Criminal investigations and the criminal justice system
Law: unit 25 - criminal investigation procedures
Assignment 3 criminal investigations and the criminal justice system
Tahir Hussain
The main aim of the probation services is protecting the public
Probation officers work with offenders by combining continuous assessment and management of risk and dangerousness with the provision of expert supervision programs designed to reduce re-offending.
They work for the Probation Service, which aims to rehabilitate offenders and reduce re-offending, protect the public, properly punish offenders in the community and ensure offenders are aware of the effects of crime on their victims and the general public.
Probation officers work closely with police and prison colleagues, as well as with local authorities, health, education and housing departments and a broad range of independent and voluntary sector partners. They also engage with the victims of crime.
* interviewing offenders in the office, at court, in prison, hostels, at other penal institutions and in their homes;
* preparing and presenting pre-sentence reports to the courts - each year probation helps magistrates and judges with their sentencing decisions by providing around 235,000 pre-sentence reports;
* writing reports combining risk and danger assessments on prisoners to help prison governors and parole and lifer review boards determine when to release a prisoner and on what terms and conditions;
* preparing records of meetings and accounts of clients' progress reports;
* drawing up supervision plans for offenders in the community, on community supervision orders, and those who have received statutory licence supervision, and making appropriate referrals to offender behavior programs;
* as 'case managers', referring offenders to a range of internal and external organisations - finding appropriate unpaid work for offenders to carry out in local communities in order to meet the punishment and reparation requirements of their community punishment;
* liaising with colleagues in related areas including social services, police, education, employment, substance misuse organisations and housing (independent and voluntary sector partners);
* meeting regularly with colleagues to discuss case loads and clients;
* liaising with victims of serious violent, including sexually violent, crimes - the impact of the offence and victims' concerns about their future safety are an important part of the pre and post custody release risk assessment work done by probation staff;
* Attending court.
Nacro is a, crime reduction charity, they aim to make society safer by finding practical solutions to reducing crime. Since 1966 they have worked to give ex-offenders, disadvantaged people and deprived communities the help they need to build a better future.
Nacro's also has a prison development team works with prison governors and other staffs to enhance prison regimes in the areas of resettlement, race relations and the needs of women prisoners as they help to resettle offenders, this means they monitor their behaviours after prisons which is sincerely an investigation that benefits the criminal justice system
If ex-offenders are as twice as likely to re-offend as those with jobs, Nacro works with the people in prisons and younger offender to help them make realistic decisions about employment and training options open to them and provide resettlement advice on training and employment to prisoners who are addressing drug problems and help them address their offending behaviours and finally work in partnership with local probation services to provide a range of specialist services for ex-offenders including career advice, job search, training and work experience. Its my opinion that if their aim is to help these people ...
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If ex-offenders are as twice as likely to re-offend as those with jobs, Nacro works with the people in prisons and younger offender to help them make realistic decisions about employment and training options open to them and provide resettlement advice on training and employment to prisoners who are addressing drug problems and help them address their offending behaviours and finally work in partnership with local probation services to provide a range of specialist services for ex-offenders including career advice, job search, training and work experience. Its my opinion that if their aim is to help these people stop re-offending in all this by tying to fit them in the society, its not far from believing that this part of the criminal justice system fits properly if not partly into criminal investigations simply because it also aims to ending crimes and searches for the elusive behavior and allocates best solutions.
As far as race is concerned, Nacro believes that the criminal justice system must serve ethnic minority communities more effectively if its to deliver justice this looks to me as a piece of advice after an investigation made by Nacro. It's a basic truth that minority groups are disproportionately represented in all areas of the criminal justice system and Nacro leads the drive to rectify these imbalances and assist race equality programs in criminal justice agencies by; Promoting research into and analyse the work of Crime and Disorder Act.
Promoting race equality issues in the composition of Crime and Disorder Act partnership.
Tackling youth race issues within the criminal justice through the work of youth offending teams, Widening the race and crime debate within Area Criminal Justice Strategy Committees etc all these help the criminal investigation procedures.
At the police stations Nacro ensures that the arrested person's needs are met including legal , health and social care needs and ensure that considerations are given to the appropriateness of charging or diverting the arrested person and also achieve the most effective and appropriate outcome and the least restrictive option.
At the court, Nacro ensures that the defendant needs are met including legal, health and social care needs. That consideration is given to the appropriateness of prosecuting or diverting the arrested person and last but not least to achieve the most effective and appropriate outcome and the least restrictive option as well as ensuring personal and public safety.
In all the above it's clear that this part of the criminal justice system meets the criteria of being part of the criminal investigation.
With PACE orders like the detection and charging, prior to PACE, stop and search powers valid and procedures differed between forces and were unclear. PACE introduced a general power to stop and search persons or vehicles for stolen or prohibited articles, if officers had reasonable suspicion that they might be present. It also introduced safeguards into the procedure involving the provision of information to why they suspected. Interviews in case the suspect confesses are audio taped.
Legal representation is under PACE and this is provided by the government which pays for the services of the lawyer in cases where the defendant can't pay for them selves it should be noted that its for the court to decide weather legal aid should be granted the decision here is partly based on the view weather the provision of help is in the interest of justice. At this point I find it apt to say that this is nothing more other than helping the criminal investigation process to reach a genuine verdict by not breaching laws more on this defendants are entitled to be represented and its very common in more serious cases 'indictable cases' than less serious cases 'summary cases' this is because the bulk of the work is done by solicitors. The crown prosecution service always prosecutes the defendant by use of their lawyers or barrister and the criminal defence services' aim is to develop a more efficient way of Providing defence services however in between there is legal service commission which over sees both and administers civil legal aid.
