Introduction to

Criminal Justice System

BSCRIM |1st SEMESTER | ATTY CEDRICK G TRAIN, CSEE
Why the need for a justice system?
 The need for order in society
 Rule of law
 Regulate human behavior and relationships
 Social norms and standards [acceptable]
 Sanction or punish deviant or delinquent behavior
 State control
 Common welfare
 Independence and freedom
 Culture, customs, laws [sanction]
Essentials of Good Government [Aristotle]
 Common good
 Representative of the community
 Authority immediately derived from the community
[authority sets the rules, decides who violated the rules,
administers sanction]
Laws
 Prevention of unacceptable conduct or behavior
 Principle of deterrence
 Desire for vengeance
 Adjudication and application of sanctions
 Aspects of law: substantive [defines what behavior is
acceptable or unacceptable] and adjective [defines how
and by whom the law is to be enforced]
 Enforcement: personal or individual to state responsibility
Common Good
The concept that even though a particular behavior involves
little moral blame or little harm to any individual, it may be
designated as unlawful if it negatively affects the peace and
well-being of the community at large.
[Swaton, J Norman and Loren Morgan, Administration of
Justice, 2nd Edition, New York: D. Van Nostrand Company,
1980]
Goal of Law
 Establishment of justice
 Recognizing the possibility of injustice, laws are designed
individually and placed collectively within the framework
of a system for the purpose of ensuring justice both to the
individual and the society to which he belongs.
Code of Laws
 Hammurabi: codification of 288 laws [general application]
 King: established as the sole and ultimate assurance of
justice within a system which provided for supervision of
judges and appeal from their decisions.
 Criminal law: lex talionis
 Draconian Code; revised by Solon [600 BC]
 Justinian Code
 Napoleonic Code
 English System [common law; old customs]
Classification of Crimes
Malum in se: considered to be evil in itself threaten the
health and well-being of the community]
Malum prohibitum: legislative bodies responsible for the
formulation of law have declared it a prohibited evil
[declared illegal by various societies]
Roots of Law Enforcement
Tithings: group of ten families; headed by tithingman; 100
families headed by reeve [elected and have powers of both
police and judge]
County: shire; headed by crown-appointed shire-reeve [entire
local government, exercising judicial and tax-collecting
authority]; modern-day sheriff [power and responsibility for
maintenance of law and order and preservation of peace]
Hue and cry [raised by a citizen who was wronged or knew of
an offense; citizens join to pursue a fleeing felon]; shire-reeve
accorded the pursuers with posse comitatus [‘power of the
county’] to bring the offender to justice
Roots of Law Enforcement
Norman period: comes stabuli [‘officer of the stable’ or
mounted full-time law enforcement officers to help shire-
reeve enforce the then military law]; evolved the title of
constable [basic law enforcement]
Bailiff: charged with the responsibility of maintaining a
night watch within the locked gates of the city; conscripted
from male populace over the age of 16
Serjeants: landholders who acquired their lands through
military service assist the bailiffs as cities grew in size
Ward: day force; watch: night force; ‘watch and ward’:
round-the-clock force
Roots of Law Enforcement
Merchant patrols: businessmen were compelled to
supplement police activities with private guards and
detectives to recover stolen goods
Types of police: civilian, military, church
Modern police concept: Henry Fielding [trained, permanent
police force established; first police courts; Bow Street
Runners: ‘specially trained detectives who sped to the
scene’ or ‘bounty hunters’
Sir Robert Peel: Scotland Yard; Metropolitan Police Act
[1829]; 12 basic principles that provided the basis of
professional status by insisting on standards of attitude and
manner of performance of duty
Peel’s Contribution to Policing
 Appearance
 Training and selection
 Use of probationary period
 Measurement of effectiveness by the absence of crime
 Use of identifying numbers for police officers
 Collection of crime data
 Distribution and deployment of the force based on experienced need
 Establishment of paramilitary force under government control
 Centrally located headquarters accessible to the public
 Dissemination of crime news
Core Ideas
 The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop
crime before it happens, we don’t have to punish citizens or suppress their
rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its
community has low crime rates.
 The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community
member must share the responsibility of preventing crime, as if they were
all volunteer members of the force. They will only accept this
responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police.
 The police earn public support by respecting community principles.
Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing
the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the
community, and using force only as a last resort.
Policing Principles
 To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by
military force and severity of legal punishment.
 To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions
and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and
behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
 To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval
of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the
public in the task of securing observance of laws.
 To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public
can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of
physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
Policing Principles
 To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but
by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete
independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of
the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and
friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or
social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and
by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
 To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and
warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an
extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to
use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any
particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
Policing Principles
 To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to
the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are
the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to
give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in
the interests of community welfare and existence.
 To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive
functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the
judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively
judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
 To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of
crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing
with them.
Reflective Exercise

From the foregoing presentation as a backdrop, assess the

policing system, processes and practices in the Philippines.
Cite your own experiences, observations and perceptions.
Submit not later than next meeting, in not more than 1000
words, Arial 12. To be consolidated by class marcher. Thank
you!