On the other side of the criminal justice spectrum, there is Germany, a nation with a shaky and complex history. Until October of 1990, Germany was divided into two separate nations, West Germany and East Germany. The criminal justice system existing in modern Germany represents a combination of “Civil Law” as well as “Common Law.” The history and culture of Germany is deeply rooted into the crafting and maintenance of the German criminal justice system. In Germany, “obedience to the laws of the state, and firm discipline conforming itself with these laws, are, in Germany thought to be the most needful things in public life (Hartmann, 1911). This attitude towards obedience and discipline is seen throughout German history and is still to this …show more content…
Each state, under the German constitution, has the authority to generate individual police law and force. Furthermore, each state has various divisions in the police force. The major divisions include the Schutzpolizeiz, the Kriminalpolizei, and the Bundesgrenzshutz (Dammer & Albanese, 2011, p. 100-101). The Schutzpolizeiz are the general police force that handles most aspects of law enforcement. The Kriminalpolizei are private, “plainclothes” police that process more serious cases and investigations. The Bundesgrenzshutz fall into two categories: border police and police handling terrorist-related matters (Dammer & Albanese, 2011, p. 100-101). As mentioned before, the German judicial system follows a combination of Civil Law and Common Law and furthermore grants the right to a counsel, as well as the right to bail. Although the defendant does not appear before a jury, the defendant will appear before a panel of judges who will hear the defendants cases and decide through majority vote whether the accused is guilty or not. The accused also has the right to remain silent for the entirety of the case and allow the appointed counsel to speak instead ("The German Code of Criminal Procedure ", …show more content…
The three courts are broken into: “(1) ordinary courts, which handle criminal and most civil cases; (2) specialized courts, which hear cases related to administrative issues; and (3) constitutional courts, which deal with judicial review and constitutional interpretation” (Dammer & Albanese, 2011, p. 157). All courts in Germany, besides the Federal Supreme Court of Justice, are state courts, meaning all judges operate under the state in which they reside, instead of the federal government (Krey, 1999). In the ordinary court system, the court is broken into four tiers, which consist of the Amtsgerichte, the Landgericht, the Oberlandesgerichte courts, and the Bundesgerichte. The Amtsgerichte deals with minor and local crimes and is often staffed by a single judge instead of a panel. The Landgericht are regional courts that try major criminal and civil cases. The Oberlandesgerichte courts deal with cases mostly relating to treason and “anti-constitutional” behavior. Germany’s specialized courts operate on the local, regional, and federal level and deal with “social security, labor, tax law, and administrative law, and patent law” (Dammer & Albanese, 2011, p.
The Gestapo was an information gathering and law enforcing body of the Nazi regime, which began its operation in 1933. The organization has been examined though many lenses, some more popular than others. The article, “ The Gestapo and German Society” by Robert Gellately argues how ultimately it was society that fueled the Gestapo’s power beyond the limits of what they could have achieved without society’s help. Other perspectives into the analysis of the Gestapo have included the organizations legal history and insights into key leaders such as Henirich Himmler. What some of these other perspectives lack is a thorough assessment of the Gestapo’s operations. Gellately created a compelling argument by determining what led to a Gestapo case being initiated and the number of employees per branch compared to the population to conclude that the Gestapo lacked the physical resources to be the motor of the terror system within the Nazi regime. Yet, the author leaves room to argue that German society had adequate reason to fear the brutal behaviour of the Gestapo regardless of private citizen’s cooperation in cases.
The differences between the German and the American correctional systems are far-reaching. Simply by looking at recent incarceration statistics, one can tell that practices must vary greatly. In 2011, the Department of Justice in Washington reported a total prison population of 2,239,751 prisoners and detainees in the United States ("International Centre for Prison Studies", 2011). This translates to a prison population rate of 716 per 100,000 of national population. The prison occupancy level based on official capacity was determined to be 99%. In the same year in Germany, the State Ministries of Justice across the 16 G...
The individuals within our society have allowed the people to assess and measure the level of focus and implementation of our justice system to remedy the modern day crime which conflicts with the very existence of our social order. Enlightening us to the devices that will further, establish the order of our society, reside in our ability to observe the Individual’s rights for public order. The governance of our present day public and social order co-exist within the present day individual. Attempts to recognize the essentiality of equality in hopes of achieving an imaginable notion of structure and order, has led evidence-based practitioners such as Herbert Packer to approach crime and the criminal justice system through due process and crime control. A system where packers believed in which ones rights are not to be infringed, defrauded or abused was to be considered to be the ideal for procedural fairness.
First, according to justice.gov, “The federal court system has three main levels: district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States.” The courts all have a different role to play in the judicial system. Court systems exist to provide justice for all. Now, the district court system is the beginning of the judicial system. A good amount of the cases handled by the district court system are either criminal or civil trial cases.
The criminal justice system is a group of institutions that work together to protect a society, prevent and control crime, and maintain justice; enforcing the laws regulated by society. As the years have gone by and society has evolved; so have the criminal justice system and its methods to accomplish its role in society. This short analysis will evaluate the main facts that have been affecting the criminal justice system for decades and have influenced the evolution the justice system is enduring in a changing society (Muraski, 2009). Amongst the changes in the system, we will discuss the effect the changes have had on the citizens and how their perceptions have evolved as well.
