Crime Control

The criminal justice system in the United State has traditionally operated under two fundamentally different theories. One theory is the Crime Control Model. This theory is characterized by the idea that criminal should be aggressively pursued and crime aggressively punished. The other theory is the Due process Model. This theory is characterized by the idea that the rights of the accused need to be carefully protected in any criminal justice investigation.

The Due Process Model emphasizes the adversary system. The Due Process model also puts on emphasis on the rights of the person or people who are being accused of a crime. The Due Process model consists of many factors but a few are the idea of aggressive police enforcement, equitable and fair-minded judicial process, and imposition of proper and reasonable punishment. The main idea encompassing the model of Due Process is to make sure that people who are innocent are not being wrongly convicted or targeted. They also believe that policing within the criminal justice system is essential to maintaining justice within society. Crime control and due process are two different ideal types of criminal justice. One could say they are extremes on a continuum. The role of crime control is to get the criminal off the street and to protect the innocent. Moreover, the crime control believes that the people that are arrested are guilty and need to be punished by the government. The due process model of criminal justice is like an obstacle course, you have to keep going through legal obstacles to ensure in the end you convict the right person. In the US, the police lean toward crime control and the courts lean toward due process. This causes tension between the police and the courts. For both crime control and due process, people should put more weight on due process. If the people did not have due process in the US, people in positions of power, could manipulate the system for their own personal or political gain and railroad the innocent off to prison. Both systems of justice share common beliefs, for example, they both look for proof of beyond reasonable doubt.

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