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Assess the effectiveness of the criminal trial process as a means of achieving justice for

victims, offenders and society.

The criminal trial process aims to achieve justice for those involved, it’s effectiveness can be
altered and decreased by certain aspects. Certain factors such as plea charges, charge
negotiation, credibility of scientific evidence, the availability of legal aid, and the impact of
media can impact the process. These flaws can lead to the criminal trial process not being
an effective means of achieving justice.

In terms of victims, the CTP struggles to achieve justice. The CTP is generally focused on
creating a fair trial process for the offender, which means victims are usually left with a
feeling of injustice. The main goal for a victim is retribution, and although there is an aspect
of retribution in the CTP, it more focuses on rehabilitation and deterrence of the offender.
Aspects of the CTP such as charge negotiation and pleas, although important, usually upset
victims. For example, families of victims are being surprised in court when a defender will
suddenly plead guilty and receive a lesser sentence. The NSWLR (2014) said we should be
“encouraging early guilty pleas” to avoid this. Although these methods help create a fair and
efficient justice system they generally do not achieve justice for the offender.

It is reasonable to postulate that the CTP adequately meets the needs of society, this is
mainly due to the increasing integration of media into the CTP. The CTP is open for the
public to see, excluding cases involving children, which also opens it up to criticism. The
media is constantly involved in the CTP which gives society a look into the trial process and
means that the community can voice what they feel is achieving justice. An example of this
is the Bilal Skaf case, due to outrage and disgust from the community over the rising
number of gang rapes, the judge initially sentences Skaf to 55 years in prison. In this case,
society influenced this judge’s decision and led to Skaf being handed down a hefty sentence,
to achieve a sense of justice for the community, including the victims. Although, allowing
society to have a voice in matters relating to the CTP can also have negatives because there
can be a lot of misconceptions due to lack of knowledge, ‘A lot of jurors get their beliefs
about scientific evidence from CSI shows, 7.30 News Report (2012). Society believes that the
CTP is becoming too benign and is becoming less effective, ‘Have criminal courts become
too lenient? BOCSAR (2015). Though this is not the truth, BOCSAR actually reported that the
prison population rose by 15% from 2015 – 2017 and the proportion of offenders refused
bail has risen by 19.8%. This heightened accountability that has been created through the
use of media has significantly increased the effectiveness of the CTP in achieving justice for
society.

The capability of the CTP to achieve justice for offenders is a lot more arguable, though it
aims to create a fair trial process, it often fails due to human error and ineffective practices.
Many practices such as prison sentences and the use of courts only lead to higher recidivism
rates. The recidivism rate for adult offenders is 29%, and 56% for young offenders. This is
often due to lack of funding; the government spends less than 1% of its budget on
rehabilitation. A major example of this is the lack of government funding for legal aid, which
has led to almost 12,00 people being turned away (2012). Human error also comes to play in
a lot of cases, usually involving scientific evidence. There are many cases of this such as,
Farah Jama (2010) and Andrew Mallard (1995), in both of these cases the offender was
wrongly convicted and spent time in jail they shouldn’t have. Although in the Farah Jama
case the accused was granted compensation of $550,000, it casts doubt on the effectiveness
of the CTP.

The criminal trial process often struggles as a means of achieving justice due to a number of
different hindrances. Quite often, justice can be forsaken for the victims of crime to ensure
the smooth, efficient running of the running of the court system. Despite all this, the
criminal trial process always strives to achieve justice for all parties involved.

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