Choose a criminal event, and detail how it might illustrate the conflict model, which emphasizes disparity between the various components of the criminal justice system

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Assume a residential area has recently experienced an increasingly large number of prostitutes seen soliciting business on local streets. The concerned residents meet with the local chief of police to seek a solution to the deteriorating quality of life in their neighborhood. In response, the chief orders a crackdown to target the arrest of any suspected prostitutes. Following the crackdown, the visibility of prostitutes in the neighborhood declines dramatically; however, the large number of arrests fill the court dockets and create pressure on the prosecutor to increase plea bargaining. Thus, the prosecutor offers a large number of offenders probation in lieu of jail time. This action by the prosecutor places a significant number of new probationers into community corrections. The probation department cannot afford to closely monitor each offender due to the extremely high case load that already exists. Hence many of the offenders might return to their previous criminal behavior. The very size of the prostitution problem made cooperation between the components of the criminal justice system exceedingly difficult.