Fairness in the Criminal Justice System

Due Process Model concentrates on providing suspects with a fair investigation and with removing all possible ideas that might have an unreasonable influence on defendants. The defendant's rights are one of the most important concepts throughout the criminal justice process. While in some justice systems a technicality does not necessarily represent an important factor in a person's justice process, it can be especially significant in a situation where the due process model is being supported.

This means that a person is very likely to be released from charges if the authorities consider that the defendant's rights had been violated at one point during the process. Being concerned with due process is believed by many to be an essential part of the justice system, especially considering corrupt jurisdictions where particular individuals feel that they need to do anything in their power in order to apprehend criminals, even in cases when this means that they need to obtain evidence through illegal means.

The due process model is largely the result of Herbert Packer's attempt to introduce a conceptual model of the criminal process. He considered that this would make it possible for people to gain a more complex understanding of the justice system and of the position they need to take with regard to it. Packer came up with two models and it each addressed a particular school of thought. The Crime Control Model involved supporting the authorities in finding any piece of evidence regardless of the laws broken in the process.

The second one, the Due Process model, emphasized the fact that criminals need to be treated fairly and that it would be in society's best interest to refrain from engaging in illegal activities with the purpose to apprehend a criminal.

(Hsieh 9) Even with the fact that Packer's models were extreme examples of justice being implemented, they were nonetheless important because they emphasized an intriguing aspect of the justice system -- the authorities being inclined to act outside of the legal system in cases when they were unable to produce evidence through legal means.

"Packer's assumptions between crime control and due process were challenged by, first, the American and, then, the Canadian experience, which demonstrated that a due-process revolution was not inconsistent with increased crime control." (Roach 317) This made it possible for him to observe how individuals have the tendency to respect the law more in situations when they are certain that law enforcement agents are actively involved in making the justice system as fair as possible (Roach 317) The fact that law enforcement officers often have access to limited resources means that they need to do everything they can in order to both capture criminals and to avoid becoming victims of these respective criminals themselves.

This leads to some preferring effectiveness to legality and to create a justice environment that is not as honest as most people like to believe it is. Packer's crime control model is successful when considering this type of thinking.

"To achieve such speed and finality and fulfill its purpose, first, the model aims to produce efficiency by disposing of criminal cases swiftly and dealing with the maximum number of cases in a criminal justice system with limited resources." (Hsieh 10) By understanding the crime control model one is more likely to observe why the due process model tends to be disregarded in many areas.

A combination of highly intelligent criminals and law enforcement agencies lacking the resources to apprehend these respective criminals is probable to be frustrating for law enforcement agents and thus influence them to consider that the only solution they have to actually make justice possible is to perform an illegality themselves. Capital punishment is probably one of the most controversial topics when considering the due process model.

"The due process mindset rejects the arrogance of presuming that the state can take life without risk of mistake, and this has made a priority concern about capital punishment a natural extension of the expanded scope of constitutional constrains in the criminal process." (Zimring & Simon 124) Discovering evidence that either proves that the defendant was innocent or that the authorities obtained evidence through illegal means is, when seen from a perspective involving the due process model, enough to challenge the idea of capital punishment itself.

Taking on a different attitude would indirectly be equivalent to supporting a vigilante type of justice. The due process model certainly requires more resources and makes each step of the justice process more difficult than it would normally be. Although it would be wrong to claim that Ireland generally supports the due process model, it would be safe to claim that it is considered the most important aspect of the justice process in many cases.

Ireland has a flexible justice system, with the authorities being unhesitant about considering the circumstances of the defendant when investigating a case.

"However, this orthodoxy was undermined by the introduction of a scheme of presumptive sentencing under the Criminal Justice Act 1999, which provides that any person convicted of the possession of drugs with a value of 13,000 or more with intent to supply shall receive a term of at least 10-years imprisonment unless exceptional circumstances exist which would make such a sentence unjust." (Campbell) More recent justice acts follow in this tradition and, in spite of the fact that they introduced mandatory sentences, also emphasize the idea of considering all the factors associated with a crime.

In a great deal of cases the authorities have proved that they were willing to provide softer sentences if criminals were believed to commit crimes as a result of desperate situations they were in at the moment when they went through with them. While Ireland seems to support individuals who resort to committing crimes in an attempt to get out of critical conditions, its government appears to favor the criminal justice model.

When considering the fact that bail has previously been perceived as a chance for former criminals to integrate the social order more efficiently, the fact that it is currently seen as an incentive for these people to commit more crimes demonstrates Ireland's.