The legalistic method of policing also provides laws and mandates that provide not only officers but citizens the ability to enforce social order. A citizen's arrest allows a citizen who has witnessed a crime to arrest the suspect even if an officer was not present at the time the crime was committed.
The watchman style, according to Wilson, is implemented by law enforcement officials that believe the most effective law enforcement comes from observation. This style of law enforcement provides observations through patrol beats, in patrol cars, on bikes and on foot. Most people have observed the style when they see patrol vehicles driving through their neighborhoods they are witnessing the watchman style of policing. If they see officers standing on a beach or in a crowded fair and observing everyone there it is the practice of watchman policing. When they see a suspicious activity or a crime being committed they take action on it (Wilson, pp).
This style of policing is used throughout the nation and provides the ability to maintain social order in large populations, whether those populations are entire cities, zones of cities or well attended functions such as fairs and concerts. The ability to observe the large populations with driving and bike riding allows the law enforcement agencies to assign one or two officers to populations of several thousand residents at a time. It is a cost effective way in which to maintain social order and safety.
The third method of policing addressed by Wilson is called the service style. The service style includes components of the other two styles and is primarily focused on providing services to the people they are charged with protecting. These services can be in the way of citizen police academies, neighborhood watch seminars or other methods of providing valuable and proactive service to the communities.
I think the style most often used in American society today is the watchman...
Because of the large number of residents that are now in this country and the need for more law enforcement to maintain the crime rate, the use of a watchman style allows the most coverage for the least amount of spending.
When it comes to the question of maintaining public order or maintaining an individual's rights I believe the most important element of the criminal justice system is to maintain a person's individual rights.
If we remove that as the foundation for all we say and do with regards to the criminal justice system and focus only on societal order then we set ourselves up for a regime similar to the Nazi regime of the past.
As long as we strive to maintain individual rights and freedoms as promised by the United States constitution all other aspects of prosecution will fall into place and we will still be able to convict the guilty parties while maintaining the constitution as it was meant to be maintained.
As we move into the future it will be important to maintain those rights and freedoms so that we never go back to the days when minorities were treated differently in a courtroom, a jail or on the street simply because of their skin color. It is also important to maintain those rights so the court system can be sure that it sentences the guilty parties in the commission of criminal activity. Those individual rights of freedom provide a method by which there are checks and balances within the system.
REFERENCES
Conflict Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_model_(criminal_justice)
Due process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_process
CRIME-CONTROL MODEL http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl?term=CRIME-CONTROL%20MODEL
DUE-PROCESS MODEL http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl?term=DUE-PROCESS%20MODEL
Introduction to Criminal Justice" (Hardcover, 2005)Author: Keith N. Haley, Robert M. Bohm
ISBN: 0073527912
