MODULE 1: BASIC CONCEPTS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

LESSON 1: Terminologies

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the student should be able to:
1. Explain the terms related to the concept of the criminal justice system.
2. Analyze the concept of the criminal justice system using the related terms used.

Concept/Discussion:
In the field of Criminal Justice System, the following are the common words being used
in understanding its concept. Please understand the terminologies.

Introduction to Criminal Justice System

Criminal Justice System – The machinery which the society uses in the prevention
and control of crimes. It may also refer to the totality of the activities of the law
enforcers, prosecutors, judges, and corrections personnel, as well as those of the
mobilized community in crime prevention and control.

In theory, Criminal Justice System is an integrated apparatus that is concerned with

the following;

● apprehension,

● prosecution,

● trial,

● conviction,

● sentencing and

● rehabilitating or correcting criminal offenders.

Goals of CJS

1. Prevention of crime

2. Protect members of society against crime

3. Maintain peace and order

4. Suppression of criminality

5. Review the legality of existing rules and regulations

6. Rehabilitation and reformation of offenders

People involved in the system (Parties to the criminal case)

1. Accused = The most pampered party in a criminal case

2. Victim/complainant = The forgotten party in a criminal case

3. People of the Philippines = The actual offended party

1. Criminal
- It refers to any person finally convicted by a competent court in violation of law.
- pertaining to, or involving, crimes or the administration of penal justice. An
individual who has been found guilty of the commission of conduct that causes social
harm and that is punishable by law; a person who has committed a crime.
(The Legal Dictionary)
- A person can be branded as criminal under the following circumstances:
1. He must have committed a crime.
2. He must have been apprehended and investigated by the police.
3. By virtue of sufficient physical evidence and testimonies of witnesses,
he must have been arrested.
4. Due to the presence of prima facie evidence, the case was remanded to
the court by the prosecutor for trial.
5. There was arraignment.
6. There was trial.
7. The offender was found guilty.
8. A sentence was rendered by the court.
9. The convict was conflicted in prison.
10. The convict has fully served his sentence in prison.

2. Justice
- Principle of dealing with fairness; equality in the application of law.
- The idea of giving each person his or her fair due as a matter of right.

3. System
- A process; a coordinated body of method; organized way of work.
- orderly combination or arrangement, as of parts or elements into a whole
specifically, such combination according to some rational principle, any
methodical arrangement of parts.

4.Criminal Justice System (CJS)

- Sum total of instrumentation which a society uses in the prevention and control of
crimes.
- The machinery used by a democratic government to protect the society against
criminality and other peace and order problems.
- An integrated apparatus that is concerned with apprehension, prosecution,
conviction, sentencing and correcting criminals.
- The process of linking the five pillars of criminal justice system together so as to
achieve an interrelated scheme of reciprocal responsibilities in its approach to
community involvement.
- CJS as a system can be the organization administration and operation of
criminal justice, in that all the components involve the prevention, control and
reduction of crime and delinquency are conscious of each responsibility.

5. Act - Any bodily movement tending to produce some effect in the external world.
6. Omission- is meant inaction, or the failure to perform positive duty which one is
bound to do.
7. Accused - A person or persons formally charged or implicated in wrongdoing but not
yet convicted of a crime.

8. Arraignment -The first court appearance of a person accused of a crime. At this

proceeding, the defendant will hear the charges that have been brought against him and
may enter a plea.

9. Bail - the temporary release of an accused person awaiting trial, sometimes on

condition that a sum of money be lodged to guarantee their appearance in court.

10. Conviction - The act or process of finding someone guilty of a crime.

11. Defendant - A person who is arrested and charged with a crime.

12. Felony - A crime that is punishable by imprisonment of more than one year.

13. Guilty - A verdict of a judge or jury that a person accused of committing a crime did
commit it.

14. Judge - A person who hears and decides cases for the courts.

15. Misdemeanor - A crime that is less serious than a felony and that is usually
punishable by a fine, penalty, forfeiture, or imprisonment of less than one year.

