Criminal Justice Paper

There are five components of the criminal justice system, law enforcement, prosecution, defense attorneys, courts, and corrections. Law enforcement are the ones who takes reports of crime, investigate crime, and they can arrest offenders. Prosecutors are lawyers that represent the state throughout the court process. They have the power to prosecute a case. Defense attorneys are the people who defend the person who is accused of a crime against the government’s case and are assigned to people who can’t afford their own attorneys. When someone is taken to court the judge is the person who oversees what happens in the court room. They have the power to convict people who have broken the law or created a crime. Correction officers are the people that look after the convicted.

There are four steps in the criminal justice process, some of these steps are not needed in some cases and they don’t always follow the pattern; Entry into the system, prosecution and pretrial, trial process, and post-trial. There are also little steps within the big ones. Entry into the system have sub-steps called report, investigate, and arrest or citation. Report is where there is a crime report given to an officer from a victim or someone who was watching the crime happen. Investigation is where law enforcement officials studies the crime, identify a suspect, and to find enough evidence to arrest the suspect. Prosecution and pretrial have sub-steps called charges, first court appearance, bail or bond, grand jury or preliminary hearing, and arraignment. Charges is when the prosecutor looks over all the evidence that is given to them by police officers and decides if there needs to file charges or to release the person who is being accused. First court appearance is when the prosecutor files a formal charge which means that they need to appear in court so they will be informed of their charges and rights. Bail or Bond is when the judge decides whether to keep a person in jail or release them...