Investigating Justice, Punishment, and Rehabilitation by Public Services

Justice

Investigate How The Public Services Ensure That Justice, Punishment And Rehabilitation Is Carried Out Effectively.

Explore a Range Of Current Issues That Relate To Effective Justice, Sentencing And Rehabilitation.

Analyse How The Key Current Issues Relating To Justice, Punishment And Rehabilitation Have Changed Over The Past Ten Years.

Evaluate How Effective The Public Services Are In Delivering Effective Justice, Punishment And Rehabilitation By Responding To Current And Emerging Issues.

The “Police and Justice Act 2006” is an act by the “Parliament of the United Kingdom”, that provides the course of justice for police force. It extends to areas of England and Wales. There are various provisions of the Act which includes details regarding police forces, justice, anti-social behaviour, addressing various inspectorates along with miscellaneous section. When a crime is reported at the UK police force then the police investigates the case to resolve the crime. The “Crown Prosecution Service” then advices the police regarding the possible prosecution of the case and reviews the case as submitted by the police. Then they determine charges for the defendants and then prosecutes on the basis of evidence. Justice, punishment, and rehabilitation is decided upon the police is implemented. The current scope of discussion investigating ways in which the public service of police provides justice, punishment and rehabilitation in an effective manner.   

The Law enforcement within the UK is developed differently within each legal system, such as Northern Ireland, England and Wales and Scotland (Myhill, and Bradford, 2013, p 340). The law enforcement is carried out by the regional police force by police officers within a particular jurisdiction. There are regional agencies that carries out specialists’ units. However, for ensuring justice police officers are provided with certain powers to execute their duties in a complete manner (Porter, and Prenzler, 2012, p 165). Their primary duties consists of protecting life and property, in preventing as well as in detecting criminal offences for the preservation of peace.

Police provides justice by deciding upon the course of case investigation when a crime is reported. Sometimes investigations might require a long time and certain cases remains unsolved (Bradford, Quinton, Myhill, and Porter, 2014, p 125). The police might at times not catch the offender as there might be evidences lacking. In case of minor crimes, the police force ensures justice by providing a warning or caution, a penalty notice or police fine, or a community resolution. Then the victim is made to accept confession in case it is a minor incident. The police force evaluates cost of imprisonment against the cost of community sentence when providing justice for a minor incident (Johnstone, 2013). BBC while freedom of information depicted charges against 916 people dropped in 2016-17 due to lack of evidence, it is up 70% from 537 in 2014-15. The implication of such enormous cases on public service is tremendous as it is regarded as their failure in closing cases based on evidence. The implication of such cases on the society is that the criminals from these cases continue to roam free due to drop in charges from the convicts.  In one case sexual exploitation of a 14-year-old girl was carried on from September 2016 till March 2018. The police were unable to diagnose and close this case for a prolonged period of time, this led to increased costs of resolving the case. It also implies that more and more police were committed to resolving this crime hence loss of time and resources. Also the implication from this case on the society is tremendous as criminals are not convicted and they roam about committing crime for longer time periods.   

Punishment

Restorative Justice approaches is used in case of community resolution. In such cases the victim is offered an opportunity to be heard and then says it when resolution of offence. It includes agreeing upon restorative or reparative activities charged onto the offender. There might be a number of levels used in the court along with prosecution or it forms part of a sentence (Smith, 2014, p 92). It can enable closure or victims to move on. It enables offender to face consequences of actions. This determines justice effectiveness in case of short custodial sentences (Gregory, 2012, p 200). Digital information presented the main challenges for the police service with smartphones having equivalent to 30,000 pages of A4 paper information. This implied that the police service needed to upgrade their service to resolve cases of digital nature. This reflects the unavailability of resources with police and implies a greater number of unresolved cases. For the society also it means more number of criminals commiting more crimes openly.       

“HM courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS)” administrates for criminal, civil, family courts and tribunals in England and Wales. For the purpose of timely court proceedings, Magistrate courts deals with less serious criminal offences related to motoring offences, being drunk and disorderly and minor criminal damages. Whereas the “Youth courts” includes special magistrates’ courts but deals with the most serious charges against individuals of age between 10 and 17. The “Crown court” deals regarding most serious offences including murder and rape, that are triable by jury and judge.     

When an offender is charged with a crime then the “Crown Prosecution Service” provides advice to the police for possible prosecution by reviewing the case submitted by police. Then they determine charges for the defendants in case of complex and serious cases (Crawford, 2012, p 180). Punishment is decided by the police force in UK and they receive assistance from a number of associated bodies. The court will hold hearing where magistrate or a jury decides individual guilty of crime. Most of the crimes are dealt in a magistrates’ court and in cases of serious crimes such as robbery or murder, they are passed on higher court referred to as the Crown Court.

The offenders are sentenced by magistrates in a magistrates’ court or by a judge in the Crown Court (Hough, 2012, p 340). They take decision regarding the offenders by reviewing the case provided by the police and decision taken by the police. The magistrates or judge undertake consideration for the need to punish the offender, protect the public, or change the offender’s behaviour, cutting crime in the future or getting the offender make up for their criminal activity (Matthews, and Young, 2013). Mahmood Hussein Mattan hanged on 3 September 1952 for murder of Lily Volpert and his conviction amongst the CCRC’s referrals.     

