Criminal Responsibility In The Criminal Justice System

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Individual responsibility provides a just and effective base that current Australian legal system. This following essay will analyse how the criminal justice system rests upon the idea of individualised responsibility with reference to the main two core principles that make person criminal liable, these being the Latin phrases Mens Rea “guilty mind and atus reas “Guilty act”. These two core principles will then be used to critically analyse the current model of individual responsibility to support that it is an effective and fair system for Australian criminal law. Finally this essay will conclude by outlining another alternative to the current model of individualised responsibility, which theory of scientific critique.

Criminal responsibility …show more content…

Criminal responsibility is the moral practice of holding an individual accountable for there crimes. This responsibility allows people who are found guilty of crimes to endure punishment or rehabilitation, which can vary in different countries and legal systems. This not only punishes and discourages crime but also allow people to see the tools of state power and the symbolic power that it has to show the community the consequences for the individual, at least when looking at serious criminal offences. This demand on individual responsibility also hold person to account for the conduct, and often society want a response that condemns remorse or regret for their actions and to reflect on their tort (Tadros, 2010). Although individual responsibility holds persons reasonable for crimes, there are certain circumstances which persons are exempt. For example, children under a certain age to not have the mental capacity of being responsible agents which refereed back to as the Latin term ‘doli incpax’, incapable of forming intent to commit a tort. In Queensland, the federal law surrounding criminal liability states that persons under the age of 14 are doli incapax (Australian Parliament, nd) This exemption can also be perceived with persons who have mental illness. These exemption are reasonable due to that some people are incapable of controlling or understanding their mental and physical actions, therefore providing reasonable outcomes for those don’t have mental guilt or physical capability to commit a crime (Australian law reform commission, 2015). This acknowledgment to those who don’t understand criminal wrongs in relation to Mens rea and Actus reas, caters to the society diversity and overall doesn’t make a person liable for a criminal act that they didn’t have the capacity to undertake.

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