The scope of criminal justice administration
The main duties of any criminal justice system should include law enforcement and ensuring that each individual in the society gets fair and equal justice. To ensure the success of these aims, all the components of the justice system including the courts, the police, and the correctional section need to work in harmony. In instances where there is no harmony amongst them or the activities of any of them is not well coordinated, controversies would always arise. This occurrence is very common and accounts for the failure of the criminal justice systems to effectively deal with the rise in crime levels (Peak, 2010).
Even those who are in the system agree that fragments exist in it. Once an arrested person reaches the courtroom, the judicial officers may get him or her convicted even though they disagree with the actions of the police. The judges and magistrates at times do not give holistic rulings while taking into consideration all the components to retribute, deter, rehabilitate, and incapacitate. This makes the defense attorneys disagree with the decisions citing the unequal treatment of the plaintiffs. This is also another source of friction.
The attitude of each of the components of criminal justice or the way they look at crimes and the convicted people also contributes to conflicts of interest. The police have a major role in law enforcement. This makes them put more emphasis on protecting the general population. The courts evaluate and compare sides, the accuser, and the accused. The facilities tasked with corrections just put an emphasis on the individual charged with the offense. The main aims of each of the components usually lead to frictions since they are not similar (McNeely, 2004).
Research on police functions and effectiveness
Criminal justice systems are an important component of any given society that requires professional administration and handling. To achieve this, there is a need to do more research on the subject to ensure its success.
The police have various functions but the most common one is countering serious crimes committed. They have a duty to work in fairness and with integrity for the public to have confidence in them. While the police are discharging their duty, they should use as little force as possible depending on the situation at hand for the public not to feel that they are brutal. This would also ensure that they are conforming to the rules of law. Another police function would be resolving conflicts between people and protecting the lives as well as property. This calls for a lot of emphasis on research of the police’s ability to discharge these duties.
More research should focus on methods that would ensure all the components of justice administration work harmoniously. The methods should also ensure the administration of fair justice to all parties and meeting the needs of each of the components (Peak, 2010). There should be research on administrative policies that would work closely with the public and other criminal justice components.
Research should focus on the ways to come up with training programs for the police to understand their duty to preserve democracy and functions according to the law. There should also be research on the laws that encourage a good relationship between the police and the public to ensure police get important information on time. Those carrying out the research should ensure that they take into consideration the views and opinions of each party to avoid impartiality.
A good criminal justice system ensures the smooth flow of activities in society due to fairness and security. The research carried out should ensure that the people the system is impacting on getting to understand it more and the components of the system work in harmony.
References
McNeely, C. (2004). Perceptions of the criminal justice system. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, (3)1, 9-11.
Peak, K. (2010). Justice Administration: Police, courts, and corrections management. New Jersey, USA: Prentice hall.