16. Offense - May consist of a felony or a misdemeanor. The term is used to indicate a

violation of public rights as opposed to private ones.

17. Plea - An accused person’s answer to a criminal charge. For example: not guilty,
guilty, or no contest.

18. Plea Bargain - The agreement a defendant makes with the prosecutor to avoid a
trial. Usually involves pleading guilty to lesser charges in exchange for a lighter
sentence.
19. Warrant -  A court order directing a law enforcement officer to make an arrest, a
search, or a seizure.

20. scales - It is a symbolic of using just weights for measuring goods and of having
balanced options. It is a symbol of justice.  It is a symbolic of using just weights for
measuring goods and of having balanced options. It is a symbol of justice. 

21. Blindfold - In the figure of justice, it is a symbolic of impartial judgement.

22. Distributive Justice - It is the distribution social goods and burdens

Concept/Discussion:
Throughout the history of criminal justice, evolving forms of punishment, added rights
for offenders and victims, and policing reforms have reflected changing customs,
political ideals, and economic conditions. In this lesson, the development of criminal
justice system will be discussed in order to appreciate how the past events affected the
present situation. Primates often have notions of fairness and sharing, with violations
punished by exclusion
or banishment from social groups. In human history, prior to agriculture, more nomadic
cultures had systems of punishment for behavior or resistance. With the development of
agriculture, which led to more closely populated cities and cultures and behavior to
address fears of persons taking advantage of or causing harm to others, more formal
systems of punishment for crimes
developed, independently around the world, or based upon other cultures, including
those developed in the early Babylonian laws of Hammurabi and the Hammurabi Code.

The codes have served as a model for establishing justice in other cultures and are
believed to have influenced laws established by Hebrew scribes, including those in the
Book of Exodus. Hammurabi’s Code is one of the most famous examples of the ancient
precept of “lex talionis,” or law of retribution, a form of retaliatory justice commonly
associated with the saying “an eye for an eye.” Under this system, if a man broke the
bone of one his equals, his own bone would be broken in return. Capital crimes,
meanwhile, were often met with their own unique and grisly death penalties. If a son
and mother were
caught committing incest, they were burned to death; if a pair of scheming lovers
conspired to murder their spouses, both were impaled. Even a relatively minor crime
could earn the offender a horrific fate. For example, if a son hit his father, the Code
demanded the boy’s hands be “hewn off.” For crimes that could not be proven or
disproven with hard evidence (such as claims of sorcery), the Code allowed for a “trial
by ordeal”—an unusual practice where the accused was placed in a potentially deadly
situation as a way of determining innocence. The Code notes that if an accused man
jumps into the river and drowns, his accuser “shall take possession of his house.”
However, if the gods spared the man and allowed him to escape unhurt, the accuser
would be executed, and the man who jumped in the river would receive his house.
Ancient China
Law enforcement in Ancient China was carried out by "prefects". The notion of a
"prefect" in China has existed for thousands of years. The prefecture system developed
in both the Chu and Jin kingdoms of the Spring and Autumn period. In Jin, dozens of
prefects were spread across the state, each having a limited authority and employment
period. In Ancient China, under the rule of Dang Lin Wang, a new judicial system
emerged. This new system had prefects appointed by local magistrates, who in turn
were appointed by the head of state, usually the emperor of the dynasty. The prefects
oversaw the civil administration of their "prefecture", or jurisdiction. Prefects usually
reported to the local magistrate, just as modern police report to judges. Some prefects
were responsible for handling investigations, much like modern police detectives.
Eventually the concept of the "prefecture system" would spread to
other cultures such as Korea and Japan. Law enforcement in Ancient China was also
relatively progressive, allowing for female prefects. In ancient China, when minor judicial
incidents such as robberies occur, the client reports
to a police officer (a.k.a. constable) at the prefectural office. To catch a thief, a
constable can arrest another thief by baiting him with a forged opportunity and use the
thief's same-field knowledge to predict the one in question. The assisting thief would still
be punished for robbery but since he assisted the officer his punishment would be
lowered. By Ming law, police officers have a strict time schedule to arrest the criminals.
They usually have thirty days to arrest the issued criminals. If officers have not captured
their assigned
criminals after thirty days or assigned deadline, they would subject to physical
punishments. Successfully arresting criminals earns police officers’ promotions.
However, this method was often subject to abuse in order to quickly earn promotions.
Police officers were appointed by the
head officials from the populations.

