Criminal Justice Book Vocab Flashcards
Social Order
The condition of a society characterized by social integration, consensus, smooth functioning, and lack of interpersonal and institutional conflict. Also, a lack of social disorganization.
Social Disorganization
A condition said to exist when a group is faced with social change, uneven development of culture, maladaptiveness, disharmony, conflict, and lack of consensus.
Crime
Conduct in violation of the criminal laws of a state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction, for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse.
Individual Rights
The rights guarantee to all members of American society by the U.S. Constitution (especially those rights found int he first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights). These rights are particularly important to criminal defendants facing formal processing by the criminal justice system.
Individual-Rights Advocate
One who seeks to protect personal freedoms within the process of criminal justice.
Public-Order advocate
One who believes that under certain circumstances involving a criminal threat to public safety, the interest of society should take precedence over individual rights.
Justice
The principle of fairness; the ideal of moral equity.
Social Justice
An ideal that embraces all aspects of civilized life and that is linked to fundamental notions of fairness and to cultural beliefs about right and wrong.
Civil Justice
The civil, the law of civil procedure, and the array of procedures and activities having to do with private rights and remedies sought by civil actions. Civil justice cannot be separate from social justice because the justice enacted in our nation’s civil courts reflects basic American understandings of right and wrong.
Criminal Justice
In the strictest sense, the criminal (penal) law, the law of criminal procedure, and the array of procedures and activities having to do with the enforcement of this body of law. Criminal justice cannot be separated from social justice because the justice enacted in our nation’s criminals courts reflect the basic American understanding of right and wrong.
Administration of Justice
The performance of any of the following activities detection, apprehension, detention, pretrial release, post-trial release, adjudication, correctional supervision, or rehabilitation of accused persons or criminal offenders.
Criminal Justice System
The aggregate of all operating and administrative or technical support agencies that perform criminal justice functions. The basic divisions of the operational aspects of criminal justice are law enforcement, courts, and corrections.
Consensus Model
A criminal justice perspective that assumes that the system’s components work together harmoniously to achieve the social products we call justice.
Conflict Model
A criminal justice perspective that assumes that the system’s components functions primarily to serve their own interests. According to this theoretical framework, justice is more a product of conflicts among agencies within the system than it is a result of cooperation among components agencies.
Due Process
A right guaranteed by the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution and generally understood, in legal context, to mean the due course of legal proceedings according to the rules and forms established for the protection of individual rights. In criminal proceedings, due process of law is generally understood to include the following basic element: a law creating and defining the offense, an impartial tribunal having jurisdictional authority over the case, accusation in proper form, notice and opportunity to defend, trial according to established procedure, and discharge from all restraints or obligations unless convicted.
