Chapter 6: The Criminal Justice System

The Criminal Justice System is broken down into agencies. Law enforcement agencies are one of them and are found at all federal, state, and local levels of government. Here they perform the four tasks of protecting people and their rights, apprehend people who violate the law, provide social services, and prevent crimes. The next agency are courts. Its their job and so it is very important that they are legally responsible to determine through interpretation of the law in relation to the circumstances of individual cases (criminal courts). There are two types of courts: state courts and federal courts. Besides the two, if a case has to go through its last resort to be resolve, it is taken to trial at the U.S. Supreme Court. Here, nine justices are appointed by the president. I learned that there are about 7000 cases a year reaches the U.S Supreme Court but only less than a fourth is actually heard. Finally the last agency are corrections. Like law enforcement, they appear in all three levels of government. More than have of them are local jails while the rest of them are rehab centers, halfway houses and prison farms. Procedural law is important especially in criminal justice because it tells people who are accused of crimes will be treated. Which brings me to another important term. The Bill of Rights are the first ten commandments of the constitution which details like warrants, searches, arrests, punishments, and so forth. Basically its purpose is to protect citizens against arbitrary use of power by the government.