Globalization of Criminal Justice Systems: International Perspectives (Research Paper Sample)

Globalization of Criminal Justice Systems: International Perspectives Student Name Course/Number Due Date Faculty Name Globalization of Criminal Justice Systems: International Perspectives International Criminal Justice Systems Common law jurisdictions are mainly in territories that have a shared history of British colonization. Examples of countries where common law is practiced include Hong Kong, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Scotland, and the United States. Its one notable feature is that statutory law exists within the larger world of non-statutory judicial precedents. Common law arose from the institutional instability surrounding adjudication between court adversaries in ninth century England. In this jurisdiction, statutes are constantly modified by judicial interpretation. Furthermore, even in the absence of statutes such as with tort law, judicial precedents are the originating source of court decisions (Dammer & Albanese, 2013). Civil law, on the other hand, is based on a comprehensive set of codified rules that are then applied by judicial authorities with subsequent interpretations amenable to correction or change by a higher court. Judicial precedents do not feature in the determination of cases. Furthermore, the court process is investigatory as opposed to adversarial. This system is the basis of law in much of continental Europe, the territory of Puerto Rico, the USA state of Louisiana, the Canadian province of Quebec, Latina America, the People’s Republic of China, and Japan. This system is adapted primarily from Roman law and the modifications during the Middle Ages in continental European countries such as modern-day Spain (Dammer & Albanese, 2013). Table 1: Defining Features of Common and Civil Law Legal Systems (Adapted from Dammer & Albanese, 2013)
By contrast, socialist law is a fundamentally modified form of the civil law legal system that is notable for its focus on private property rights of acquisition, use, transfer, and loss. Within this system, property is nationalized or owned by co-operatives or equal alternatives and their use, as opposed to their ownership, is what is considered officially tradable. Hence, the owner of the property such as the state enterprise may not eventually become the one that utilizes the ownership. This split in property rights and the court systems that enforce them are the defining hallmarks of the system and are inspired by the socio-political ideologies of socialism and communism. At present, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) enforces the stipulates of this system and is probably the last remaining major jurisdiction following the dismantling of the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) (Dammer & Albanese, 2013). That said, countries may develop mixed jurisdictional practice as in the case of Scotland (civil and common law systems or Scots law), the PRC (common, civil, and socialist law), and the United States of America (common law and civil law). Consequently, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify certain countries with a single system due to, for instance, the convergence between jurisprudence, statute law in common law criminal justice. This is especially true in the microcosm that is mainland China. Islamic or Sharia law is a religious law that emanates from Quranic instruction and practices contained in the Sunnah and other doctrinal edicts. The latter can be in the form of doctrinal or jurisprudential consensus (ijma) between Muslim scholars (ulama), deductive analogies derived from the Qur’an and Sunnah (qiyas), juristic preference (istihsan), and compatible customs (urf) (Clarke, 2009). This legal system governs relationships and behaviors of adherents of the Abrahamic Muslim faith. The system covers areas of personal living such as hygiene, everyday prayer, and marriage and social issues such as crime, economics and trade, and politics. Sharia is a significant source of law in numerous Muslim majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan. In certain other countries with a large population of Muslims, Sharia law is practiced within the confines of divorce law, personal arbitration, inheritance, and other elements of personal laws. These countries include Britain (Muslim Arbitration Tribunal), Indonesia, India, and Kenya (Clarke, 2009). In other countries such as Pakistan, Sharia jurisprudence co-exists with the common law system. Cyber-crime and Cyber-terrorism As humanity has became more reliant on the Internet, criminals too have followed human conversations and interactions conducted online. The phenomenon of cyber crime intensifies just as fast as people adopt the Internet and World Wide Web. This development has led to the rise of numerous categories of crimes. These crimes include software and device cracking, political hacking in the form of cyberterrorism and hacktivism, intellectual property theft through online piracy, cyber frauds, the criminological phenomena of proliferating hate speech, harmful content, child pornography, and rise of online victimization through pedophilia, child sex abuse, and cyber stalking (Yar, 2013). Other examples of computer-facilitated crimes include insertion of malware or malicious code into systems, denial-of-service attacks, electronic mail spam, computer fraud, harassment, drug trafficking through encrypted online marketplaces, and state-sponsored cyber warfare (Hariri, Nosrati & Shakarbeygi, 2013). This criminal problem is not only in the virtual world of the Internet, it is also borderless and threatens to affect the very technologies that human societies depend on such as transport and medical infrastructure. Consequently, combating cybercrime demands legislative and policing innovations to address the differences in the intricate transnational legal frameworks, challenges in crime detection and attribution, offender apprehension, and Internet policing (Brown, 2015; Yar, 2013). These challenges abound despite the efforts of the International Criminal Police Organization ICPO (INTERPOL) and other transnational policing authorities to stem the rise of computer-facilitated crime (Brown, 2015). Comparative Policing Systems All policing models have more similarities than differences. They combat near similar enemies in the form of terrorism and violent crime while still facing similar jurisdictional and organizational disputes. Regardless, policing systems are a product of the legal system with countries that have adopted Islamic law or common law reflecting the same in their policing duties and operations (Bayley, 1990 as cited in Brogden & Nijhar, 2013). Furthermore, there is no truly global policing model that can be applied across countries without modification. Policing methodology is a by-product of the social, political, and economic realities of an individual state. Understanding the policing systems is critical to understanding a country’s a criminal justice system as well. For instance, Brazil’s state Military Police (MP) does not investigatory powers and is limited to deterring crime through regular patrol and tough, aggressive, and often lethal responses to its commission even though its personnel are considered reserve troops of the Brazilian Army (Godoy, 2006). The 1.5 million strong People’s Armed Police (PAP) also has a war-time paramilitary component, but is otherwise charged with civilian policing and other elements of internal security operations. Due to its paramilitary component, the PAP also has a mechanized paramilitary infantry division (10,000-20,000 personnel) and therefore, operates under the dual command of military and civilian authorities. Operating in a predominantly socialist legal system, the PAP express the ideological leaning of their country, forcefully and unreservedly enforcing governmental control (Ebbe, 2013; Sun & Wu, 2009). Major Crimes America’s War on Drugs has violently expanded beyond its contiguous borders as is now evident in Mexico’s bitter and bloody drug war. In the initial six years of la guerra contra las drogas, over 70,000 people have died and thousands more imprisoned in the state’s attempt to eradicate the narcoeconomy whos...