allow us to interpret the many rules surrounding both the trial and the pre-trial processes
They protect defendants in order that the innocent may be acquitted and only the guilty convicted
With the Human Rights Act 1998 this model has come to the foreground of public attention as the implications for basic aspects of policing, criminal procedure and sentencing were subject to considerable scrutiny and challenges from the human rights and due process perspective
Herbert Packer
(1968)
Medical Model
Social function: Rehabilitation
a) Information collecting procedures
b) Individualisation
c) Treatment presumption
d) Discretion of decision-makers
e) Expertise of decision-makers or advisers
f) Relaxation of formal rules
Accepted that offenders may not be wholly responsible for their own actions but their criminality may spring from individual characteristics or social factors. Such as psychological or family circumstances or social environment
Make little sense to punish such offenders without at the same time attempting to deal with these underlying issues
This has affected many parts of the criminal justice process
One of the major considerations at each stage is how best to deal with the individual offender, assuming that their criminality can be reduced by taking a rehabilitative approach, may be more desirable for the police to divert some offenders, especially young offenders, from the system, in circumstances where they feel that no benefit will be served by prosecution
Police have powers to caution offenders and refer them to social work agencies which may also help adult offenders
Social workers and probation officers become involved at the sentencing stage, by preparing pre-sentence reports on the offender's circumstances and outlining sentencing options, which may involve counselling and treatment rather than punishment
Rehabilitation - individualises decisions, requiring needs of offender are taken into account, it gives all agencies far greater amounts of discretion
This model may conflict with other goals - e.g. due process seeks to ensure all offenders are treated equally, crime control stresses the need to punish the guilty
Michael King
(1981)
Bureaucratic Model
Reflects the pressure on the criminal justice officials to implement rules and procedures within the many constraints imposed by resources and public pressure to solve crimes
a) Independence from political considerations
b) Speed and efficiency
c) Importance of and acceptance of records
d) Minimisation of conflict
e) Minimisation of expense
f) Economical division of labour
Social function: Management of crime and criminals
Agencies must ensure measures or bureaucratic efficiency; must ensure that defendants are tried and sentenced as speedily and efficiently as possible
If defendants spend too long in prison before they come to trial, if trials take too long and are too costly, or if it is argued that too many defendants are acquitted or that there are miscarriages of justice, agencies and courts will come under considerable criticism
Cost effectiveness of law enforcement and court administration has become a major concern of the government since the 1990s
Balancing interests of due process with those of crime control and bureaucratic efficiency is not always easy; interests of justice may conflict with those of efficiency e.g. not guilty pleas - creates lots of work, time and cost, guilty pleas are cost effective and time saving, yet any pressure to please guilty could deprive their right to trial
Police may not have sufficient evidence to proceed against a person they suspect is guilty; due process model would result in no action being taken, however there may be some concern about resources expended on an investigation with no result
Tension between models will result in a difficult decisions on whether to charge the person and hope that he or she pleads guilty or to drop the case
Status Passage Model
Offenders should be publicly tried and sentenced in order to reflect the community's moral disapproval of offending behaviour
Public trial and punishment are necessary to underlie the law-abiding values of the community
a) Public shaming of defendant
b) Court values reflecting community values
c) Agents' control over process
Some sociologists - criminal justice system serves an important social function in reinforcing social values
Social function: Denunciation and degradation
Conflicts with aims of rehabilitation, can be argued that such public punishment and expression of society's disapproval can in itself be rehabilitative, as it may include feelings of shame in offenders - a prerequisite for rehabilitation
John Braithwaite
1989 - favours re-integrative shaming; offenders should feel ashamed of their offences but shaming shouldn't be so extreme it stigmatises offenders to a point where they cannot be re-integrated into the community
Power Model
Exploring the potentially repressive nature of criminal justice system also raises questions about who makes the law and whose interests are served by the criminal justice system
Marxist/ conflict perspective - criminal justice systems essentially reinforce the role of the powerful, those who make the laws and who are served by the many agencies of the system, criminal law and its enforcement are influenced by the interests of dominant classes, which may also include elements of patriarchy and colonialism, affecting the treatment of women and minority ethnic groups
Social function: Maintenance of class domination
The state is regarded in this model as acting in the interests of the dominant group, who used the criminal law to further these interests
a) Reinforcement of class values
b) Alienation of defendant
c) Deflection of attention from issues of class conflict
d) Differences between judges and judged
e) Paradoxes and contradictions between rhetoric and performance
Advocates of this approach point to the over-representation of those from poorer sections of the community as defendants in the criminal justice system
Justice Model
Stresses the importance of punishing offenders in terms of their blameworthiness and the seriousness of their offence, not through crude revenge or incapacitation, but in response to the wrongfulness of their act
Combining elements of retribution for offenders with a notion of proper respect for the treatment of the accused defendant
Brings together the principles of respect for the offender as a human being with certain rights, the need to establish the offender's culpability for the offence so as to punish only the guilty, and the right of society to exact retribution from those who have done wrong
Social function: Just deserts
a) Punishment of the deserving
b) Proportionality principles: relate to seriousness of the offence
c) Only deserved by the culpable
This links punishment and crime to issues of morality and control
Management Model
Social function: Offender control
a) Offender instrumental
b) Monitoring, surveillance and control
c) Range of intervention strategies
Focus on instrumental-offender strategies that are broader than rehabilitation and, while encompassing efforts to change behaviour, also monitor and control criminals depending on the level of risk and record of offending
Intensive supervision and surveillance programmes for juveniles and electronically monitored curfews are examples of a strategy of intervention that relies on surveillance and supervision to reduce crime
Crime control model being extended beyond policing into the correctional stage, blending rehabilitative practice with surveillance and control
Davies et al
(2015)