Cja 394 - Criminal Justice Trends Evaluation

Criminal Justice Trends Evaluation

Tabitha Gooch

CJA/394

November 18, 2013

Becky Killian-Willis

Criminal Justice Trends Evaluation

The criminal justice system has seen a number of changes over the many years since it was initially conceived by our forefathers. All of these changes are due to the trends the criminal justice system has faced with various crimes, criminals, societal views and technology. There have also been changes to the system in terms of the number of criminals being incarcerated and the effectiveness of incarceration on them with regards to recidivism rates. The criminal justice system faces its biggest problem everyday which is the ever growing world of technology. With the growth of technology comes the whole new world of crimes and criminals calling for a new way of combatting these new trends in the criminal justice system and society. This paper will focus on evaluating the criminal justice systems past, present and future trends as well as how these trends affect the criminal justice system. It will also focus on the value of the criminal justice system in today's ever changing society.

When our forefathers wrote the United States Constitution they were laying the basic groundwork for our criminal justice system. When they were writing this they were not keeping racism, discrimination, drugs, or technology in mind because at this point in our history these were not words or even topics discussed by society. All our criminal justice system was faced with in the past were mostly theft, murder and assaults just to name a few of the major crimes. As the years went by there were new issues the criminal justice system was facing like desegregation, organized crime syndicates, illegal sales and distribution of alcohol during the prohibition era, and many other crimes which forced law enforcement personnel to alter their methods of patrolling to combat crime. There have also been changes to the laws over the years to accommodate the changes in crime trends as well. Our law enforcement officers once used to walk the streets for their patrol and officers responded to crimes because citizens on the streets would tell them one was being committed. As crime trends changed and technology grew police officers then had cars and radios they used for patrolling and responding to crimes. Phones brought about the capability of faster response times over a broader range of area to crimes because people could call in a crime which in turn was radioed out by dispatch to all officers to respond. This allowed officers the capability of policing a larger area than they could on foot. Our criminal justice system has grown from what it once was over 200 years ago into the challenged and highly tasked system it is today due to the various trends our system is facing in crime trend and the scrutiny of society.

As humans we tend to alter our behaviors and needs based on what is considered to be the norm in society and the same can be said for crime and the criminal justice system. Our criminal justice system has many changes which have forced it to alter the way it operates and thinks. There have been many times we have seen police officers being accused of discrimination based on race, ethnicity or gender when apprehending criminals. In response to this law enforcement agencies have been forced to take training for these issues and be aware of using discrimination when making arrests. One of the biggest trends we have seen in more recent years has been drug related crimes. These crimes also consume a large number of incarcerated criminals, but we lack the proper punishment methods for these crimes because we see high recidivism rates among criminals released from prison for these crimes. We have also seen trends in technology based crimes and an increase in terrorism. While battling terrorism has taken a front seat to all other crimes since the attacks on September 11, 2001 we are still no closer to having a sure fire method to combatting this epidemic. In response to the war on terrorism legislation passed the USA Patriot Act of 2001 which allows law enforcement to infringe on peoples civil liberties that are suspected of terrorist activities. People who are suspected of being involved terrorist groups are subject to this act and therefore law enforcement personnel are allowed to place wiretaps and work around the civil rights more freely since there is a greater purpose at stake here. We have also seen trends in technology based crimes such as identity theft, computer hacking