Compare and contrast the crime control model with the due process model.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The first model is the crime control model. This model emphasizes community protection from criminals, and stresses that civil liberties can only have real meaning in a safe, well-ordered society. To achieve such a society it is necessary to suppress criminal activity swiftly, efficiently, and with finality, and demands well-oiled criminal justice system where cases are handled informally and uniformly in “assembly-line” fashion. Police officers must arrest suspects, prosecutors must prosecute them, and judges must sentence them “uncluttered with ceremonious rituals that do not advance the progress of the case” (Packer, 1997, p. 4). To achieve finality, the occasions for challenging the process (appeals) must be kept to a minimum. The assumption is that such a process will more efficiently screen out the innocent, and that those who are not may be considered “probably guilty.” Packer does not want us to think of a presumption of guilt as the conceptual opposite of the presumption of innocence, but rather “reduced to its barest essentials and when operating at its most successful pitch [the crime control model consists of two elements]: “(a) an administrative fact-finding process leading to the exoneration of the suspect, or to (b) the entry of a plea of guilty” (1997, p. 5).
The due process model is the second model. Rather than a system run like an assembly line, the due process model is more like an obstacle course in which impediments to carrying the accused’s case further are encountered at every stage of processing. Police officers must obtain warrants when possible and must not interrogate suspects without the suspect’s consent, evidence may be suppressed, and various motions may be filed that may free a factually guilty person. These and other obstacles are placed in the way to prevent the efficient and speedy processing of cases. If the person is convicted, he or she may file numerous appeals, and it may take years to gain closure of the case. The due process model is more concerned with the integrity of the legal process than with its efficiency, and with legal guilt rather than whether the accused is factually guilty. Factual guilt translates into legal guilt only if the evidence used to determine it was obtained in a procedurally correct fashion.