Two Models of Crime Processing in The USA and Their Features

The following essay will be a comparative of the two main models used to control and process crimes in the United States. These two models are The Crime Control Model and The Due Process Model. We will be looking into first, how these models work individually. From this we will draw contrasts and comparisons between the two models. Additionally, we will look at any assumptions these models make about human behavior insofar as, all laws and methods make assumptions on how a citizen ought to be.

The first model explained will be the Crime Control Model. This model seeks to deal with all crimes proportionately and with celerity. That being said, it believes that most crimes are done through inhumanities to the “common man.” Three major assumptions are made here: A.) That people have free-will. B.) That people are hedonistic(this means that we are pleasure seekers). C.) People are rational. Now as we can see, these axioms of this theory are strongly based in human morality being the source of the good. That is, better judgment should come from within us. This model does adhere to the “eye for an eye” model, due to the fact that the punishment does fit the crime. As previously stated, this model wants punishment to be done swiftly and fair among all citizens.

In comparison let us look at the Due Process Model, which, as its title presumes, is a model that may take some time to work through. This model wants to say that the power of the government is too strong and that perhaps civil rights are lost in the judicial process. That said, they are strong believers in treating everyone the same. This is quite the opposite of what we saw with the Crime Control Model where the process of sentencing and serving a crime was swift. Here, we see more jury cases. Unfortunately, we also begin to see the shortcomings of judges who do not follow their sentencing guidelines. Judges begin to assume that they understand how a crime should be punished and thus sentence it in their own manner. An interesting contrast to take note of is how the two models differ in their methods of sentencing a crime. Here we see that after being sentenced you should be rehabilitated, which lends to this model having a long time period in the system. It is assumed that criminals can be changed into the ideal citizen they were meant to be. This shows how this model would not believe in the death penalty.

Lastly, let us look to the policy implications of each model. The Crime Control Model is swift and deals with an eye for an eye. However, we see here that everything is meant to be done with speed in order to save time. In many cases, we see this causes reoccurring offenders who really never learn from their punishments. With the Due Process Model we are seeking to make sure every individual criminal is taken care of equally. This, however, takes a lot of time, which causes many cases to be rushed through the system, as compared to bigger bolder cases. This poses a slight hypocrisy in this systems own beliefs insofar as each criminal is not being treated equally.

As it seems to be apparent with all systems, these two models have both equal pros and cons within them. One may ask, why don’t we combine the systems, taking what we like from one and leaving out what we do not from the other? This is because we see that the systems only exist as a dichotomy long engrained in the U.S. for a very long time; left against right, red against blue, donkey against elephant, and etc. The main problem is that there is no correct way to deal with every crime because laws and morals are cultural things. As discussed in class, there are only a few universal morals, which is why we do support the use of two models in the Criminal Justice System.