Question #1:
Describe the police in the context of the criminal justice system. Be sure to touch on the function of the police throughout the criminal justice process.
- The police in the criminal justice system are a very important figure to society. The reason behind this is because the police have a lot of power in their favor. The police are said to be the “gate keepers” of the criminal justice system. But in some cases, some people do believe that they are and some do not. Police officers are usually the first to make contact with a person accused of something they have done, and are first to make the right decisions on what should happen. The police have the right to take away our freedom when we are under arrest, …show more content…
Under the Fourth Amendment, police may engage in “reasonable” searches and seizures. To prove that they are doing their job right, the police must generally show that it is more likely than not that a crime has occurred. And that if a search is conducted it is probable that they will find either stolen property of evidence of a crime, this is called probable cause in most cases. For the police to obtain a search warrant, they need reasonable suspicion that something has happen. The police then have to give an oath to make sure they are not lying, and then afterword’s the judge can either say yes or no to it if the police officer has enough to convince them that they can make an arrest. For the significant exceptions to the warrant requirements, there are seven major ones. These are search incident to arrest, plain view exception, automobile search, consent search, stop and frisk, exigent circumstances exception, and checkpoints. The search incident to arrest is where the police preform a warrantless search of an arrested person. This could be in the officer’s safety to prevent escape from the person or destruction of evidence. The second one is exigent circumstances exception, this can be defined as pressing or urgent law enforcement need for official action and no time to secure a warrant. The third time of exception is the …show more content…
What I mean by this, is that if a police officer stops someone they use verbal contact as a means to communicate with the person but in a way it is using use of force. Use of force has been one of the most controversial aspects of policing. Some think police officers use force in a way it shouldn’t be used but others think otherwise. Use of force can be used when someone is not being cooperative and resisting arrest, that’s when the officer can use force against the offender and make a proper arrest. In a case from Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court provided guidelines to determine the appropriate level of use of force. It gave a three question test which was if the severity of the crime that the officer believed the suspect to have committed or was in the process of committing, the second was did the suspect present an immediate threat to the safety of others, and last was the suspect actively resisting arrest or attempting to escape. These guidelines gave the police officers the right to use force in a proper way, instead of them measuring by what the officer knew at the time. So by giving these standards to every department in the United States it changed the way the officers could handle a situation. In conclusion, using use of force can be deadly and in other cases it can just be apprehending the offender to take them to jail. Regardless of the situation the police officers