The Role Of The Criminal Justice System

5 Pages 1155 Words

In reading the chapter on The Role of the CJ System and the definitions of conflict versus consensus, I never knew that these types of models existed. In the material, it stated that the consensus model of criminal justice argues that the organizations of a criminal justice system either do, or should, work cooperatively to produce justice, as opposed to competitively. On the other hand the conflict model of criminal justice argues that the organizations of a criminal justice system either do, or should, work competitively to produce justices, as opposed to cooperatively.
System conflict theory argues that worries over fame, promotion, wages, and success cause the criminal justice system to conflict with itself. This view disputes that there is no true system and points to the role of adversarial processes, in particular, which are seen to be basic to the “system”, and the fact that many criminal justice organizations normally share as little information as possible.
One example of conflict within the system is that between the police and prison officials. The model claims that police desire to put criminals into prison whereas prison officials who are concerned about overcrowded facilities may desire to release criminals from prison (early release programs for nonviolent crimes). Another example of conflict within the system is that criminal justice officials may or do have their own agenda. Aspects of their agenda can be for any or all of the following reasons: pressures of success; promotion; pay increases; and general accountability. All these aspects in my opinion occurs at every job whether it be in the lowest administrative field in the workforce itself or higher up the later in the criminal justice fields. Most individuals believe that when theses aspects occur in the lower part of a ladder in the workforce, that it is normal but when it occurs in the criminal justice fields, i.e. police, detectives, judges, etc, sometime...