What is Criminal Justice – Term Paper

The criminal justice funnel is the process in which the number cases are pending are decreases until a small percent is left to be solved by the trial advocacy. The gatekeepers of the criminal justice system are many. The chief prosecutor is the main gatekeeper of this system. This is because the Chief prosecutor plays a vital role which impacts all parties in the law court.  The other people on the committee are also gatekeepers of the Criminal Justice System including the advocacy, prosecuting, defending attorneys and the panel of judges. The police too are the gatekeepers because they are the ones whose duty is to maintain law and order (Maguire, 1996). The victims are referred to as the first gatekeepers in the Criminal Justice System because they have been in the situation and are supposed to protect others and protect crime from happening. Discretion refers to action on one’s authority believes the judgment. In law, this refers to if the evidence is to exclude at a trial which is judged by the lawyer (Maguire, 1996). The judge is the one who has the most discretion in the system. This is because of the discretion every time an objection or indeed evidence may be presented before the court or given. The jury which is a group of many judges has the final word which is also known as the final verdict. 

The popular misconceptions about the system are that police are objective in their investigations.  Guilty pleas are a proof of guilt whereby many people believe that a plea of guilty meant that one is guilty (Maguire, 1996). Another misconception is that the human memories are reliable which not the case is since the human minds tend to omit or add information. The other misconception is that dangerous criminals escape the punishment which is not usually the case because the law acts equally on everybody.

Reference

Maguire, K. (Ed.). (1996). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics 1995. Diane Publishing