Pre-modern Europe
For the most part, crime was viewed as a private matter in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Even with offenses as serious as murder, justice was the prerogative of the victim's
family and private war or vendetta the means of protection against criminality. Publicly
owned slaves were used by magistrates as police in Ancient Greece. In Athens, a group
of 300 Scythian slaves was used to guard public meetings to keep order and for crowd
control, and also assisted with dealing with criminals, manhandling prisoners, and
making arrests. Other duties associated with modern policing, such as investigating
crimes, were left to the citizens themselves. The Roman Empire had a reasonably
effective law enforcement system until the decline of the empire, though there was
never an actual police force in the city of Rome. When under the reign of Augustus, the
capital had grown to almost one million inhabitants, he created 14 wards, which were
protected by seven squads of 1,000 men. If necessary, they might have called on the
Praetorian Guard for assistance. Beginning in the 5th century, policing became a
function of clan chiefs and heads of state.

During the Middle Ages, crime and punishment were dealt with through blood
feuds (or trial by ordeal) between the parties. Payment to the victim (or their
family), known as wergild, was another common punishment, including for violent
crimes. For those who could not afford to buy their way out of punishment, harsh
penalties included various forms of corporal punishment. These included mutilation,
whipping, branding, and flogging, as well as
execution. Västgötalagen specifies exactly how much to pay, if anything, depending on
who was slain. The primary form of state-administered punishment during ancient times
and the Middle Ages was banishment or exile. Though a prison, Le Stinche, existed as
early as the 14th century in
Florence, incarceration was not widely used until the 19th century. Rather, it was used
to detain prisoners before trial or for imprisoning people without judicial process. The
Anglo-Saxon system of maintaining public order was a private system of tithings, since
the Norman conquest led by a constable, which was based on a social obligation for the
good conduct of the others; more common was that local lords and nobles were
responsible to
maintain order in their lands, and often appointed a constable, sometimes unpaid, to
enforce the law.

Colonial America
When early colonists first came to America, they did not include trained lawyers or other
law-knowledgeable persons. Many parts of the criminal justice system in colonial
America were similar to those in England, France, and the Dutch Republic. Gradually
French and Dutch influences disappeared in the islands. What remained was the basic
idea many had of the English
common law system. This system was the best-known to seventeenth-century colonists.
The common law system included a set of rules that were used to solve problems in
society. It was based on the history of decisions previous judges had made instead of
lawmaking codes or laws. This system
made a distinction between two basic types of crimes: felonies and misdemeanors. The
legal process, mostly for more serious crimes, involved a grand jury, composed of
members of the community, which decided whether there was enough evidence for
prosecution. However, in these proceedings no district attorneys or public prosecutors
were available. The victim of the
crime was responsible for instigating the prosecution and financing it. It was these
fundamental principles that stuck with the colonists and were used selectively to create
a new and unique criminal justice system. Many factors influenced the colonists’
selection process by which they constructed their
approach to criminal justice. As previously mentioned, there were no professional legal
experts and few law resources available. This left a lot of room for creativity and
mistakes. The colonists were largely left to their own devices concerning the details of
their developing criminal justice system. The new environment the colonists
encountered in the New World, especially the
western frontier, also affected the way the law was shaped. The system was molded to
fit the colonists’ needs as they settled further and further west. Vigilantism was an
inevitable byproduct of the faults of the development of justice in America. Religion,
especially early on in the colonial period, exerted a strong influence on law making.
Legal codes, such as the 1648 Book of the
Figure 3. Detail of 1844 woodcut of a British military flogging. (Hulton Archive/Getty)

General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, contained very strong
biblical references, more so than did the ones in England. Although this religious impact
was felt most strongly in Puritan colonies, similar ideas were evident among other
colonists as well. Many colonial makeshift criminal codes considered lying, idleness,
drunkenness, certain sexual offenses, and even bad behavior to be crimes. These
moralistic crimes stemmed from the relation of crime to sin and sin to crime. Adding to
the religious factor, the colonists held individual liberty in high regard.This later
influenced more contemporary criminal codes.

