Necessity, Evolution, Merits, Drawbacks, and Establishment of Criminal Justice

History of How Criminal Justice Started
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History of How Criminal Justice Started Criminal justice is currently an indispensable feature of society. It takes keen thinking to visualize an epoch of the inexistence of criminal justice and the subsequent progressive evolution to its current state. One of the primary reasons is that crime is conceivably as old as humans unless one presumes a utopia. Therefore, the hypothesis demands the existence of a system or a model for handling criminal cases. In this case, a good model ensures proper mechanisms of determining offense, proper and commensurate retribution, and formidable dissuasion from indulgence in criminal activities. Preceding generations and societies have labored to birth the existent criminal justice characterized by the described attributes. Historical analysis is essential to different fields of study because it promotes the generous appreciation of developed concepts, thus, eliminating superfluous criticism. Historical study guides the improvement of the relevant concepts. In this context, the history of criminal justice is key to the effective practice of law because of the obtained holistic conception essential for dispelling radicalism. A comprehensive historical study of criminal justice should cover its necessity, evolution, merits, drawbacks, and establishment. The existence of crime primarily necessitates criminal justice. Jones and Johnstone (2011) claim that the one sure way of stopping a decorated speaker or a college professor in the middle lecture is to ask for the definition of the subject term. It is easier to list characteristics than to give a precise definition in this context. A definition is accompanied by the risk of excluding critical aspects of the subject. Although the term ‘crime’ is regularly used and intuitively conceivable, nailing the definition is not as effortless. Three of the Webster definitions provided by Jones and Johnstone (2011) define crime as a violation of established law. The existence of some form of law is a prerequisite for the crime. Crime is not readily perceptible apart from the law. The fourth definition describes crime as “an offense against morality; sin” (Jones & Johnstone, 2011). The definition implies acts against the prescribed moral conduct and inherently evil others. As a result, the present doctrine is mainly subjective. A lot of historical time must have been dedicated to defining these subjectivities. The definition of crime is critical to criminal justice. Attorneys spend much of court time persuading the court on guilt or innocence. However, the determination of crime only depicts half of the abstractions of criminal justice. The second phase entails retribution. A standard system is necessary to guide the punishment of the determined crimes to minimize bias. Noting that this segment has depicted an advanced criminal justice status is essential. The depiction at the advanced level has the incidental effect of implying evolution. Thus, the definition of crime and the formulation of the modes of retribution characterize the evolution of criminal justice. The most primitive method of solving disputes involved the powerful subduing the less powerful. One obvious flaw in this primitive system is that justice will unlikely occur if the powerful individual is the offender (Shelden & Vasiliev, 2017). It foreshadowed a more reliable system that was yet to be established. In the envisioned system, the executor of justice should be perpetually strong while the offenders are perpetually weak. In this case, the ancient societies failed to conceive that people could introduce a third-powerful party to persons who the conflicting parties are mandatorily subservient. In addition to being powerful, the third party should also observe objectivity and neutrality (Knepper & Johansen, 2016). Since these qualities could not be met purely by human will, they necessitated the establishment of institutions. The desire for revenge was the primary impetus for the ancient societies of Athens and Rome designing these institutions. In Athens, Shelden and Vasiliev (2017) state that institutionalization occurred through upgrading the view of crime from an offense against an individual to an offense against the whole community. The administration of punishment also shifted from the offended persons to established state institutions. People could no longer avenge an offense against the community in a nonconventional approach. However, the protection offered by the law became available to every citizen through state institutions (Shelden & Vasiliev, 2017). Since an aristocracy ruled Athens, it may be feared that the members of the aristocracy could manipulate the laws for their convenience. As a result, the relatively small aristocracy was retrained by the fear of revolution among the disproportionately larger citizenry (Knepper & Johansen, 2016). Other than its population, the Athenian citizenry did not exhibit any other form of power and consisted of the artisans, peasant proprietors, and generally a low class of freemen and slaves. The a...