Tyson Barkdull

Police

Police departments have arguably the single most important duty in our communities. These men and women are hired to work a tiring and never ending job of keeping the people safe and also to provide justice against those that have committed crimes. These men and women have so many jobs to complete in the community that it is hard to tell them all. Their first and probably most important job is to provide safety and crime prevention for the jurisdiction of people they watch over. This includes traffic control, being able to provide help to the people in trouble, and even just providing support to the community in any way asked of them. Another duty they have to provide is to make sure that justice is served to everyone that commits a crime. That includes arresting the people who commits the crime, and if they dont know who committed it then they have to investigate to make sure the person gets caught. The next important aspect to a police department is a strong structuring of the department. I like to describe the structure of our police departments the same way our government is suppose to be organized, in that every position has a checks and balancing system to make sure everyone is doing their job correctly.

At the top of the department there is the big boss (Chief) and from there it goes to the managers (captains then lieutenants) and supervisors (sergeants) to just the entry level police officers. Every person is as important as the other in that they all have to work together to make sure that the job of protecting the citizens is fulfilled in every way possible. Everyone has to respond to the person above them, and even the chief has to respond to someone. This system helps hold people responsible. To add more to their plates they have to deal with a lot of little problems. Yes, they have to keep people safe in their communities but they have to do it on a very fine line. They have to worry about discriminating against someone, make sure they dont use excessive force, and make sure they follow every small rule, or they too will face punishment. To me it is very sad they have to deal with these problems, but that is the cost we pay to make sure everyone has rights in America. As you can tell these men and women of the Justice system have a lot on their shoulders keeping the public safe making sure everyone is happy, but that doesnt mean there isnt room for improvement Now that I have told you all about the police departments, I am going to give you a few proposals on ways to decrease the number of problems faced by our courageous men and women of the criminal justice field. As I have mentioned before, one thing that will decrease the number of problems the police officers deal with is to stop illegal immigration. Just the fact that the crime load in some areas would go down drastically, and in my opinion would help with the stress level of the officers. Some facts that I have found regarding the case loads: In some areas of the country twelve (12) percent of

felonies, twenty-five (25) percent of burglaries, and thirty-four (34) percent of thefts are committed by illegal immigrants. Also, Illegal aliens commit between 700,000 to 1,289,000 or more crimes per year. One thing that I believe would really help our police officers out, but I know will never happen is, to make is so they arent always worrying about discriminating, or doing something that will get them in trouble. How many counties can you think of that will sue a police officer for shooting a criminal that is threatening the life of the officer? I get so angry when I hear about a police officer that is being scrutinized for trying to do his job. Yes, there are some occasions that I believe maybe the officer steps over the line, but how can we slap the hands of the brave men and women that are trying to protect us? These men and women are walking on the thinnest line, and when they are doing a job that they have to make split second decisions almost every day? It just doesnt seem right to me. We ask them to do their job, but when someone doesnt like how they do it, they get slapped in the face? Kind of makes you not want to protect some people. And maybe someday we might here of something like that, man dies because police officer refuses to protect him, just wait its coming. "The Dark Side Of Illegal Immigration". usillegalimmigration.com. April 17, 2010 <http://www.usillegalaliens.com/impacts_of_illegal_immigration_crime_summary.html>.

Courts
The court system in the United States is a complex system but definitely the best in the world. The men and women of the courts also have a very important job in the community. In this section I will tell you what the duties of the courts are, how its structured, and I will also tell you about problems they deal with daily. There are three main levels to the Court system, Trial, Appellate Trial, and Supreme Court. The Trial level includes many types of courts, such as the District Court, Drug Court, and other types of court with specialized subject matter jurisdiction. The Appellate level is the US Court of Appeals, to which an appeal of decisions from any trial level court may be taken. The Supreme Court is where appeals from decisions in the Court of Appeals are taken. The decision of the Supreme Court is final and may not be taken any further. The court structure is nothing like the police structure in that in the Trial Courts the Judge doesnt have to answer to anybody. You cannot challenge his decision or could face criminal punishment. Each Court can have its own organizational structure, but the main ones include jurisdiction, appellate versus trial, and the dual court system. I believe each has its strong point but would be much better to make it so every court uses the same organized structure. Our court systems are very complex and I believe need to be simplified to make things more organized and less confusing to the outside person. Many court reformers

