Global Perspectives Assessment
The Impact of Globalization on the US Criminal Justice System
The entire humanity is said to be living in the age of globalization. It is largely an extensive term which encompasses a number of perspectives. It is generally made in reference to the global viewpoint of a number of nations coming closer and unifying while tackling various issues. Such ones include politics, education, environment, as well as the society, at large (Bousso, 2007). By and large, globalization authorizes a view of the whole world being in spite of the national identity. As a result, the world has been narrowed to the point of collectively coalescing people of all nations together (Bousso, 2007).
In various ways, globalization has been instrumental while tremendously affecting the world in several aspects. On the political front, it has thrust the United States to its political supremacy, confirming that it is a strong and wealthy nation. It has also affected the flow of information, since it is now easy for the information to flow from one part of the world to another, irrespectively of the distance or remoteness (Bousso, 2007).
Additionally, globalization has had a major impact on the US criminal justice system. First and foremost, globalization, especially after the 9/11 attack, has triggered a lot of changes for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). As a matter of fact, the national security has become the FBI’s top priority. In this regard, thousands of its agents were shifted from criminal programs to the national security (Bousso, 2007).
Additionally, the intelligence capabilities of the bureau had to be enhanced and technologically updated. Globalization also forced both the CIA as well as the FBI to build strong partnerships as well as to forge new friendships not only at home, but also abroad. Today, the US criminal justice system is not only focused at threats, but also intelligence driven (Bousso, 2007).
Previously, the local criminal justice systems were enforcing the laws and arrested, took a legal action, and imprisoned criminals within their areas of influence. However, with the rise of globalization, this has tremendously been altered (Bousso, 2007). The fact is that such international crimes like smuggling of drugs, counterfeiting and money laundering these days do not respect geographic boundaries. Subsequently, the US criminal and justice system has seen the need for a greater cooperation among the local as well as international law enforcement authorities (Bousso, 2007).
Comparison and Contrast between International Criminal Justice Systems
Civil Law and Common Law
Common law systems, also known as the Anglo-American justice, are mostly used in the English speaking countries of the world. It is used in England, the US, Canada, New Zealand and the former British colonies in Africa. According to the common law, there is a presence of strong adversarial structures, in which lawyers as well as judges are bound by a precedent. There is much of reliance on oral systems of evidence with the public trial being the central point. In essence, in these countries, there is a widespread belief that the custom is the origin of law, with a fair and open competition sorting out the truth. According to the countries in which this kind of law is being applied, if all and sundry play in accordance with the rules, the rest of things will automatically fall into place.
On the other hand, civil law is known as the Continental justice. Civil law is actually the leading and the most widespread justice system in the world. It is mainly used in many parts of the world, including Latin America, France, Germany, and Sweden. Unlike the common law system, civil law is grounded on a strong inquisitional process in which the accused ones are granted the limited rights. In most cases, the written law is the gospel truth subject to a very little elucidation.
Socialist Law Traditions and Islamic Law
The Islamic law is also known as the Arabic or Muslim justice. Its procedures as well as practices are derived from interpretations of the Koran. It is founded on the consideration that the law is the divine law. It is largely made in the form of commands, directives or orders governing the entire lifestyle of any individual. The Islamic law is also based on the concept of natural justice.
The socialist law, on the other hand, is also referred to as the Communist justice or Marxist-Leninist justice. According to the socialist law, procedures are designed to compulsorily restore or retrain individuals for fulfilling their duties to the government of day. It is largely characterized by the administrative law, with the laymen making most of decisions.
The Impact of Technology and Cyber Crime on the International Justice Systems
Over the past couple of years, there has been a tremendous increase in a cybercrime. This involves fraud, data theft, extortion as well as identity theft. These criminal activities have a tremendous impact not only on victims, but also on the worldwide justice systems. Cybercrime seriously affects not only the defense system of nations, but it also burdens the justice systems across the globe. In most cases, several complaints arise from the people that had been misinformed by criminals posing as would be buyers or sellers.
Cyber criminals establish some private, trusted, and organized criminal groups with the aim of carrying out cybercrime. Subsequently, taking up the specialized skills sets as well as professional business practices by cyber criminals has increased the complexity of cybercrime. This is because the actors have been provided with the technical abilities as well as the essential tools and resources to conduct their criminal activities.
In many ways, such criminals have advanced in their abilities to remotely attack the system. This has largely compromised the justice systems across the world. Additionally, these criminals are heavily endowed with the resources to challenge justice systems. In this way, they have been adept at evading the security industry as well as the law enforcement agencies.
Different Policing Systems on a Worldwide Scale
There have been the immense changes in policing systems across the world over the past few decades. In this regard, there have been the clear manifestations of changes in both the military as well as the police activity (VT). In light of this, it has become increasingly evident that the military and policing operations are becoming similar by nature. There have been some developments in the technologies of control with the spread of militarized police in some countries. This is very evident in the Middle East as well as in such failed states like Somalia (VT).
The military police activity has been on its rise, forming essential threads of the global network of state control. This involves the hi-tech as well as institutional systems being used. Though the main role of police is the maintenance of the law and societal order, their methods as well as techniques of carrying out their duties have not been non-violent. This involves repressing any kind of mayhem that threatens the existing societal configuration (VT).
In some cases, policing systems have been forced to use the propaganda to deal with home populations. This is evident especially in some powerful countries that are involved in establishing police actions (VT). Since military actions no longer take the forms of war between nations, powerful states as well as international institutions being assumed to the role of policing some nations. It is, therefore, important that they use propaganda in large sizes of populations.
Apart from using propaganda, policing systems also use some non-lethal disabling weapons to perform their duties. Following an increase in the use of military operations in global policing, there has been a rise in precarious situations, in which they have to deal with the large populations being non-combatants. Most of these people are usually very irritated, distressed and slightly agitated (VT).
Subsequently, it is not just enough to make use of the traditional weapons of war. It is for this reason that they are desperately in need of new weapons to be in command of, constrict, or disable criminals without necessarily killing them. These weapons are also referred to as “non-lethal disabling weapons”. The torture is used in some of these techniques, leading to deliberate the manipulation of physical as well as psychosomatic states of people (VT).
Major Crimes and Criminal Issues that Have a Global Impact on Justice Systems and Processes
Over the past few decades, the world has witnessed some strange but mass atrocities involving the systematic killing of scores of innocent civilians with a widespread displacement of millions of people, sexual violence against women and children as well as other grave crimes against the humanity (USIP, 2007). This has been witnessed in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Congo, East Timor and Kosovo, and Syria as being the latest case.
In an effort to tackle with these grave concerns, new principles have been established with a key aspect being the “responsibility to protect”. This attests to the fact that the external intrusion may be required to prevent or stop the wanton killing of innocent civilians, irrespectively of the sovereignty of a state (USIP, 2007).
These crimes against the humanity have included such acts like enslavement, rape, torture, murder, and extermination. In a number of cases, the questions have arisen as to whether these crimes reach the threshold of being referred to as widespread or systematic (USIP, 2007). Under the authority of the United Nations, the international community established a justice system and a process to try perpetrators of such crimes, thus, leading to the formation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (USIP, 2007).
In some of the countries mentioned above, the crimes against humanity have been committed against many innocent people. Most of the perpetrators are usually being foot-soldiers or top notch government operatives (USIP, 2007). In Yugoslavia, the UN established the International Criminal Tribunal, in which the former Serbian President Milosevic, alongside with other security officials was tried for the murder as well as tortured. As for the case of the genocide in Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was constituted to try the people like the former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda being convicted for inciting the genocide (USIP, 2007).
