Criminal Justice System of England and Wales

Introduction
Criminal Justice System is a system in government agencies and different types of institutes try to find
and catch the law breakers and give them punishment. The basic elements of this system are
prosecution defense lawyers police the courts and prisons. The main goal of this criminal justice system
is to provide justice to people by restricting the crimes rate

Usually there are different system of justice in this world for maintaining the law and order of the
society by creating the code of conducts for citizens in order to keep peace and to enforce law. This
organization attempts to discourage a person from upsetting the law and order of society by creating
the pressure of punishments and force them to follow the laws. This justice system has command to
control society by using policing. Policing is the main part and first step of this system. Policing is
considered as first step in the proceeding which involves the process of investigation after that the
process of judgment starts and finally done where criminals are found guilty the process of giving
punishments is done.

Critical Assesment of Criminal Justice System in the light of policing, courts, Probation and
prisons.

The criminal justice system can be divided into 4 main parts:

 Policing in this part initial investigation is done

 The courts, in this part judgments take place
 Probation
 Prisons
General overview of criminal justice system in England and Wales:

In England and wales criminal justice system basically use adversarial system in which the judge
or jury will hear views of both opposing parties of a case. The defence and prosecution parties
can then present their case as how they considered fit by calling and examining witnesses as
they like within certain limits provided by law. In England and wales the agencies run together
and coordinate with each other to perform specific function that is “Protecting and saving the
public by preventing and discouraging crime, by rehabilitating criminals and weakening others
who become consistent threat to community. Now we will discuss the main parts of criminal justice
system in England and wales:
Policing :
A police_force is the recognized body of individuals that are allowed by state to apply law to
protect people and property and to stop crime and maintain law and order in an area.

In England and wales are largest agency involved in the criminal justice process. Officers are
given certain controls to permit them to perform their duties. The main responsibilities of a
police officer is to maintain the law and order , ensuring the protection of individual and their
property , prevention of crime and any illegal activity.

There are basically 52 police forces on local basic out of which almost 43 forces of police in
Wales and England are in charge for the process of investigation of the crime and evidence
collection the arrest of the alleged criminal. When a suspect is seized the police will decide
whether to take full precautions against them or to take no action or there is need to issue any
penalty. Files will be send to CPS in serious cases which will take decision that whether to
prosecute or not.
Every force in Great Britain has volunteer special constables who do polices duties in their free
time without pay acting in the support of regular officers. This Civilian staff in England and
wales are about 54600. Police Strength in England and Wales is almost 125500.Police
authorities in coordination with chief constables and local community and set the local policing
goals and objectives while their government set ministerial priorities for police as a whole.

The police of England and Wales have matching roles as prefectural police. Though before Act
1964 Police Act the of police was considered as ‘Police force’ which will impose laws but with
time the attitude of police force was changed to “police service”. Police may have different
forces in Wales and England.
Following is data about police tackling criminality in Wales and England :
The Courts:
The court is the body of individuals headed by a magistrate or judge or judges which act as
committee in civil and different types of criminal cases. This institution is set by government to
settle the disputes by using a legitimate process. People usually come to court to decide their
disagreements. Courts decides what actually happened and what should be done to resolve
the issue. Court also decides whether a person is criminal or not and if he is a criminal than
what punishment should be given according to his crime.

Courts are divided into two types one is magistrate courts and other is Crown court. Initially all
the cases are heard at magistrate court. There are some crimes which are less serious and can
be resolved at this level. While there are some offences which can be resolved or dealt at both
courts .and there are some very serious issues which can only be dealt or resolved at Crown
Court. Basically Magistrates are considered as volunteers who have been trained and have the
support and court clerks, while judges usually sit in Crown court and are highly qualified
barristers.
There are basically five courts in United kingdom England and wales
 The magistrate court
 The Supreme Court
 The Court of appeal
 The High Court
 The Crown Court
The magistrate court is considered as the lowest court where almost 96% of criminal cases are
resolved. This magistrate court has basically three magistrates who hear the trail. This courts
can impose the prison which will be sentenced for almost less than 6 month or twelve month
cannot exceed the fine of £5000