are currently trying to do this, but it still remains that each state can choose to have its own court system. Some ways I believe would help strengthen our court systems may include, simplifying them, decreasing case loads, and maybe taking some of the responsibilities of the judge and spreading them out. As I mentioned above, the court systems are way to complex and need to be simplified. One way to simplify them would be to make a court structure that all courts have to follow. With every court having its own system it makes it difficult to try and learn about the system when you have to learn a different one every time you look at a different court. Another way to strengthen our court system would be to spread out the case load to more courts. With such a few number of courts the case load is way too large. Lets get a few more courts opened up and spread the load out, this is going to become a bigger problem in the future since the number of cases going through the court systems are steadily increasing, and doesnt look like it will stop anytime soon. Not to mention that opening more courts will provide some jobs for struggling Americans in this time of need. One more way that might help strengthen the courts is making it so the Judge doesnt have all the authority with no one checking him. When you look at the police and corrections departments everyone has someone that looks over them to make sure they are doing what they are suppose to. When you look at the Judge, he has all the power in the world and no one to make sure he doesnt make a mistake. Yes the people can do an appeal if they feel it wasnt fair, but why not try to make it so they get it

right the first time? Lets make a small committee that discusses the cases before every ruling to make sure that it is the right thing. There are some downfalls to this as well, and this isnt a perfect option but maybe something that is worth being looked at.

Tyson Barkdull

Corrections
the growing amount of criminals being pushed into the system, correction positions are becoming more and more important to todays society. The corrections departments purposes are to oversee the jails, prisons, probation and parole of inmates, court duties, and a few other duties. Watching over the incarcerations of inmates along with probations is probably their main duty and is becoming a harder and harder. With a growing population in the jail systems it brings more problems with gangs, sexual assaults, costs, and maybe even a need for segregated prisons. I am among the few that believes segregated prisons would help a lot but that is something that will be crossed another time. As you can see it is becoming apparent that something needs to change within the correction institutions. Correctional organizations have two hybrid management organizations; one is to watch over the correctional officers while the other is to watch over the inmates incarcerated in the system. This system is similar to the police system but has some differences. With the current system it in place it makes it easier for correctional officer

to keep track of the people under them, since they have fewer to watch over. The mission of the correction agencies has been to protect the citizens from crime by safely and securely handling criminal offenders while providing offenders some opportunities for self-improvement and increasing the chance that they will become productive and law-abiding citizens. Now that you have heard about the challenges faced by the correctional officers I will tell you a few things that may help and improve our correctional departments in todays society. Like mentioned above with the police department solutions, I believe one thing that will help the corrections is to STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION! Twentyfive (25) percent of our people in federal jails are illegal immigrants. At 20,108 dollars per year per inmate, that is a lot of money that could go much more needed things, like pay increases for the hard working men and women in the Criminal Justice fields? As I noted above, in some areas of the country twelve (12) percent of felonies, twenty-five (25) percent of burglaries, and thirty-four (34) percent of thefts are committed by illegal immigrants. Also, Illegal aliens commit between 700,000 to 1,289,000 or more crimes per year. That is 1,289,000 people taking up precious space in our prisons. Not to mention that a lot of the illegal immigrants in our jails are a part of gangs within the walls. I also mentioned above that one thing that may help within correctional institutions may be to segregate the prisons. Lets not take the chance anymore, and try to decrease the amount of sexual abuse within the corrections. Even though all these people are prisoners and broke the law, doesnt mean we should let them be tormented by other inmates. Lets also not let there be any temptations for correctional

officers to commit sexual offences and make it so Men watch men inmates, and women watch women inmates. The sad thing is that homosexuality is on the rise so that will become a problem eventually either, and there isnt a way to stop that. I have also heard many times that people think there needs to be better rehabilitations in prisons. I do think that better rehabilitations within the prisons will help decrease the amount of crimes committed by people getting out of jail. But then again the question comes up, how do we pay for these programs? Do we make the prisoners pay for these services? Here in Utah we are already closing correction facilities, so I think adding more rehab services is out of the question unless we find a way to pay for it. People have also said that we need to start putting more people on probation, but is it worth the safety of our citizens? In 2007, there were 1.18 million people who were being paroled; sixteen (16) percent of them were re-incarcerated, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Yeah that number isnt bad, and we dont know how many were re-incarcerated due to them committing violent crimes. But lets say five (5) percent of them committed murder while on parole, thats fifty-nine thousand people that died due to someone on parole. You tell me, is it worth it? As you can see there are many challenges within the correctional institutions that will need to be addressed sooner or later. With the amount of inmates increasing the need for additional resources is growing. Maybe someone needs to look at my solutions and give them a think. We need to do something, but right now that doesnt seem to be on the list of things to do on many people lists. I have also heard many

times that people think there needs to be better rehabilitations in prisons and also to use probation more often, but is it really worth the safety of civilians to put more people on probation?

"Information on Probation & Parole". eHow inc,. April 24, 2010 <http://www.ehow.com/about_5456325_information-probation-parole.html>. <Peak, Kenneth. Justice Administration, Police, Courts, and Corrections. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. , 2007.>