In 2001, Michael and Sarah Dalton were shocked when they read the explicit sexual fantasies they found in their son Brian's journal. The diary told a story about the abduction, rape. And torture of three young children. Brain never intended for anybody else to see or read his work, it was his private property. Brain was already on probation for possessing child pornography. His parents decided to tell his probation officer about the diary hoping that his probation would be revoked for a year or two and he would be able to receive intensive sex offender treatment in an institution. They didn't expect he would be charged with a new crime of pandering 0bscenity. Afraid that a trial would be extremely embarrassing to family and friend, Brain pleaded guilty and received a seven year prison sentence rather than the treatment in a community facility his parents had desired.
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The Dalton case shows the dilemmas faced by the component agencies of the criminal justice system, police, courts, and corrections, which have been established to apprehend, adjudicate, sanction and treat criminal offenders. These government institutions are charged by law with dispensing fair, equal justice to all who come before them, maintaining the rule of law in society beset by racial and social injustice and conflict, deterring crime and treating both offenders and victims in a just even handed manner.
Early Origins of American Justice.
Until recently, there was little recognition that the agencies of criminal justice worked in concert or formed a system. The formalized police agencies, now so familiar simply did not exist. After the civil war, frontier towns set up "vigilance committees" and asked their vigilantes to deep order an d go after badman.
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It was not until 1919 that a unified criminal justice system received recognition. In theat year the Chicago Crime Commission a professional association funded by private contributions, was created.