The Criminal Justice System Flashcards
What is Actus Reus?
- A guilty act
What is Mens Rea?
- A guilty mind
What are the three tyoes of offence?
- Summary offences
- Either-way offences
- indictable offences
Where are summary offences heard?
- Magistrates court
Where are either-way offences heard?
- Magistrates court
- Crown court
Where are indictable offences heard?
- Crown court
What are the crime trends in the Uk?
- Shoplifting rates on the rise
- Decrease in domestic abuse
- Increase in sexual assault
- Increase in robberies with a knife/sharp instrument
What are the different institutions?
- The police
- The crown prosecution service
- HM courts and tribunals service
- The Home Office
- The Ministry of Justice
- The Attorney General
What is the role of the police?
- Responsible for investigating crime, collecting evidence and arresting or detaining suspected offenders
What is the role of the crown prosecution service?
- prosecutes criminal cases
- independent of police and government
- overseen by his majesty’s crown prosecution service inspectorate
What is the role of the Her Majesty’s courts and tribunals service?
- responsible for the administration of courts and tribunals in England and Wales
What are his majesty’s prison and probation service?
- Responsible for carrying out sentences given by the courts, in custody and in the community and rehabilitation through education and employment
What is the role of the home office?
- The lead government department for crime and the police, and other matters
What is the role of the Ministry of Justice?
- Responsible for the courts, prisons, probation services and attendance centres
What is the role of the Attorney General?
- The chief legal adviser to the Government (superintends the CPS and Serious Fraud Office)
- Responsible for the Government Legal Department (supported by the solicitor general)
What are the theories of criminal justice?
- Due process model
- Crime control model
- Rehabilitation model
- Restorative jusice model
- Bureaucratic module
What is the due process model?
- Aims for a just process through fairness and rules to protect the accused
What is the crime control model?
- Aims primarily for controlling crime
What is the rehabilitation model?
- Aims for rehabilitation of the offender
What is the restorative justice model?
- Aim is that the offender recognizes their responsibility and makes amends to the victim
What is the Bureaucratic module?
- Aims for the efficient management of the case and the criminal in the system
What are the stages of a criminal case?
- Pre-trial
- The trial
- After the trial
What happens at the pre-trial stage?
- Reporting a crime
- Investigation (police, other investigative body)
- Charging (police, CPS)
What happens at a trial?
- The courts and the plea
- The verdict (beyond a reasonable doubt)
- Sentencing
- Appeals (against the verdict or sentence)
What happens after the trial?
- Prison
- Rehabilitation
What happens during an investigation?
- Police powers are governed by the police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and codes of practice
- Main powers (stop and search, arrest and detain, to question, to enter and search premises)
What are the two types of bail?
- Unconditional
- Conditional
What are the two tests for the decision to prosecute set out by the Crown Prosecution Service?
- Is there sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction?
- Is prosecution in the public interest?
What are the statistics relating to ethnicity and justice?
- Black people are more likely to be stopped and searched in comparison to white people
- Black people are more likely to be arrested in comparison to white people
What is a guilty plea?
- where the defendant pleads guilt, the only function for the court is to sentence
What is a non-guilty plea?
- where the defendant pleads not guilty, the court must hear evidence, reaching findings, determine guilt and sentence, if guilty
What are the principles and purposes of sentencing?
- Punishment of the offender
- Reduction of crime
- Reform and rehabilitation of offenders
- Protection of the public
- Making of reparation to persons affected
What is the principle of the youth justice system?
- Prevent offending or reoffending by persons under 18
- Welfare of the offender
What are the causes of backlog in the crown court?
- High number of ‘ineffective trials’ (listed trials that do not go ahead on the day scheduled
- Number of criminal law barristers and criminal law duty solicitors decreasing
- Hearings are taking longer due to the higher proportion of complex cases and more cases where the defendant pleads not guilty
- Measures taken by Government are not effectively bringing the number of outstanding cases down
What is the impact of the backlog in the Crown Court?
- Deterioration of victims’ mental wellbeing
- Defendants waiting a long time for trial
- Contributing to acute prison population pressures (the number of people in prison on remand, awaiting a trial or sentencing is at its highest level for at least 50 years)
