Chapter 13 - The Criminal Justice System

• Criminal justice seeks just and fair outcomes in response to government-defined crimes.
• A crime involves behaviors violating state-defined unacceptable conduct, leading to societal consequences.
• Criminal law and the criminal justice system are related to broader issues of social control.

Informal and Formal Social Control

• Social control is divided into informal and formal categories.
• Informal control: the words and actions of parents, peers, and other members of society used to control others' behaviour.
• Formal control: the state providing formal means of protecting society in exchange for individual freedoms.
• Formal social control is based on the rule of law to supplement informal control.
• Criminal Code of Canada, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and International Human Rights laws are examples of Formal social control.

Justice Perspectives

• Formal justice applies laws and provides a clear system of rules.
• When laws are violated, consequences aim to symbolize public disapproval, deter offenses, and correct offender behavior.
• Procedural justice aims to ensure fairness in rules, policies, and procedures across the criminal justice system, with just outcomes for all.
• The realities of offenders and victims are shaped by their lived experiences and factors like race, gender, power, and privilege.
• Integrating substantive justice with formal justice presents a challenge.

Defining Crime: Structural Functionalists

• Criminal law is a system of rules to protect all society members equally, developed collectively by legislatures.
• The criminal justice system is empowered through a social contract with all members of society to enforce the law for the greater good of society and humanity.
• The definition of crime can change considerably over time depending on what a given society collectively considers deviant.

Defining Crime: Conflict Theorists

• Criminal law focuses on behaviors of the less powerful while ignoring more harmful behaviors by those with economic power.
• Defining crime becomes political, combining power among specific groups, disenfranchising opposed groups, and maintaining existing social relationships.

Defining Crime: Symbolic Interactionists

• One's sense of self is developed through interactions with others.
• Individuals adjust behaviors depending on others' reactions.
• Individuals are labeled deviant only when they accept that label as part of their identity, then they become criminals.
• Behaviors become criminal through "moral entrepreneurs" and interest groups advocating their perspectives.

Measuring Crime

• Qualitative studies provide insights into being an offender, victim, or criminal justice agency employee.
• Official crime reports are collected by criminal justice agencies and aggregated at provincial, regional, and national levels.
• Victimization data is collected via surveys, with findings that less than half of crimes are reported to the police.
• Self-report surveys gather data on individual participation in criminal behavior.

Measuring Crime Statistics in Canada

• Criminal Justice funnel: Cases decrease at every decision point in the CJS due to discretion, dismissals, and not guilty verdicts.
• Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics measures crime statistics in Canada.
• The Crime Rate (per 100,000) allows cross-comparisons of time, cities, provinces, and countries.
• The Crime Severity Index measures the volume and seriousness of crime.

Correlates of Crime

• Criminal justice system is tasked with bringing individuals offenders to justice.
• Causes are linked to broader social, political, and economic inequality beyond police, courts, and corrections.
• Young men have consistently higher crime rates than older men and women of all ages.
• Race/ethnicity, drugs and alcohol addiction, trauma and past victimization are factors.

Race/Ethnicity

• Indigenous peoples are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system in Canada, especially in the prairies.

Pathways of Drug and Alcohol Use

• Psychopharmacological Pathway: ingesting a substance and committing crime because of the biological influence a drug has on a person's body.
• Economic Compulsive Pathway: engaging in violent or property crime to obtain drugs or money to purchase drugs.
• Systemic involvement: participating in the illicit economy to get drugs to clients and participating in turf battles.

Contributing Social Harms

• A relationship between victimization and later criminality.
• Witnessing violence also contributes to socially harmful behaviour.

Criminal Justice System Goals

• Reduce crime by using formal social control.
• Public safety and maintaining a just, peaceful, and safe society are primary goals.
• Six primary goals include denounce, deterrence, separation from society, rehabilitation, reparation, and accountability/responsibility.

Criminal Justice System Components

• A person committing offenses is subject to laws enforced by police officers or officials with arrest and detain powers.
• The person may be charged and ordered to appear before a court of law.
• If found guilty the person may serve time in a provincial correctional or federal penitentiary.

Police Role

• The police serve as the most visible and regular point of contact with criminal justice.
• The police are a social services agency responding to emergencies and crises, including crimes, disputes, collisions, injuries, deaths, mental illness, and locating missing persons.

Court Responsibilities

• After arrest or summons the cases proceeds to the judicial system.
• Administer justice by prosecuting crimes fairly and in accordance with Canada's legal and constitutional structure.
• Rendering decisions regarding culpability and determining appropriate sentences.

Court Levels

• Criminal matters are heard at four levels.
• Provincial/territorial courts address most criminal matters, family law, youth court and small claims.
• Superior Courts (Court of Queens Bench) hears the most serious criminal matters and larger civil disputes.
• Provincial/territorial Court of Appeal hears appeals from the provincial or superior courts.
• Supreme Court of Canada represents national interests and must follow the precedent set by their its decision in other courts.

Correctional System

• Corrections provides supervision and rehabilitation.
• Corrections can occur in the community (probation or parole) or in correctional facilities (incarceration).
• Provincial correctional centers hold offenders on remand or those serving sentences of less than two years less a day.
• Federal penitentiaries serve sentences of 2+ years.

Criminal Justice System Components

• The Criminal Justice System is comprised of: Police, Courts, and Corrections.
• The Criminal Justice System protects the public by safeguarding constitutional protection and human rights.
• The aim of Criminal Justice is to apply policies and practices in a just and fair manner for all Canadians.