Introduction
People believe that the development of society is possible when every member of this society follows some stated rules. It is possible to control the order in-country and unite people around reaching some common goals. Supremacy of laws in a country provides fair coexistence of different systems within society. It is important to follow laws to create a stable and prosperous environment. However, there are always people who violate set norms and rules. They are criminals. Respectively, society must do something to punish breakers, keep them from imposing damages to society, and show others that violation of law will result in strict punishment. It is a primary task of the criminal justice system. The paper aims to analyze the modern criminal justice system and ways to improve it considering the role of the state and church.
Challenges of Criminal Justice System
The modern world puts forward a lot of challenges to the criminal justice system. As a result, this system cannot be stable. It depends on the fast technological and demographical development of mankind in recent years. Growing tolerance to some particular actions, opinions, and movements influences the process of the system’s improvement. The world has become more united, and crimes may have a global character nowadays.
Traditional institutions such as family and church are not so influential nowadays in the formation of public opinion and behavior. The role of the family is changing because of demographic trends. According to the report of the Summit on Global Aging (2007), most older people today have children, and many have grandchildren and living siblings. However, in countries with very low birth rates, future generations will have few if any siblings. The global trend toward having fewer children assures that there will be less potential care and support for older people from their families in the future.
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Taking into consideration these trends, the current criminal justice system should be more flexible. It should account for all new requirements of society. International experience should be used because different countries are successful in fighting against criminals. Government should not try to build an ideal system of punishments. One of the final goals of human development should be a building of an effective civil and humane society. People must understand that the criminal justice system is only an instrument of building an effective society. The modern criminal system should be targeted not only on punishment but on education and changing of the behavior of people that do not want to follow rules.
The creation of an effective criminal justice system should not be a task only of respective regulative bodies such as police, courts, and other similar institutions. Generally, the whole society should take an active part in the fight against crime. Among the most influential institutions in this context may be family, church, and education. A friendly family creates the appropriate background needed to prevent people from making serious mistakes in the future. The same function is performed by education (schools, universities, etc). The church is also an important institute that can play a crucial role in the fight against crime.
Church has always played a great role in the life of any person. Especially it was actually in the traditional society, which has existed to 1750. A church and a state were not separated. Respectively, the church was able to decide what crime was and what was not. As a result, appropriate punishments were chosen. Nowadays, the church does not have such a strong influence. However, it can influence the criminal justice system via education and moral support. A lot of people support some kind of religion. Crimes are strictly forbidden by religion. It will help to build an effective criminal justice system. However, the church cannot play the same role in the fight against crime nowadays. It is a very conservative institution, and the world has changed significantly in recent years. For example, a lot of crimes are now quite tolerated by society. The last three decades in America have been the decades of increasing expansion of legal and moral boundaries of tolerance for a wide variety of behaviors related to sex, body, and intimacy. There is now a high degree of legal protections and moral tolerance for cohabitation, same-sex unions, unwed motherhood, teen pregnancy, inter-racial marriage, no-fault divorce, surrogate mothering, reproductive rights, and adult pornography.
Conclusion
Modern society is changing at a significant pace. As a result, the criminal justice system also should change to meet new requirements. It should account for all the current trends in the development of mankind. The system should renew the role of such traditional institutions as family and church in fighting against crime. People must intend to build an effective civil and humane society. It should be the final goal of human development. The criminal justice system is only an instrument of building an effective society.