In England the Supreme Court has the three courts under it :

 The courts of Appeal
 The high Court
 The Crown Court.
The Crown Court of England and Wales hears the trails of chargeable crimes and appeals from
magistrate courts. The Appeal which come from magistrate court cases on law are basically
heard in High court and those appeal which came from Crown Court or High Courts are heard at
the Court of Appeal .At the house of lord final appeal from Court of appeal is heard. The House
of Lord consists of Lords of Appeal chosen between the judges of Court of Appeal.

Probation:
Probation is permission that is ordered or given by court system. An individual is put on
probation when he find embarrassed committing a crime. The person can stay into his
community in probation period under the control of a probation officer.
Probation can be of two types:

 Allocating jail and after completing jail put on probation and sometimes time in jail is
reduced because criminals will be on probation.
 Having probation instead of going to jail and at the successful completion of probation
the jail can be skipped by criminal

The Court Service Act 2000 of Criminal Justice formed NPS( National Probation Service) For the
Wales and England and which contains almost 42 Probation areas. Every probation area has
chief officer and probation board. Every Probation Board usually consist of a chair and almost
twelve members Which are appointed by State secretary .The 42 Probation areas may differ by
means of quantity of staff geographical size and budget. The probation board are replaced by
probation trusts under the 2007 Act of Offender Management.

The probation in England wales usually deal with adult criminals which have age eighteen years
or more .The Services are usually provided by almost thirty five probation trusts they are
funded by NOMS (National Offender Management Service).Their main objective is to decrease
the crimes and ensure the protection of public.

The principal tasks or functions of probation service in Wales and England under the Criminal
Justice and Court Act 2000 are:

 Protection of Public
 Decreasing the Crimes
 Appropriate punishment for criminals
 Increasing the awareness of crime and making criminal realize about effect of crime on
victims and public.
 Help of criminals

In England and wales the Probation client or offender under supervision has some rights .
Usually they have same rights like other normal citizens except to restrictions imposed by
court of state.

The Probation officers should explain all obligation and rights to offenders at the start of
supervision. Lawbreakers should be made aware that:

 They should be monitored frequently and on time

 They should be treated with respect and with good behavior.
 They can go to spiritual and other events but they need to give advance notice.

Prison:
Prison is usually know as correctional facility or jail in which criminal are put until they are
brought to trail. The criminals that found guilty are at trial may be sentenced to a specific time
of imprisonment.

There are four major purposes of prisons

 Retribution
 In capacitance
 Deterrence
 Rehabilitation
Retribution means Penalty for crimes against society. In capacitance means paying debt
to society for crimes. Deterrence refers to avoidance of future crime. Rehabilitation
means activities to change criminals by providing education courses in prison.

In England and wales there are almost 121 prisons out of which there are almost 14
prisons are contracted out of public sector and 10 female orisons and 87 resettlement
prisons. The main objective is that all prisoners will spend last three months of their
sentence in their local resettlement prisons.

All the prisons basically lay under the Majesty prison And Probation service launched in
2017.It has taken full obligation for operational management of criminals in supervision
.

IN England wales Almost 85000 people are in prison. There are almost 182 prisoners
per 100000 adults in 2016.The operational capacity of prison of England has increased
broadly with large number of prisoners.

In England and wales almost 24000 people are performing operational roles in prisons
service and almost 10800 perform non operational duties like management
administration. In march there were almost 30 % less operation staff and 29 % less no
operational staff.
 The number of death in prisons slightly decrease since 2013.in 2016 316 prisoners died

. For every 10000 people 1.1 finished their own life

Prison population Total data in England and wales are given below:

Prison population rate data in England and wales are given below:
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