Indeed as the Criminal Justice Systems becomes overloaded with cases, the agencies linked to

it get more concerned with self-preservation and changing the course of unsuccessful cases
away from themselves. The heavy caseloads and the pressure they render on the agencies in
the Criminal Justice System continue to increase partly because of lack of sufficient resources
devoted to handling the overbearing caseload (Israel, 1996). According to Israel (1996), this is Commented [G1]: Inserted: ing
arguably the most critical and most pervasive challenge that faces the administration of the
Commented [G2]: Deleted:e
various agencies including police, courts, public defenders, and prosecutors. Complains have for
long been raised that the criminal justice system is not only overcrowded but also undermanned
and overworked and these ills can only be cured by substantial additions to their budgets if the
system is ever going to perform all the tasks as expected. However, this has not exactly been
made possible but the pressure to close the cases continues to increase. The various agencies
identify with one key goal: to close cases and keep them closed. For this reason, each agency
seeks to forward cases to the next agency down the chain. This, in one way or another, depicts
the criminal justice system as a system and is supported by the fact that they all seek to uphold
social control, and deter and mitigate crime albeit with different processes.
The goals of each organization do change eventually but not significantly enough to separate
them from the Criminal Justice System. This is because those goals typically regard the
deterring, mitigation and handling of crime, elements that they all identify with. However,
according to Bernard, Paoline III, & Pare, (2005) the criminal justice system may be argued not
to be a system because of lack of integration among the institutions that make it. This argument Commented [G3]: Inserted: be
can be advanced further. However, the nature of the criminal justice system boldly highlights how
the system is indeed a system. For instance, the agencies in the criminal justice system share
numerous similarities mainly on the functional level. All these similarities point to the fact that
they are derived from how cases flow through the system (Bernard, Paoline III, & Pare, 2005).
From a general systems theory perspective, changing goals do not affect their organization since
the system is defined by more static goals linked to the pressures created in each institution as
cases flow through the system.
References

Bernard, T. J., Paoline III, E. A., & Pare, P. P. (2005). General systems theory and criminal
justice. Journal of Criminal Justice, 33(3), 203-211.
Israel, J. H. (1996). Excessive Criminal Justice Caseloads: Challenging the Conventional
Wisdom. Fla. L. Rev., 48, 761. Commented [G4]: Inserted: c
Commented [G5]: Deleted:v