Conflicting reward systems and their impact on criminal justice administration

Conflicting Reward Systems and Their Impact on Criminal Justice Administration

It order to ensure that the desired response is generated one should link the reward with the proper output. Almost in every other domain of life the conflicting reward system is implemented. It has been established through various studies that people tend to behave in the manner which is appreciated and rewarded, hence it is important to design rewards in such a manner that people are encouraged to provide the required output and response. There are several examples which reflect the conflicting reward system where the behaviors or responses which are rewarded are those which are undesired and the required behaviors are not rewarded. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze the impact of conflicting reward systems on the criminal justice administration (Kerr, 1995).

The duty or responsibility of the Criminal justice system is to control the crimes and to ensure that the appropriate process is being implemented and followed (Mohanrsca, 2011). This responsibility is fulfilled with the process of enforcing the criminal law, and proper rules and procedures are defined for this. Like in any other field, rewards are the great motivational factor in criminal justice administration and people often seek activities that have rewards and act according to them and avoid those behaviors and activities that are associated with fewer rewards or no reward at all (Kerry, 1995). People preferences about the activities mostly depends on the rewards associated with that activities therefore there is a great effect of rewards on the performance of the people.

There are three main components of criminal justice: police, courts, and the corrections. Police is accountable for maintaining law and order, examining and exploring crimes and arresting criminals. After the investigation of crime, police hand over investigation report to the court. In court, the classifies crime either as a felony or a misdemeanor and if it is felony then penalty is imposed. (Drakeford & Friedman, 2010). The corrections are responsible to give punishment to criminals so that other people will not engage in any criminal activity. It is also the responsibility of the corrections to protect society from criminal activities as well as make criminals a responsible citizen with the help of correction programs like confinement in prisons.

The main objective of the criminal justice system is to maintain moral behaviors in the society, control immoral activities and eliminate crimes. Criminal justice is composed of various steps. The first step is investigation of crimes, in which police officers investigate criminal activities to find out the evidence of crime. Some of the criminal activities involve complex investigation like mega corruption scandals. To investigate these types of scandal, grand jury is require which has a power to investigate witnesses and documents. It is also the responsibility of judge to issue warrant of arrest. But there are some of the conflicting goals that deflect the administration of criminal justice from its goals. Funds from the federal government play an important role in criminal justice system. If criminal administration do not get proper funding from federal government then the objective and purpose of criminal administration change from needs associated with the welfare of community to accommodate projects for which funds are generated.

The second step is plea bargaining in which a magistrate allocate the defendant a counsel and bail during the first hearing. It is also compulsory under the law to involve the defendant's lawyer and before any formal charge grand jury has to evaluate the cause properly. In this stage defendants investigate the formal charge in advance and plea negotiation takes place with the prosecutor and pretrial hearings is conducted. If court is giving more reward to prosecutors then it will be against the interest of the general public. Sending criminals to jail is not the only option, therefore to increase the welfare of criminals prosecutors can send them to alternative institution instead of jail like they can send drug addict to drug institution for treatment instead of sending to jail. But on the other hand people want judge to be hard and most of the judges are also reelected just because of their hard positions on perceived criminals.