The System

What is the Criminal Justice System? Well, lets follow what should happen.

James decides that he doesnt want to live his life normally, he wants to be a criminal. With this in mind, he sets off one day to go and rob some old dear of her pension money so that he can give this money to one of his many kids (all have different mothers too).

So he finds this dear old lady, Doris, bashes her over the head, and steals her handbag. Luckily there is CCTV and several kind witnesses.

Enter the police.

A nice police officer comes along and takes details of the crime, books it on and sets out to try and locate the offender (who luckily has been identified, just like in The Bill.

PC Jones finds James, and arrests him. He is then taken to the police station where he is met by a man in a suit called Paul, the duty solicitor.

On interview, Paul tells James to simply reply "no comment" to everything. At the end of the interview, PC Jones goes and sees the nice people in the CPS office. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT the police who prosecute people, but magical little elf like people (there is nothing magical about them really, however, some do resemble elfs) known as the Crown Prosecution Service. They decide whether to proceed with a case or simply choose no further action.

Luckily for PC Jones, the CCTV evidence and witness statements seem a hit with the CPS and they choose to charge James with attempted murder as they believe that he set out to kill Doris (hang on ... this does have a point ... honest).

So now James has been charged, the next place he will appear is, court. Due to the offence for which he has been charged, he will get to appear in Crown Court. This is a big place where there is a middle aged man wearing a robe and wig looking very important. It is this man, the judge, who will sentance James. The jury will decide based on the evidence presented in court whether or not James is guilty. If the Jury find him guilty, which in this case they do, then the Judge will sentance him.

So the Judge sentances James to 10 years in prison. Immediatly he will be taken to a prison and serve a full 10 years there before being released.

There we have it, the Justice System in a Perfect World.

However, this is not a perfect world. Part 2 of "The System" coming soon.