The Criminal Justice System

The Criminal Justice System
Name:
Institution:
The U.S. Criminal Justice System
I was able to meet a legal researcher through my father’s friend who agreed to a 2 hour interview with him concerning his findings and thoughts on the U.S. Criminal Justice System. My respondent is called Denis N. Simmons and works in the capacity of an operation manager in a private research firm located in Boylston Street, Boston. The firm concentrates in conducting field research from citizens on various issues of the government and providing poll analysis through the Media. The address for the research firm is 607 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02116 while their telephone is (617) 369-9977. Since the firm is so close to my house, I spent most of the day at the firm before finally securing an interview with Mr. Simmons from 2.30 pm to 4.50 pm.
I had two major questions for Mr. Simmons;
1 Can you please describe the structure and role of The Criminal Justice System in the United States?
2 How is the current situation in our Criminal Justice System and what are your opinions about this situation?
Mr. Simmons answer to the first quest was quite detailed which helped me to understand the structure of the Criminal Justice System. The police, the courts and corrections are the three components that form the criminal justice in the United States. These components follow each other. The purpose of the criminal justice system is to take law violators and giving them reasonable punishment for their actions. The system is meant to ensure that justice is ensued by providing punishment as a consequence of crimes committed. Not only does the system punish law offenders, but it also has the mandate of protecting the innocent as well as providing justice to offenders because they also have rights that should be observed
(The Criminal Justice System, 2013).
The researcher also helped me to understand the meaning of various legal terminologies. First the term crime is referred as the conduct that violates the laws of a local jurisdiction, a federal government or the State. Justice refers to the fairness or the principle of moral equity (Crime and Criminology, 2010). The insight that I received is that law and crime are intertwined such that the two will always go hand in hand no matter how one looks at it. This means that when crime has been committed, there is a 100% chance that a violation of law took place.
According to our criminal justice system, the police is the first component that responds after a crime has happened. The police enforce law by conducting an investigation and making arrests. This is aimed at providing the next component in this case the courts with sufficient evidence to prosecute and make fair judgments. After a crime has been committed, investigation has to be done (Webb, 2009). In many instances, the police get at the scene of a crime immediately and makes arrests of the suspected offenders before they can go to exile. However, the police are required to gather sufficient evidence so to arrest and book the suspected offenders. When the police make the arrests, they are compulsorily required to read the Miranda rights of the person whom they are arresting. The booking process is composed of taking the finger...