Why Do We as a Society Need a Criminal Justice System

Introduction.

It has been found that the criminal justice system has been under attack time and time again about its structure, effectiveness, and fairness and why is it really needed. In this paper it will be argued that we (as a society) do need a criminal justice system, through much research about the function of the criminal justice system and its aims, as well as the roles of each of the components. It will also discuss the need for informal social control and why it plays a major part in crime control being the criminal justice system and all its components, Police, Courts and corrections. It will conclude with what the function of society would be like without a criminal justice system. Imagine a world without, police for instance as they are the first process of the criminal justice system, without laws for society to uphold to keep our communities safe and protected, our roads without conditions to keep us safe and not a statistic of road deaths, how safe would our society be with murderers, rapists, paedophiles committing serious offences whenever and where ever they pleased to do so? How could we on our own punish these offenders without committing a serious crime ourselves? And mostly how could we as a society rehabilitate serious offenders so they no longer want to offend again? This is why we do need a criminal justice system .

We could think of a society without a criminal justice system being similar to a child without parents or adult supervision and guidance. How would the child know what is right or wrong, illegal or legal? Because most individuals start life in a human family environment, and because of the close, physical and emotional proximity of family members, the family is one of the principal socialising agencies. (Bilton 1981). The child would have no guideline, no boundaries and there for the survival rate of the child would be very low. How would the child be able to function in a socially moral way? The child wouldn’t be able to feed or clothe itself which would lead to a high risk of committing criminal offences such as theft of food, clothes, shoes, bikes for transport and all the things other children possess that do have parents or guardians. The child would be highly unlikely to attend school or seek and education, which is the second major influence on a child’s social development, (Sederber 1977). Therefore the child would not be able to read or write, know how to socialise and interact with other peers, more likely to be bullied and find other negative influences, would then lead to finding it hard to seek employment during adolescence which again would lead to more criminal offences, and criminal activities.

Saying this somewhat explains informal social control, and this is why informal social control is needed in society. Children without parents or guardians nurturing, without schools for educations, without peers for socialising, a work place