Prosecutors have been slacking on the prosecution of Nazi affiliates for long enough, and it’s time for justice to be served. German laws concerning war crimes have recently taken a change for the better. According to Spiegel, a well respected international source for news world wide, stated that a prior conviction of a Nazi concentration camp guard for the murders of thousands of Jews sparked hope in the search for justice. “Demjanjuk was found guilty by a Munich court and sentenced to five years in jail for being an accessory to the murder of 28,060 Jews while he was a guard at Sobibor in occupied Poland.” According to Kurt Schrimm, a German prosecutor, “the Demjanjuk conviction represented a new interpretation of the law.” Because of Demjanjuk’s conviction, prosecutors no longer need to establish culpability in specific murders to secure a conviction. Being an accomplice to the murders that took place in the Holocaust is now enough to find Oskar Gröning guilty for the countless charges he is being charged with. Therefore, under the German legal system, Gröning is guilty for the act of supporting the Nazi regime’s efforts to extinct the Jews and conquer the European
The criminal trial process is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society to a great extent. For the law to be effective, the criminal trial process must reflect what is accepted by society to be a breach of moral and ethical conduct and the extent to which protections are granted to the victims, the offenders and the community. For these reasons, the criminal trial process is effectively able to achieve this in the areas of the adversary system, the system of appeals, legal aid and the jury system.
The criminal justice system is always criticized for a range of issues concerning the injustices that has taken place throughout history and even today. Many political leaders and social activists have sought to reform the criminal justice system; however, some have realized that there are systematic barriers that inhibit reformation. Political ...
Within the Federal Government there are three main branches; “the Legislative, the Judicial, and Executive” (Phaedra Trethan, 2013). They have the same basic shape and the same basic roles were written in the Constitution in 1787.
When an individual enters the criminal justice system, it always begins with the police. So in order for police to be involved in any situation, there has to be a crime committed or violation of any law which has been put in place by the government. As the police act as the enforcement agents of these laws, they are the first ones to be involved. There are four steps that police follows when there is a crime – the crime itself, the report of the crime, the investigation of the crime, and the arrest to finish this process – these are the very basic avenues which police follows.
...ns constitute a structural network of supervision, in which individuals may not only be subjected to power, but also play a role in employing and exercising power. Moreover, individuals internalize such and act accordingly. As such, there has been a greater possibility for intervention in individuals’ lives, not only in terms of illegal actions but also crimes against abnormalities. The aim of contemporary discipline is the transformation of individuals into productive forces of society. The basic functioning of society rests on such. Ultimately, the nineteenth century penal regime- not limited to the judicial system- has been largely successful in exerting disciplinary power. Not only has disciplinary power dispersed outside the walls of prison, but moreover, members of society have remained unaware of its presence, as they conform to and participate in it.
“In the mid-1850’s, crime and punishment were regulated by “Criminal Code of 1734”, which was based on shaming, fines, corporal punishment, and even the death penalty,” (Von Hofer p.171). In 1855, the Swedish Government abolished the act of corporal punishment. The Laws of Sweden have changed over the years, through reforms, which created the establishment of: “The New Criminal Code of 1865”, which had two main sanctions, 1) fines and 2) imprisonment (hard labor & simple prison). This new code created the aspect of suspended sentences for well-behaved inmates, as well as introduced parole in 1946. Another reform which brought changes to the criminal justice system of Sweden was the creation of the Centralized Police Force in 1965 as well as a new and improved New Criminal Code of 1965. The new criminal code was established to cover and summarize all of the reforms made from the late-1920’s to the mid-1960’s. (Van Hofer p.
The definition of justice and the means by which it must be distributed differ depending on an individual’s background, culture, and own personal morals. As a country of many individualistic citizens, the United States has always tried its best to protect, but not coddle, its people in this area. Therefore, the criminal justice history of the United States is quite extensive and diverse; with each introduction of a new era, more modern technologies and ideals are incorporated into government, all with American citizens’ best interests in mind.
The criminal justice system views any crime as a crime committed against the state and places much emphasis on retribution and paying back to the community, through time, fines or community work. Historically punishment has been a very public affair, which was once a key aspect of the punishment process, through the use of the stocks, dunking chair, pillory, and hangman’s noose, although in today’s society punishment has become a lot more private (Newburn, 2007). However, it has been argued that although the debt against the state has been paid, the victim of the crime has been left with no legal input to seek adequate retribution from the offender, leaving the victim perhaps feeling unsatisfied with the criminal justice process. Furthermore, can formal social control institutions such as the criminal justice system and the government provide the best aspect of producing conformity and law abiding behaviour? Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory is concerned with what effect formal institutions have on conformity in individuals and in particular, how law abiding behaviour is produced due to these institutions (Walklate, 2005).
Punishing the unlawful, undesirable and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has experienced a variety of transformations throughout history. Although the concept of retribution has remained a constant (the idea that the law breaker must somehow pay his/her debt to society), the methods used to enforce and achieve that retribution has changed a great deal. The growth and development of society along with an underlying, perpetual fear of crime are heavily linked to the use of vastly different forms of punishment that have ranged from public executions, forced labor, penal welfarism and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years.