Various populations served in criminal justice

Prof Jodi Levit

Social Issues

A criminal justice practitioner is an individual who is qualified and registered to practice or engage in any art, profession, occupation or in a discipline that is involved in the criminal justice system. These are professionals that have specialized in law related occupational fields such as judges, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys and/or police officers. These are people who regularly interact with law offenders or law breakers. For a society to be sustained there are aspects in the society that have to be put in check, governed and maintained to ensure harmony and to prevent chaos. There are laws that govern how a society operates, limits and regulations are put in place that ensure the entire society is maintains a morally guided standard. There are institutions that are put in place to ensure that these laws and regulations have been put in place and in case anyone breaks the law they are correctly dealt with, these include the criminal justice system. This agency ensures that all laws and regulations have been upheld and most importantly deal with criminals that have potential to cause chaos in the social dynamics. (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012).

There are several key social issues that are faces our society, and that is why criminal justice practitioners are required. These issues include: Drug related activities, these ranges from drug abuse, drug trafficking and drug manufacturing. All these are criminal activities that our society face, it has the ability to interfere with the fundamental functioning of our society there by affecting the other aspects like economy. Drug addiction is a menace to the society which contributes to further crime. The police is criminal justice practitioners are very important in dealing with the drug menace in any society where the police apprehend and the courts punish. Another issue that our society faces is gang related violence, this is one of the major menaces that affects our society. Gangs have the potential of bringing chaos by ricking violence across the society through intimidation and criminal activities of theft and/or murder. The criminal justice practitioners are endowed with the responsibility of ensuring gangs and gang related activities are stopped and are effectively dealt with. The other issue facing our society today is terrorism this is menace with the potential of destabilizing the entire society halting the society and pushing it into chaos. Terrorist activities are criminal activities that have can lead to very many deaths, it is therefore vital that terrorists and various terrorist activities are investigated well before any of these activities actually take place and if they do a proper investigation is carried out to find out people involved and at this point is where criminal justice practitioners come in, they stop terrorist activities, investigate then punish all involved. (Neubauer&Fradella, 2015)

The bottom line then is criminal justice practitioners are very vital in a society, they should form the fabric and backbone that maintains a society. They ensure that all checks and balances within the society run smoothly and that the society is maintained by preventing chaos. (Maguire &Duffee,2015)

Reference

Bottoms, A., &Tankebe, J. (2012). Beyond procedural justice: A dialogic approach to legitimacy in criminal justice. The journal of criminal law and criminology, 119-170.

Emmerson, B., Ashworth, A., & Macdonald, A. (2012). Human rights and criminal justice. Sweet & Maxwell.

Neubauer, D. W., &Fradella, H. F. (2015). America's courts and the criminal justice system. Cengage Learning.

Maguire, E. R., &Duffee, D. E. (Eds.). (2015). Criminal justice theory: Explaining the nature and behavior of criminal justice. Routledge.