The social responsibility

The most important thing to remember about the criminal justice system is that it is meant for justice but not for retribution. The justice system is an important part of any state especially those states that follow the tri-party system of separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial bodies. Each of these independent bodies exercises a fundamental role in the state and ensures the welfare of its citizens. The criminal justice system, as a part of the executive branch, deals with the implementation of justice through the maintenance of peace and order as well as the creation of institutions for reformation of criminally charged individuals. As such, its agents are charged with the social responsibility of implementing this constitutional mandate.

The social responsibility of those employed with the criminal justice agencies, however, is quite different from those of the other co-equal branches of the government because these public servants are given a wide range of powers in order to carry out and execute their mandate. While it is arguably the main social responsibility of the agents and individuals employed within the criminal justice system to ensure that the rights of the citizens are not unduly oppressed and that oppressors are penalized for their indiscretions, they also have the correlative obligation to ensure that in pursuit of this goal they do not, themselves, become the oppressors.

The virtually unbridled power that the agents of the criminal justice system are granted means that there is a potential for abuse that may exist in certain situations. No other members of the government are given such powers as to suspend certain constitutionally granted rights as the members of the criminal justice department and as such this power must be exercised responsibly. The main social responsibility of criminal justice agencies and individuals is two-fold; the first task being to maintain the peace and order and to uphold the rights of the citizens and the second task being to ensure that in the process they themselves do not transgress the rights of the citizens.