Outline of criminal justice

1. Legislative system – network of legislatures that create laws.
2. Judiciary system – network of courts that interpret the law in the name of the state, and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law.[1]
3. Corrections system – network of governmental agencies that administer a jurisdiction's prisons, probation, and parole systems.[2]

In the 17th Century, William Penn began to promote reform in the Criminal Justice system and helped to see these changes implemented. After the American Revolution, the U.S. Constitution was created which guaranteed freedoms and rights that were never in place in colonial days. This was the starting point to setting guidelines for crimes, punishment and procedures that need to be followed to protect the rights of the innocent. Our modern system of criminal justice is the result of several evolutionary changes that society has undergone since the inception of the United States. Over the years, Americans have developed mechanisms that institute and enforce the rules of society as well as assign responsibility and punish offenders. Today, those functions are carried out by the police, the courts, and corrections. The early beginnings of the criminal justice system in the United States lacked this structure.

In fact, before formal rules, laws, and institutions were established in the United States, Americans relied on religion and sin as a means of shaping society and its behaviors. Many colonial crime codes were defined in biblical terms, making offenses such as profanity, blasphemy, and sacrileges of the Sabbath highly punishable. Punishments such as dunking, stoning, and whipping were designed to humiliate the offender and ultimately lead towards their repentance. Ironically, we still see this desire to make offenders remorseful for their criminal acts but more so for the victims of crime than to a higher power.

Crime –

• Organized crime –

"ongoing conspiratorial enterprise engaged in illicit activities as a means of generating income (as black money). Structured like a business into a pyramid shaped hierarchy, it freely employs violence and bribery to maintain its operations, threats of grievous retribution (including murder) to maintain internal and external control, and thuggery and contribution to election campaigns to buy political patronage for immunity from exposure and prosecution. Its activities include credit card fraud, gun running, illegal gambling, insurance fraud, kidnapping for ransom, narcotics trade, pornography, prostitution, racketeering, smuggling, vehicle theft, etc."[3]

• • Mafia –

a hierarchically structured secret organization allegedly engaged in smuggling, racketeering, trafficking in narcotics, and other criminal activities in the U.S., Italy, and elsewhere.

• Violence –

the use of physical force to harm someone, to damage property, etc.

great destructive force or energy

• Abuse defense –
• Actus reus –
• Administrative law –
• Affray –
• Arraignment –
• Arrest warrant –
• Attendant circumstances –
• Bail –
• Booking –
• Case law –
• Causation –
• Chain of custody –
• Citizen's arrest –
• civil law –
• Clearance rate –
• Common law –
• Concurrence –
• Concurrent sentence –
• Conflict model –
• Consecutive sentence –
• Command responsibility –
• Consensus model –
• Corpus delicti –
• Corrections –
• Creative lawyering –
• Crime –
• Crime control –
• Crime index –
• Criminal justice –
• Criminology –
• Death penalty –
• Defense (legal) –
• Defense of property –
• Denial of a speedy trial –
• Deterrence –
• Diminished responsibility –
• Diminished responsibility in English law –
• Double jeopardy –
• Due process –
• Evidentiary hearing –
• Excuse –
• Execution warrant –
• Grand jury –
• Ignorance of the law –
• Inchoate offense –
• Indictable offence –
• Indictment –
• Individual rights –
• Infraction –
• Innovative defense –
• Insanity defense –
• Islamic law –
• Jurisprudence –
• Jury instructions –
• Jury nullification –
• Jury trial –
• Justice –
• Justification –
• Kangaroo court –
• Law –
• Liability –
• Manslaughter –
• Manslaughter in English law –
• M'Naghten Rules –
• * Mens rea –
• Miranda Warning –
• Mistake –
• Motive –
• Motor vehicle theft –
• Murder in English law –
• Negligence –
• Obscenity –
• Offense –
• Pardon –
• Penal law –
• Peremptory pleas –
• Plea bargain –
• Precedent –
• Predator –
• Preliminary hearing –
• Prescription –
• Probable cause –
• Probation –
• Procedural defense –
• Prosecutorial misconduct –
• Provocation –
• Provocation in English law –
• Public order –
• Resisting unlawful arrest –
• Restorative justice –
• Selective prosecution –
• Self defense and defense of others –
• Sentence –
• Sharia –
• Social control –
• * Stare decisis –
• Star Chamber –
• Statutory law –
• Suicide –
• Summary offence –
• Trial –
• Trial by jury –
• Trial de novo –
• Warrant –
• Writ –
• Writ of Habeas Corpus –

• List of criminal justice notables