The criminal justice system

Any state has an established system of law, procedures and punishments to guarantee social order.

Like other societies, the United States of America has a criminal justice system to enforce the laws protecting individuals and the entire community. The system operates by identifying, apprehending, prosecuting, convicting, and sentencing people who violate the laws of the nation and its various states.

The society has given its police the powers to patrol the streets, prevent crime, and arrest suspected criminals. It has established the system of courts to conduct trials of the accused and sentence criminals. It has created a correctional process which consists of prisons to punish convicted persons and programs to rehabilitate and supervise them so that they can become useful citizens. These three components – law enforcement (police, sheriffs, marshals), the judicial process (judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers) and corrections (prison officials, probation officers) – establish the system of criminal justice.

The basic rules that determine the working of the American criminal justice system are defined in the Constitution of the United States.

During the past few years innovations have been introduced, modern facilities have appeared and system analysis has been conducted to improve crime control on the part of (со стороны) the criminal justice system.