Due Process Model

• • Opposite of crime control. Focuses on innocent until proven guilty.
  • Promotes fairness and protecting the defendant's legal rights.
  • Arugues that police powers should be limited to prevent oppression of the individual.
  • Argues the justice system should safeguard an individual's rights to avoid miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions.
  • An investigation should be thorough to ensure a correct verdict can be reached.
  • Relates to the Left Realism approach.
• • All interviews being recorded and suspects having the right to legal representation.
  • Police having procedural safeguards they must follow through the PACE Act, 1984.
  • E.g case Thompson and Venable (James Bulgar Killers)
• The Due Process model (often called the obstacle course -> legislative obstacles to overcome before a person is convicted to ensure thoroughness of investigation)

  • uses the opposite principles to the Crime Control Model
  • It presumes innocence of the individual and that every person has a right to a fair trial (links with Article 5 HR right to liberty/Art 6 right to fair trial)
  • It suggests that the justice system should provide appropriate safeguards for accused (e.g. codes of practice under PACE)
  • It argues that police powers should be limited to prevent oppression of individual liberties
• Examples of how this links to the CJS

  • PACE provides codes of practice that set out the rights of the person being detained. When someone is arrested, the codes of practice must be offered to the person so that they can make themselves aware of their rights
  • There are strict rules on the admission of evidence - relating to hearsay evidence, coercive confessions and any evidence that the court feels is not in the interest of justice to be put before a jury
  • Right to a trial by ones peers
  • Human Rights Act - Article 6 - Right to a fair trial
• Labelling Theory

  Associated with Howard Becker. This is the idea that once someone is effectively 'stamped' with a label, they then become it (a self-fulfilling prophecy). This fits in with the Due Process Model as this idea does not want the police to oppress those that are a labelled as a 'typical criminal'. It also suggests that the police may be tempted to resort to illegitimate means of arresting criminals.
• Left Realism

  Lea and Young (1984) argued that there should be minimal use of prison (only where there is a danger to the community) and individuals must be 'de-marginalised'. A realist believes that relative deprivation creates 'vulnerable communities' and can therefore lead to 'criminal victimisation".
• Conclusions about crime models

  • Smithy (1998), argues that 'due process can never be provided as a yardstick because criminal justice must always be a compromise between due process and crime control'.
  • Peter Duff (1998), suggests that there are and will always be differences between due process and crime control because there is confusion over the meaning of the term 'crime control'.
  • Perhaps it could be argued that the models are there as a healthy reminder that balance is need in any criminal justice system
• • The most important function of criminal justice should be to provide due process, or fundamental fairness under the law
  • Criminal justice should concentrate on defendants' rights, not victims' rights, because the Bill of Rights expressly provides for the protection of defendants' rights
  • Police powers should be limited to prevent official oppression of the individual
• • Constitutional rights aren't mere technicalities. Criminal justice authorities should be held accountable to rules, procedures, and guidelines to ensure fairness and consistency in the justice process.
  • The criminal justice process should look like an obstacle course, consisting of a series of impediments that take the form of procedural safeguards that serve as much to protect the factually innocent as to convict the factually guilty.
  • The government shouldn't hold a person guilty solely on the basis of the facts; a person should be found guilty only if the government follows legal procedures in its fact finding - legally guilty not factually guilty.
• • Goal is too protect the innocent; limiting governmental power
  • Focuses on due process; respect of individual rights
  • 'Obstacle course' prevents numerous obstacles to prevent errors and wrongful convictions
  • Assumes that someone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Relies on formal, legal, adversary fact-finding processes
  • Slow and deliberate so that the dignity and autonomy of both the accused and the system are preserved