Criminal Justice—System or Nonsystem?

1			In the text, you will find a discussion of criminal justice as a system and as a nonsystem. A system is usually described as a series of interrelated components working together for a common goal. Further, a system must have the following three elements: input, process, and output. For example, an automobile engine is a system. It is made up of many individual parts (components) which all work in harmony to produce the goal of performing work (transportation). Gasoline is placed into the engine (input), the engine burns the gasoline (process), and power is expelled out of the engine (output). The people who argue that criminal justice is a system see the police, the courts, and the correctional agencies as components that work together to fight crime. In the system model, the police provide the input (in the form of persons arrested), the courts provide the process (converting suspects into convicted criminals), and the correctional agencies provide the output (holding the convicted criminals until they are returned to society). Other people are not so optimistic as to accept the system model as presented above. They instead see criminal justice as a nonsystem actually made up of three independent systems represented by the police, the courts, and the correctional agencies. Under the nonsystem model, each component has its own needs, problems, goals, and agendas, and not only do not work together for a common goal, but often work in opposition to each other. When you add to this the President's Commission's observation that every "village, town, county, city, and State has its own criminal justice system, and there is a Federal one as well" (p.7), it is easy to understand why criminal justice may be better described as a nonsystem than a system. Think about what criminal justice might be like if there were only on set of rules that governed everyone. Instead of each state having its own laws, what if there were a national law that applied equally to everyone regardless of where they lived?" There world be one set of laws establishing speed limits, legal drinking age, whether there is or is not a death penalty (and for what crimes), procedures for selecting judges, the hiring of police officers, etc. There would be a national police force, a national court structure, and a national correctional agency. Would one criminal justice system be preferable to the many systems (or nonsystem) that we have now? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a single system of criminal justice? Take a few minutes and write a short essay in which you: argue that criminal justice is either a system or a nonsystem (support your position).
2			discuss the advantages and disadvantages of one single criminal justice system that would govern throughout the entire country.