Remands; these are either in custody or on bail depending on the seriousness of the case or the degree on which it can be believed that he/she will fail to surrender to custody, committee another offence, interfere with the witness or obstruct the course of justice its at this moment that the criminal justice system relates to criminal investigations.
At the magistrates court, magistrates consider whether the case is indictable or not if it is indictable then it will be committed to the crown court however in serious fraud cases and those which include child witnesses, a prosecutor can lodge a notice with the magistrates' court stating to transfer the case to the crown court but these measures are piloted and evaluated these measures mean that an offender charged with indictable-only offences is sent immediately to Crown Court here magistrates may consider bail and other miner issues but they do not consider whether there is a case to answer. Other cases include either way were the magistrates decides to try them selves or commit the trial to the crown prosecution this sort of bureaucracy its that its aimed at helping the criminal investigation reach valid decisions by appropriate decision makers.
Trials at the crown court for a defendant pleading not guilty is before a judge and jury of 12 people randomly selected from a list of those aged 18 to 70 years who registered as electors their duty is to listen to the evidence and give their verdicts which must be at least ten to two it the verdict is guilty the judge will pronounce sentence the criminal procedure and the investigation Act 1996 emphasises disclosure of evidence in criminal proceedings its from here that there is a correlation between the criminal justice system and the criminal investigation. Sentencing under the statutory framework introduced in the criminal justice Act 1991 and amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1993 courts are required to impose sentences which reflect the seriousness of the offence and because the Act doesn't define seriousness', the judge or magistrate will take into account the facts of the offence which are available in court including any aggravating or mitigating factor secondary the prosecutor will provide a statement called the antecedents covering details of the offence previous convictions and sentences and its at this stage that a pre-sentence report can be prepared by the probation officer which contains the character, personality and social and domestic background of the defendant educational record etc purposely for the assessment of the impact on a victim or risk of re-offending this will include a proposal as to what community sentence will be suitable this is foreseeable that its total investigation of what will happen after prison if at all the person is arrested and the benefit of the sentence in question.
A prison is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interred and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms. They are conventionally institutions which form part of the criminal justice system, such that incarceration is the penalty imposed by the state for the commission of a crime.
A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons while corrections are components of the criminal justice system.
Relating the criminal justice system to criminal investigation, its my opinion that traditionally will revolves around three main components of the criminal justice system: police, courts, corrections and these will include halfway houses, parole programs, jails, prisons, and probation programs. 'A halfway house is a term for a drug rehabilitation or sex offender center' parole is the supervised release of a prisoner before the completion of sentence its not amnesty or commutation of sentence in that parolees are still considered to be serving their sentences, and may be returned to prison if they show poor adjustment to society.
In the domain of criminal justice, prisons are used to incarcerate convicts, but also to house those charged with or likely to be charged with offenses. An offense is a violation of the penal law. Custodial sentences are sanctions authorized by law for a range of offenses. A court may order the incarceration of an individual found guilty of such offenses and pre-trial convicts are called remands these all help the investigation process in a manner that the suspect is held in the hands of the authority in what looks to be a fair procedure because if you are not yet convicted you are simply remanded and sentenced after pleading guilty.
The prison functions help the criminal investigation in that they punish the individual who transgress statutory boundaries; temporarily or permanently segregating individuals deemed dangerous to others; seeking to reduce the probability that an individual will re-offend upon release. Its my opinion that criminal investigations work safely with prisons as they are often rated by the degree of security, ranging from minimum security (used mainly for nonviolent offenders such as those guilty of fraud) through to maximum security (often used for those who have committed crimes while imprisoned). Crime and punishment is a wide, very controversial and deeply politicized area, and so too are discussions of prisons in relation to the criminal investigations, the concepts and practices of imprisonment; and the sanction of custody set against other non-custodial sanctions and against the capital sanction, a death sentence.
The high proportion of prisoners in developed countries may be explained by a range of factors, including better funded criminal justice systems, a more strict approach to law and order (eg. through the use of mandatory sentencing), and a larger gap between the rich and the poor. In non-developed countries, rates of incarceration may be a reflection of a tendency for some crimes to go unpunished, political corruption, or the use of other mechanisms which provide an alternative to incarceration as a means of dealing with crime (eg. through the use of reconciliation). All in all to relate the criminal investigation to prisons is an argument which is in most cases determined by the nature of state governance.
Justices of the Peace (JPs) are respected citizens who are entrusted by their community to take on special responsibilities within the legal system they perform a wide range of services, from witnessing the signing of documents to hearing certain matters in court. They don't accept payment for their services and they are not lawyer hence you do not need a law degree to be one they are known as honest citizens who could be trusted to carry out their duties conscientiously but under the new laws introduced in 1991, they are allowed to take a level of responsibility Under the old system there was no choice. Although they used to have a very wide range of duties, from constituting a court to witnessing signatures, the majority were only performing the witnessing duties. Not many were constituting courts. They can be categorised into Commissioners for Declarations (C.dec) who have purely administrative duties like witnessing signatures on documents and certifying true copies of documents. The Justices of the Peace (Qualified) have the same duties as C.decs, plus issuing search warrants, remanding defendants (returning defendants to custody until their case can be heard) adjourning court hearings and granting bail its here that they relate significantly to the criminal investigations. Justices of the Peace (Magistrates Court) have the same duties as JPs (Qual) plus: conducting committal hearings, hearing simple offences where the defendant has pleaded guilty.
Because our society has become so complex, thousands of formal documents have to be signed every day, and a lost of legal procedures have to be carried out. For this to happen, we need a system that is quick, cheap, reliable and does not place a greater burden on legal practitioners and officers, we use JP's this helps speed up the criminal investigation procedure with what may seem to be genuine hands 'this is my thought' they free lawyers and the courts to concentrate on cases that require professional legal training.