Development
The first official criminal justice system was created by the British during the American
Revolution, as they created the system to primarily justify hangings to the citizens of
their government. In each selected area or/and district there was a magistrate that in
today's time would be known as a judge. These individuals were in charge of
determining if the Crown or also known as the British government had enough evidence
to hang an individual for a crime. The British would not always hang an individual for
committing a crime, there would also be trials for punishments that would be carried out
by cleaning ships, prison ships, or be locked up on British mainland. During the
American revolution the primary type of punishment was to be hanged or sent to prison
ships such as the notorious HMS Jersey. After the
American revolution the British-based criminal justice system was then adopted by other
developing nations (Such as the United States).

The Evolution of the Philippine Criminal Justice System

The collective experiences of people shape their response to crime and disorder. To
understand the nature of crime in the Philippines and its criminal justice system, one
must be familiar with its history and its consequences. The foregoing discussion
describes the Development of the Philippine criminal justice system through different
stages in its history.

Pre-Colonial Justice
Human settlements had existed in the archipelago well before the arrival of the first
Spanish conquistador. Early settlers came from the south via Borneo and Indonesia and
from the north from Southern China and Taiwan. Most of them lived by or close to water
and traded with the Chinese, the Cambodians, and the Champans (Francia, 2010).
These pre-colonial societies were based on kinship and were stratified into three
groups: the ruling elite, their peers and followers, and the slaves (Francia, 2010). A
datu, whose authority rested primarily on his physical prowess, wisdom, inheritance, or
wealth, ruled the smallest political-social unit known as barangay. Each barangay
existed autonomously and a centralized government did not exist(Francia, 2010).
- Assisted by the elders of the barangay, the datu legislated laws and acted as judge. All
trials were held in public and litigants pleaded their own case. At times, the datu would
hold trial by ordeal to resolve doubts. People believed that the gods would protect the
innocent and punish the guilty and that the result of the ordeals was a revelation of the
divine truth (Agoncillo, 1994).
Murder, adultery, theft, and insulting a woman were considered great offenses and were
punished by enslaving the offender (Blair & Robertson, 1904). If the
value stolen was great, the offender and his relatives were all fined. Failure to pay the
fine resulted in the enslavement of all member of the family (Blair &
Robertson, 1904). Toward the end of the 14th century, Muslim missionaries reached the
southern islands of Mindanao and converted the natives. This resulted in the creation of
alliances that helped in thwarting the subsequent efforts to colonize southern
Philippines (Abuza, 2003). Islam would have spread northward were it not for the arrival
of European conquistadores beginning in the16th century (Francia, 2010).

Justice under God

On March 16, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan reached the central Visayan region of the
archipelago. His discovery of the islands led to a series of Spanish expeditions that
culminated in Miguel Lopez de Legazpi’s conquest of Manila in 1565. Thus, began the
333 years of Spanish colonial rule that drastically changed in the islanders’ way of life.
Under the guise of spreading Christianity and saving the natives from eternal
damnation, the colonial government dissolved the barangays and forced everyone to
live in pueblos. Newly Christianized Indios – the derogatory term used by the Spanish to
refer to the natives – were placed under the watchful eyes of the clerics and were
required to pay tributes to the new sovereign. As in all Spanish colonies, the new order
extended Spanish laws to Philippines. These included the Codigo Penal (Penal Code),
Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal (Code of Criminal Procedure), Codigo Civil (Civil Code),
Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (Code of Civil Procedure), and Codigo de Comercio (Code
of Commerce). A court system that consisted of superior and inferior courts was
likewise established. The Guardia Civil (Civil Guards) performed law enforcement
functions. Individuals who were convicted of serious offenses such as murder and
treason are executed either by firing squad or garrotte. The oppression and injustices
suffered by Filipinos at the hands of the friars and civil administrators caused massive
unrest and sparked the quest for independence. Sporadic uprisings broke out and
crescendoed to the 1896 Philippine Revolution. By mid-1898, the revolutionary forces
had gained control of most of the provinces. On June 12 of that year, the
leader of the revolutionary forces, General Emilio Aguinaldo, declared independence
from Spain. Their jubilation would be cut short, however, by the eruption of the Spanish-
American War.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

