Steps in Criminal Justice Process and the Bail and Probation System (Term Paper Sample)

Criminal Prosecution
Student Name
Institution
The steps in criminal justice process, and detailed explanation about the bail system
Criminal justice process involves a sequence of steps starting with investigation and ending up with the offender’s release from correctional systems. This process is founded on decision-making and rules. The criminal justice rules are sourced from; state constitutions, state codes, federal rules, court decisions, Bill of Rights, and agency and department rules and guidelines. Criminal justice decision-making process encompasses more than mastering of rules along with their application to particular cases. The decisions are built on discretion, meaning, and the individual judgement exercise to make pronouncements about alternative sequences of action. Making decisions or discretion short of formal rules remains a common phenomenon in the criminal justice. Discretion helps the police to choose whether to investigate, search, arrest, question or apply force. Similarly, judges and prosecutors employ discretion when exercising individual judgements such as setting bail, rejecting or accepting plea bargains, pretrial motions ruling, and sentencing. Bail/Parole panel members practice discretion when making decisions whether to release offenders from prison, and when to release them CITATION Kei12 \l 1033 (Hawkins, 2012).
The main steps in criminal justice process are:
1 Crime investigation by police officers; criminal investigation aims at gathering evidence to establish a suspect, then authenticate an arrest. A search – an exploratory scrutiny of a property or person, may be required to carry out an investigation. Probable cause – proof criterion to obligate a search, implies, there are realities or apparent facts showing that criminality evidence can be discovered in a particular place.
2 Arrest of the accused person (suspect) by police officers; An arrest