Describe and distinguish among the three approaches to studying criminal justice systems by taking an international perspective.
Answer. There are three approaches to studying criminal justice by international perspective and they are as follows (Reichel, 2008):
Historical approach – Works on the reference based knowledge developed from of earlier errors and instances of success which provide experience for present and future scenarios.
Political approach- Works on the basis of impact of national values in shaping the current process of judicial system and takes input from political impact on legal traditions.
Descriptive approach – Works on the basis of how a nation’s judicial system should work and what components need to be included to make judicial system apt enough for a country’s legal environment and its trade relations (Reichel, 2008).
The three approaches are different in terms of their ways of shaping the structure and legal constraints of the judicial system (Reichel, 2008). Where the historical approach develops as an evolutionary measure from the earlier instance, the political approach orients around the political system and the descriptive approach works subjectively with a nation (Reichel, 2008).
Explain the concept of unwritten law in common law systems and written law in civil law systems.
Answer. The two prominent legal systems are defined by the common law and the civil law. The Common law refers to the law developed expert judicial authorities and judges who define the reference of their decisions on the basis of laws common to the realm (Dainow, 2013). On the other hand, Civil law is developed in the nations on the basis of civil code of conduct determining factors such as individuals, objects, legal contract terms, legal inheritance based laws, etc (Dainow, 2013). The common law is often termed to be unwritten as it is derived as a form of ‘judge-made’ codes of legal action and it is developed by the legislatives. However, the written civil code is a documented set of legal actions which are already defined for various civil disputes (Dainow, 2013).
Answer. There are two types of process involved in the adjudication in modern judicial system:
Adversarial process- The adjudication is assumed to be a contest between two sides and supervised by a neutral referee who adjudicates the decision on the basis of witness and evidence presented by both parties to present their part (Gillespie, 2013).
Inquisitorial process- The adjudication is done by making the court to be a legal investigator and the judge allots the authority to seek truth from the presented evidence and attempts the decision-making accordingly (Gillespie, 2013).
Apart from the difference of Judge’s neutrality, the prime distinguishing factor between the above-mentioned processes is that the dependence of the adversarial system over oral form of testament required for either of the parties to claim their win over the other (Gillespie, 2013).
What are the principle differences between a centralized and decentralized police system?
Answer. The principal difference between a centralized and decentralized system is in form of the centre for making decisions for a particular are of police operations (Walker, 2014). The centralized system have a headquartered centre for the department that manages as the centre of all the law enforcement activities and allocates the resources for any point of requirement for the entire city. On the other hand, the decentralized system works with different teams who are in charge of their respective areas and have full authority to take decisions and deploy resources as per the extent of contingency for the situation and scenario as a whole (Walker, 2014).
5. Compare and contrast the methods of prosecution between the United States and another country.
Answer. In order to compare and contrast the prosecution systems, we will analyze those of USA and France. The first difference comes in form of the preparation of the legal matters for a case on which trial is directed (Schwartz, 2007). The American legal system works on the adversarial form of adjudication and allows the two parties to present their case to the jury panel, moderated by a neutral judge. On the other hand, the French legal system is Inquisitorial in nature. The French legal system does not involve the investigating agencies or the lawyers from both sides to prepare their individual part and it rather relies on the investigative efforts of a judge who is placed amidst the prosecutor and defendant parties (Schwartz, 2007).
References
Gillespie, A. (2011). The English Legal System. 4th Ed. Burlington, Oxford University Press: 114-157. Print.
Reichel, L.P (2008). Comparative Criminal Justice Systems: A Topical Approach. 5th Edition, Prentice Hall.:3-27. Print
Schwatrz, V.L. (2007). Comparing U.S. And French models of criminal pre-trial investigation. Party- prosecutor vs. Neutral juge D’instruction. Retrieved from http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SchwartzVirginieL-tft07.pdf
Walker, J (2014). Centralized Policing Is the Wrong Solution. Retrieved from http://reason.com/archives/2014/12/17/the-wrong-solution
