Overview of the Crime Justice Administration

Criminal Justice System

Criminal justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at uphold social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts (Walker, 1992).

The first contact an offender has with the criminal justice system is usually with the police (or law enforcement) that investigates a suspected wrong-doing and makes an arrest, but if the suspect is dangerous to the whole nation, a national level law enforcement agency is called in. Accordingly, suggest that we look more specifically at perception of criminal justice and law enforcement and the way in which it penetrates social life and social thinking (Lampert and Sanders, 1986). When warranted, law enforcement agencies or police officers are empowered to use force and other forms of legal coercion and means to effect public and social order. Although the term is most commonly associated with police departments of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police are primary concerned with keeping the peace and enforcing criminal law based on their particular mission and jurisdiction (Visano & McCormick, 1992).

Courts are tribunal where persons accused of violating criminal law come to have their criminal responsibility determined by juries or judges. The purposes of the courts are to seek justice and to discover the truth. The primary actors in the courts are the prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. The judge, or magistrate, is a person, elected or appointed, who is knowledgeable in the law, and whose function is to objectively

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Administer the legal proceedings and offer a final decision of a case. Accordingly, before we can draw a meaningful picture of criminal justice and law enforcement in society, we must seriously probe the nature of public knowledge and perceptions of social...