Rehabilitation

Punishment can be of various types and sometimes forms of punishment can also be provided to the offender. Caution can be given to an individual aged 10 or more for minor crimes. Once the offender admits to an offence and agrees to be cautioned then such can be proceeded. Otherwise the individual can be arrested and charged in case the offender does not agrees (Harkin, 2015, p 50). Caution does not include criminal conviction, however in case used as an evidence of bad character in case of further crimes committed.  

An offender can receive conditional caution as well in case an individual is charged with a crime and does not follow the conditions (Easton, and Piper, 2012). Police forces can include such conditional caution in case of going for treatment related to drug abuse or fixing a damage to a property. Police can issue penalty notices for disorder in offences such as shoplifting, being drunk and disorderly in public places or possessing cannabis. Such penalty notices are used as punishments in cases one is 18 or over. The police will ask to sign penalty notice ticket as a punishment being issued for the crime (Maruna, and Immarigeon, 2013). In case the individual disagrees with such penalty notices then he/ she can be taken for trial but does not require paying fine.

Rehabilitation is the central goal of correctional system. The police system in the UK decides upon rehabilitation for certain type of offenders to treat them such that they can lead a crime free lifestyle. Such programs runs across various time period and is a part of correctional programming (Silke, 2014). The course of such programs includes substance abuse, mental health, substance abuse and educational services. There are various speciality programs that are developed for women, parolees and sexual offenders. Such programs have also been introduced in the court system. Rehabilitation program runs over a period of time and is conducted in correctional homes across UK.   

During various instances, if the police or other senior authorities decide upon, they can send the offender to the rehabilitation centre. Earlier there were 35 probation trusts offering rehabilitation to offenders across England and Wales (Padfield, 2011, p 40). There are set up 2 “regional Community Rehabilitation Companies” along with the new “National Probation Service”. They cater services to offenders since June 2014 for areas across Wales and England.

The responsibility of police includes providing justice to offenders and then undertake decision whether to punish them or send them to rehabilitation. Both the organisation’s responsibility includes working collaboratively with one another (Bleakley, Glasgow, and MacAuley, 2012). They strive to manage different types of cases and supervising them. They generally supervise low and medium risk offenders along with short sentenced offenders. They generally delivers sentences outside the court for different offenders with the focus to rehabilitate them and reduce reoffending. The Criminal Justice System functions with the criminal justice agencies for attaining their aims (Iganski, Smith, Dixon, and Bargen, 2011).

The police force in UK found that almost half of all crimes is committed by people those who have already been a part of criminal justice system. In cases of reoffending the estimated costs to the taxpayer is GBP 9.5 to GBP 13 billion per year. Reoffending has been high for quite some time, in-spite of the government spending on offender management (Ministry of Justice, 2013)

Conclusion

In conclusion, the powers for providing justice by the police in England and Wales is defined the statute law. The primary sources of power is conferred by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 along with the Police Act 1996. Police powers are available to an extent to the police community support officers along with other non-warranted positions. Police powers are provided with the constables in law accordance to their rank. The powers are limited and requires clear justification for exercising them.    

References

Bleakley, C.M., Glasgow, P. and MacAuley, D.C., 2012. PRICE needs updating, should we call the POLICE?.

Bradford, B., Quinton, P., Myhill, A. and Porter, G., 2014. Why do ‘the law’comply? Procedural justice, group identification and officer motivation in police organizations. European journal of criminology, 11(1), pp.110-131.

Crawford, A., 2012. Plural policing in the UK: policing beyond the police. In Handbook of policing (pp. 175-209). Willan.

Easton, S. and Piper, C., 2012. Sentencing and punishment: The quest for justice. Oxford University Press.

Gregory, L., 2012. Time and Punishment: a comparison of UK and US time bank use in criminal justice systems. Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, 28(3), pp.195-208.

Harkin, D.M., 2015. The police and punishment: Understanding the pains of policing. Theoretical Criminology, 19(1), pp.43-58.

Hough, M., 2012. Researching trust in the police and trust in justice: A UK perspective. Policing and Society, 22(3), pp.332-345.

Iganski, P., Smith, D., Dixon, L. and Bargen, J., 2011. Rehabilitation of hate crime offenders. Equality and Human Rights Commission Scotland.

Johnstone, G., 2013. Restorative justice: Ideas, values, debates. Routledge.

Maruna, S. and Immarigeon, R. eds., 2013. After crime and punishment. Routledge.

Matthews, R. and Young, J. eds., 2013. The new politics of crime and punishment. Routledge.

Ministry of Justice, 2013. Transforming rehabilitation: A revolution in the way we manage offenders (Vol. 8517). The Stationery Office.

Myhill, A. and Bradford, B., 2013. Overcoming cop culture? Organizational justice and police officers’ attitudes toward the public. Policing: an international journal of police strategies & management, 36(2), pp.338-356.

Padfield, N., 2011. Judicial rehabilitation? A view from England. European Journal of Probation, 3(1), pp.36-49.

Porter, L.E. and Prenzler, T., 2012. Police oversight in the United Kingdom: The balance of independence and collaboration. International journal of law, crime and justice, 40(3), pp.152-171.

Silke, A. ed., 2014. Prisons, terrorism and extremism: Critical issues in management, radicalisation and reform. Routledge.

Smith, A.M., 2014. Police. uk and Data. police. uk: Developing Open Crime and Justice Data for the UK. JeDEM-eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government, 6(1), pp.87-9