Conflicting Reward Systems and Their Impact on Criminal Justice Research Paper - 1

Conflicting Reward Systems and Their Impact on Criminal Justice Administation - Research Paper Example It is also going to analyze why a person ‘A’ should not suffer at the expense of reward of person ‘B’. Conflicting Reward Systems and Their Impact on Criminal Justice Administration Introduction: The role of criminal justice system According to May, (2008), criminal justice is rights respecting treatment that is deserved by virtue of criminal conduct. It is concerned with the responsibility of controlling crime and ensuring the due process is followed. For example, in US justice system, prisons are expected to provide basic human needs in a favorable environment. There is a very great relationship between law enforcement, the judicial system, and the corrections. The law enforcement agents are mandated to ensure there is law and order in the society (May, 2008). The judicial system issues judgments to people found guilty. They send the criminals to correction centers where the criminals obtain various correction programs as they serve their jail term. In thi s case, prisons renounce idleness and offers constructive employment, and recreation activities to the prisoners. Harr, (2008) noted that the criminal justice system addresses the human needs of prisoners with an aim of expressing faith in them. This goes in line with the purpose of prisons other than punishing them, to correct the prisoner. This idea helps the prisoners maintain their humanity and cooperate with the programs designed to rehabilitate them. The aim of inclusion of criminal justice system is to abstract values and not to punish the prisoners. Conflicting Reward Systems and Their Impact on Criminal Justice Administration On the other hand, reward systems encompass rewarding specific persons involved in the criminal justice system (Schmalleger, 2007). For example, judges are re-elected due to their hard sentencing of criminals by sending them to prison. The same case applies to prosecutors who move large number of cases to court alongside quick settlement of the cases. However, such a move can only serve the interest of the rewarded persons while neglecting the interest of others (Schmalleger, 2007). In light to this assertion, it can be argued that hard sentencing of criminals for example drug addicts would not add any value to the criminals. After completion of their jail term, drug addicts can still go back to their usual habit of addiction. In this regard, instead of judges sending such criminals to prison, it would be much better if the drug addicts are referred to drug rehabilitation centers Harr, 2008). This way, they would get necessary treatment and counseling that would see them abandon drugs and start a new life. Although not all criminals can be subjected to alternative correction centers, most of them can actually be subjected to such institutions. Some of the most effective correction institutions that could help criminals deter from committing crimes includes boot camps, which are particularly practiced in military setups, house arr ests, restitution and electronic monitoring (Hodge, 2009). If these programs are more utilised, the criminal justice systems would be seen to be meeting their goals and objectives. In some instances, additional funding for expanding jail facilities is another form of reward for those jails that are seen to be efficient in being harsh on criminals. This reward tends to pay no attention to programs like rehabilitation centers which have facilities like education and various job training which would go a long way in correcting criminals (Solhkhah & Wilens,