Importance of writing in criminal justice

¶ … Criminal Justice:

Writing is a very important aspect in criminal justice and the law enforcement field despite of whether it's associated with policy statement by the police chief or police report by a new law enforcement officer. This importance of writing and appropriate writing skills is because of its power to result in positive and negative changes with the criminal justice system. Some of these changes include promoting or hindering policies and procedures, improving or destroying public relations, and developing or shattering the writer's self-image. Since criminal justice systems involve various types of reports that are read by different people, writing plays an integral role in the accomplishment of the objectives of law enforcement.

One of the major reasons why writing is important in criminal justice is because it serves as a means of clear communication in order to achieve the goals of criminal justice. Properly written information in criminal justice reports helps in the communication of actions and behaviors of the defendant. It's also enables the readers of the information to identify facts and make informed decisions regarding a particular case (Thompson, n.d.). Without the proper documentation of information through writing, communication and decision-making within the criminal justice system will be negatively impacted.

For example, the possibility of the community to benefit from a K9 unit in scenario 3 was not realized because of the lack of a written proposal. This was despite of the various informal conversations that the captain had with both the mayor and the chief about how this unit would improve local investigations. This scenario presents a clear example of how written documents in the criminal justice system help in communication and decision-making processes.

The second major importance of writing in law enforcement is its impact on the accomplishment of several leadership intentions and purposes by officers and professionals in this field. When there is lack of written documents or ineffective writing in criminal justice, the intended leadership purposes are normally unachieved. This is largely because leadership abilities and purposes as well as program development are closely linked to writing. The criminal justice is usually characterized by policies, procedures for various practices, reports, press releases, and memoranda. These critical aspects that affect leadership in law enforcement are accomplished through divergent forms of writing and documentation.

As demonstrated in scenarios 1, leadership decisions about service award was hugely affected by the lack of written documents like commendation letters. The leadership intentions in this scenario were not accomplished because of the lack of writing of commendation letters to support the officer's excellent work and strong performance evaluations.

Importance of Good Writing Skills:

As previously mentioned, writing is an important aspect in criminal justice resulting in the need for police officers to possess good writing skills in order to write more efficiently and effectively. One of the major reasons why writing is significant in this field is because it provides readers of reports with insight regarding certain occurrences (Daniel, 2011). With proper writing skills, officers provide adequate information regarding various incidences and enable the reader to visualize the occurrences. Secondly, good writing skills in the criminal justice system enable law enforcement to have proper records that they will defend for a long period of time. This is largely because good writing skills enable officers to have improved communication skills and organized documents that are useful in other fields.