In this paper, the author addresses one of the most important questions in the criminal justice and law enforcement industry, as far as the job profiles and descriptions of two of its most important members are concerned: the difference between criminal justice and criminology. In order to draw real life evidence of being able to know the difference between the two disciplines mentioned, evidences will be drawn from the case of a Black American male under the initials of M.L.
Without a doubt, the two disciplines, criminal justice and criminology, are directly related. For one, they are both concerned with solving one of society’s biggest and longest running problems: crime and all other things and entities that may be associated with it. However, the fact of the matter is that professionals working in these two related but separate fields work differently. In order to know exactly how they differ, it would be important to define each of them.
Criminology is a discipline that focuses directly on the anatomy of a crime . Considering this information, this particular crime-related discipline would include the study of the causes of a crime and its costs and consequences. Criminal justice, on the other hand, is more focused on the study of how society can deal with crime.
This includes, but may not be limited to, how criminal acts can be prevented, detected, and corrected (as in the case of detaining criminals); and also how criminals can be punished and prosecuted. The general definition of the two disciplines basically implies that criminology is more centered on the investigative component of crime while criminal justice is on the justice component of it (hence the addition of the term justice as a suffix).
Now, relating this to the case of M.L., the documents submitted were basically a summary of the autopsy and toxicology reports conducted by the assigned legal medical examiner named Denika Means. In the said document, the examiner’s findings as to the reason behind M.L.’s death and how the manner was conducted (i.e. as a result of homicide) were mentioned. To sum the contents of the long document up, the examiner ruled that M.L. died secondary to incurring multiple gunshot wounds; the gunshot wounds, on the other hand, were obtained from the incident of homicide where M.L. was the victim .
Based on the concrete definitions of criminal justice and criminology given earlier, it can be ruled in that the contents of the said document would have to be of particular use to the criminologists working on the crime. They are the ones in charge of studying crime scenes, collecting data and analyzing the contents of those data to provide all the necessary information, including recommendations, to their peers over at the justice departments.
The criminal justice personnel, on the other hand, based on the information and recommendations provided by the criminologists who studied the crime and the evidences plus all the pertinent information, would study how the suspect can be prosecuted. It would be important to note, however, that the specific examples of what a criminologist and a criminal justice professional would do found in this paper (based on their job profile and description) are applicable only to the case of M.L. This is mainly because there are numerous sub-disciplines under criminology and criminal justice, each of which has its own job profile and description.
References
Means, D. (2014). Report of Postmortem Examination. County of Cook, Illinois: Office of the Medical Examiner, 01-21.
Portland State University Press. (2016). The Differences between Criminology and Criminal Justice. Portland State University Press.
