Question 1
Discuss the concept of community participation in terms of the criminal justice system.Question 2
Discuss civilian review boards and terms of their advocates and opponents.Answer 1
There is little argument that citizen participation in the criminal justice system is crucial to its effectiveness. Never before in this country has each individual citizens been so aware of crime and its personal costs. Citizens are also more aware that they must participate in their own protection and be responsible for their own actions. Community participation encompasses a wide range of citizen involvement. No longer is the aroused citizen content to permit the professionals to solve the problems of the police, courts, and corrections. Groups of citizens have organized to monitor the performance components of the criminal justice system. Judging from recent political elections, "law and order" has become a visible issue that few office holders or office seekers can afford to ignore. Yet, sometimes a criminal justice agency seems reluctant to be willing to accept outside help from members or groups from the community. Perhaps this is due to a natural suspicion of outsiders on the part of any organization. Yet, this should not deter individuals or groups from seeking to participate in criminal justice activities. The text note that there are two types of community participation: regulatory and supportive. In regulatory participation members of the community regulate components of the criminal justice system. In supportive participation, the community supplements and complements operations of the system. However, no matter what type of community participation occurs, both the citizen and the criminal justice agency have the potential to benefit and our lives will be better for it.Answer 2
Most law enforcement agencies have some internal machinery for reviewing allegations of misconduct against their agents. However, dissatisfaction with this machinery, particularly among members of minority groups, has led to the establishment of civilian review boards, usually in the face of severe police opposition. The typical civilian review board has consisted of seven to nine members, including some members of the police, but with a civilian majority. As was to be expected, civilian review boards have provoked controversy. The advocates cite a number of advantages of police review boards such as they create a climate in which citizens can freely state their complaints about police misconduct, they educate the public about their legal rights, they provide for the public exoneration of police officers by an impartial agency, and they are primarily concerned with getting the truth. However, the opponents suggest that civilian review boards have the following demerits such they destroy police administrators' authority to investigate and discipline their officers, they demoralize police officers and make them hesitant to act on complaints, they might be biased against the police, and they could be staffed by civilians unqualified to judge the performance of police officers. So should we have police civilian review boards? Perhaps it depends in part on how many complaints are leveled against the police and the severity of these complaints. For example, if numerous instances of police misconduct come to light, a civilian review board might be an advantage. One the other hand, if there are very few complaints leveled against a police force, it might be that a civilian review board is not all that necessary.