Criminology (crime and justic) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Criminology (crime and justic) - Assignment Example Body Before a criminal is finally subjected to any form of corrections, he/she has to go through an entire structure of criminal justice system. The very first contact that a probable offender or a suspect makes with the system of criminal justice system is with the law enforcement agencies such as police who are responsible for carrying out an arrest after investigating a particular deviant act.. The law enforcement agencies are divided into different levels and they deal with different levels of crime. For crimes that do not pose immense threat to the security of a nation and are less severe in nature, mostly fall under the jurisdiction of police, while crimes such as international terrorist activities that pose a threat to the national security are handled by federal level law enforcement agencies such as Federal Bureau of Investigation. The law enforcement agencies that fall under the category of policing are even responsible to ensure that harmony within society members is creat ed and maintained (Stojkovic, 2012, p.58). The policing branch of criminal justice system tries to serve the function of deterring crime by arresting suspects and offenders and presenting them in front of the court of law. After passing through the policing system, the criminals and suspects are taken to courts where dispute settlement arises and administration of justice takes place. Several individuals are involved in the process of courts, these includes: prosecutors, judges as well as defence attorneys. The main duty lies with the judge who has to be objective and assign sanctions to criminals and ensure that the sanctions assigned are in compliance with the kind of crime being conducted and the severity of the crime. The courts of the criminal justice system even operate for serving the function of deterring crime. They do so by allocating severe punishments as well as rehabilitation of the offender. In case of severe punishments, criminals may be sentenced for life time in ord er to set an example for other possible offenders to ensure that future offenders may be deterred from indulging in criminal activity as they may see life imprisonment as a higher risk than the advantage of committing a crime. Once the courts assign sanctions to the offenders, the offenders are then transferred to authorities that are responsible to administer the sanctions that have been levied on the offender. Over the years, the correctional settings and the correctional portion of the criminal justice system has evolved with several changes in techniques of punishment. In previous years, lack of resources resulted in sanctions such as exile as well as execution, much modernized ways of punishments include: community work, jail time, as well as incarceration and rehabilitation. The main function served by this portion of the criminal justice system is to alter the behaviour of the criminals while trying to ensure that they are not released from their sanctions until they are read y to be normal and non-deviant members of the society. The main aim of all these measures of punishment have remained the same over the years. The aim has been to deter crime and to ensure that the streets of a particular nation and the citizens of their nation are safe and secure from criminal activities. Conclusion The structure of