The Criminal Justice System’s Role

“It has been argued that the agencies of criminal justice in Australia (police, courts, corrections) cannot collectively be viewed as a ‘system’ due to conflicts in their different aims and values. Can you think of arguments for tor against this view of the current criminal justice system?”

The criminal justice system’s role is to organise an adjudication for the offender by the relevant courts, and then if proven guilty, sentence the offender. There are numerous ways to follow sentencing of the offender, which includes retribution, restitution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation (Hayes & Prenzler 2008, p. 245). These measures will be briefly explained in context throughout the essay. The components of the criminal justice system include the courts, corrective services and police. Each sector plays a crucial role in the way our criminal justice system operates. Public confidence in any criminal justice is an important part of any criminal justice system. The public’s view of the criminal justice system is not as an entire group, they see it as three separate entities (Indermaur & Roberts, 2009). During the early 1980’s an electronic monitoring device worn on the ankle of an offender who had breached their parole was introduced by an American judge. In regards to the use of electronic monitoring there are three important ideas to consider, these include, detention, restriction and surveillance. (Black & Smith, 2003). This essay will seek to critically examine a number of explanations regarding the agencies of criminal justice in Australia, as well as the implications that follow each explanation. It will be argued that although there are certain conflicts in the criminal justice system, it can still be considered as a system.

The criminal justice system’s aims of sentencing looks at retribution, which is a type of harm towards the offender as a form of punishment for the committed crime. Where the judge orders an offender to pay compensation to a victim is considered restitution. Deterrence is one that branches out to two other specific types, known as ‘specific deterrence’ and ‘general deterrence’. From the word itself, it is evident that it involves deterring an offender from committing that particular crime again due to being recognised and punished again. Specific deterrence involves the offender realising that they have been punished before. General deterrence involves the offender realising there’s a high chance of being punished. Incapacitation is the idea of preventing access to victims by their offender, which is mostly through imprisonment. The definitive form of incapacitation would have been capital punishment, however it is no longer a form of sentencing in Australia. And rehabilitation speaks for itself in that it is wholly focused on the offender’s behaviour and therapeutic programs to clear or better their state of mind (Hayes & Prenzler 2008,

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