The explosion of the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba, precipitated the hostilities between
Spain and the United States. Spain would lose the short-lived war and, under the Treaty
of Paris, cede control of the Philippines to the United States. The newly established
Philippine republic under General Aguinaldo, who had been led to believe that the
United States would not claim the
colony for itself, refused to recognize the treaty. A fierce and bloody war soon broke out
between the Philippines and the United States. The war officially ended on July 4, 1902
with the United States as the victor. This ushered
in the American colonial rule that was trumpeted as a noble endeavor to educate, uplift,
and civilize the Filipinos (Rusling, 1987). Like the Spanish, the Americans indoctrinated
Filipinos on the superiority of their values and practices. Unlike the Spanish, they
encouraged Filipinos to learn their language through a system of mass education. This
approach changed the cultural landscape of the Philippines and impacted every aspect
of life on the islands. The American colonial government enacted several laws to
eradicate the vestiges of Spanish rule, including new codes of criminal and civil
procedure. It established a new judicial system modeled after the judicial system of the
United States. The United States president was given the power to appoint the justices
of the Philippine Supreme Court. The United States
Supreme Court was also given the power to review the decision of the Philippine
Supreme Court in certain cases. In 1901, the colonial government formed a national
police force. A year later, it extended the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution
to the archipelago. The use of firing squad or garrotte as method of execution for capital
offenses was replaced by the use of electric chair in 1926. In 1934, the Tydings-
McDuffie Act of the United States authorized the creation of the Commonwealth of the
Philippines, a transitional administration that would prepare the islands for eventual
independence. Pursuant to this law, the 1935 Philippine Constitution was drafted and
ratified. The Japanese occupation of the Philippine during World War II would force the
Commonwealth government to go into exile.
On July 4, 1946, about 10 months after Japan’s formal surrender, the Commonwealth
government was dissolved and the Philippines became an independent republic. This
officially ended the American colonial period.

Public Policy of Crime and Criminal Justice

Despite its dalliance with martial rule from 1972 to 1986, the Philippines remains a
democratic and republican state with a unitary and presidential form of government. The
current Philippine Constitution, which took effect on February 2, 1987, distributes
government powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The
president, who is elected by a direct
popular vote and serves for six years, heads the executive branch. He acts as the head
of state and the head of government and exercises control over all executive
departments, bureaus, and offices. The legislative branch consists of the Senate, which
has 24 senators elected at large, and the House of Representatives, which has 289
representatives elected from legislative districts and through a party-list system. The
two chambers exercise legislative power except to the extent reserved to the people by
the provision on initiative and referendum. Judicial power is vested in the Supreme
Court, which is made up of a chief justice and 14 associate justices, and in such lower
courts as may be established by law. This power includes the duty to settle actual
controversies involving rights that are legally demandable and enforceable, and to
determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack
or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the government.
The country consists of 17 administrative regions. Each region is subdivided into
provinces, cities and municipalities, and barangays. These political subdivisions
exercise local autonomy within their respective territorial jurisdictions. Philippine criminal
law is largely based on the Spanish Penal Code. The classification of crimes and
imposable penalties in the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines (Act No. 3815) mirrors
the strong influence of civil law tradition. The code combines classical and positivist
criminological
philosophy, which results in the mixed goals of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation,
and reintegration. Under Philippine law, there are three classifications of crimes: felony,
offense, and misdemeanor. Felony refers to a violation of the Revised Penal Code.
Offense is a crime punishable under a special law. Misdemeanor pertains to minor
infraction, such as violation of an
ordinance.