Criminal Justice Professionals and society

There are many types of people that make up our society. For criminal justice practitioners these people can be broken up in to two groups the law abiding citizens and the criminals. The role of the criminal justice practitioner can at time be simple for example: when it comes to the law abiding citizen the role is to serve and protect. But when it comes to criminal the role of the criminal justice practitioner can become complex. In this paper I will attempt to explore the criminal justice professional’s role in fulfilling society as well as individual needs.

There are three parts that make up criminal justice police, courts, and corrections. Each part consists of professionals that play a role in contributing to the reform of key social issues. Issues like cyber crimes, drugs, and school shootings. Each of these issues need criminal justice practitioners on all three levels to aide in some type of reform to make the individual (the victim) and society feel safe. On the web site Interpol 100 years of international police cooperation cybercrimes are said to be “one of the fastest growing areas of crime.”

This is where criminals are taking to their computers to commit crimes like “Attacks against computer data and systems, identity theft, the distribution of child sexual abuse images, internet auction fraud, the penetration of online financial services, as well as the deployment of viruses, Botnets, and various email scams such as phishing”.. So how does cybercrimes impact criminal justice practitioners, with technology constantly changing the need for more education in technology and cyber laws are needed if the practitioner is going to effectively find and stop the criminals, dole out punishment as well as seek retribution for the victims.

On of the saddest social issue plaguing America has to be school shootings. There are many instances of school shooting throughout history but the one that stands out to me is the Columbine High School shootings where on April 20, 1999 seventeen year old Dylan Klebold and eighteen year old Eric Harris committed suicide after killing twelve students, one teacher and wounding twenty-one others.

While most of the country sadly wondered how and where did they get the guns and ammunition the criminal justice practitioners were hard at work gathering evidence, securing the crime scene, tending to the survivors and what I think is the hardest part informing parents that they’re children had died. In this instance the criminal justice practitioners were the police department, deputies, and armed security working for the school. I would imagine that after working the crime scene that many of the officers grieved right along with the families.

As I researched this part of my paper I could not find one article on how this impacted the police all I can say is that as a parent I can only imagine that some of them must have needed counseling. I can also imagine the law makers coming together to find a way to prevent this kind of shooting from happening again. I would rather not get into the whole gun control issue because frankly I don’t believe there is a law that could be passed that would prevent guns from getting into the wrong hand.

The only thing gun laws would do, is make it hard for law abiding citizens to protect themselves. Another issue that criminal justice practitioners have to deal with is drugs. This problem is widespread to say the least because it not only affects the user. It is a known fact that when people use drug they will do whatever it takes to feed their habit even break the law. Drug abusers commit crimes like prostitution, robbery, breaking and entering and assault. Trying to make a person stop using drugs is like trying to stop the sun from rising.

A drug addict has to want to stop until that time it is up to the police to take steps to keep society safe. During the Reagan era there was a zero tolerance policy for drug abusers. This kept police and corrections officers busy because the policy was so strict that arrest and incarceration rates increased at a rapid pace. That was during the late 80’s and the war on drugs is still moving full steam ahead. The role of the criminal justice professional in serving individual and societal needs