The Criminal Justice System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Criminal Justice System - Essay Example Two main models that are used to determine which acts are crimes by society are the consensus model and the conflict model (Farmer 2008). According to the former, criminal behaviour is any act that is in conflict with the beliefs and values of the whole society. This model holds the assumption that as diverse as people and communities are, they can have similar morals. On its part, the conflict model holds that criminal law is determined by those people who hold social, political, and economic power within a given community. One of the theories that apply to crime is the rational choice theory. Also called the decision theory, this theory suggests that humans commit crimes because they serve the interests of the actors or rather bring more benefit as opposed to harm to them. This theory is based on the assumption that the criminal commits crime because they experience a constraint in choice. In this respect, the theory argues that to deter crime effectively, the cost of crime should be set so high that every reasonable person will shun it. The Government Structure As It Applies To the Criminal Justice System The criminal justice system comprises a collection of local, state and federal (public) agencies that are dedicated to dealing with crime (Randolph, 2005). In many cases, the decision of one agency affects the decisions of other agencies in matters related to crime.