Crime control and due process are two different ideal types of criminal justice. One could say they are extremes on a continuum. The role of crime control is to get the criminal off the street and to protect the innocent. The due process model of criminal justice is like an obstacle course, you have to keep going through legal obstacles to ensure in the end you convict the right person. In the US, the police lean toward crime control and the courts lean toward due process. This causes tension between the police and the courts. I argue for both crime control and due process, putting more weight on due process. If we did not have due process in the US, people in positions of power, could manipulate the system for their own personal or political gain and railroad the innocent off to prison. Both systems of justice share common beliefs, for example, they both look for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The common goal of both models of criminal justice is to convict the guilty and set the innocent free. Crime control and due process share four common values which are, (a) crime should only be defined by law, (b) crime should lead to some form of legal intervention, (c) criminal justice system power should be legally limited, (d) criminal justice system should be adversarial.
I still believe in the due process model of justice, for one thing, most people who work in the criminal justice field are honest and only bring their best intentions of enforcing the law with them to work. However, for the corrupt few that still hold positions of trust in the US justice system, due process will continue to extract them from the ranks, one by one. The case studies I have read presented good ideas to argue crime control and due process concerns. Principal fears expressed by both models had an effect on real people, and it scared me to think that certain mentalities do exist in this country. Though some innocent people do go to jail and some that are guilty are set free, it doesn't even come close to what injustices would happen in this country if one or the other was the exclusive rule.
