The Due Process Model: The Crime Control Model

In the Crime Control Model, the most important aspect is that criminal conduct is brought under control. Without controlling this activity, the consequences are severe and are displayed in the eventual “breakdown of public order” (Packer 4). In order to keep crime under control, the system must have efficiency. To keep the system efficient in the Crime Control Model, “ceremonious rituals that do not advance the progress of a case,” must be halted (4). Packer states that the model runs akin to an assembly line, never-ending with specific persons at each “station…who perform on each case” the same procedure in the same precise way (4). Another large aspect of the Crime Control model is that suspects are brought in off of “the presumption of guilt,” that allows law enforcement officials to detain suspects and quickly find the facts, rather than allowing the same types of questioning to occur at a trial.

The idea that law enforcement can accurately detain suspects and find the truth in an informal setting as explained by the Crime Control Model is essentially thrown out, due to the basic psychology that “people are notoriously poor observers of disturbing events” (7). To keep this system running the Due Process Model is reliable because it calls for the “prevention and elimination of mistakes” (8). The Due Process Model also addresses that “power is always subject to abuse” and that “using maximal efficiency means maximal tyranny,” and how this can be stopped since the Due Process Model advocates for the rights of the accused (8). Also, the Due Process Model operates on the idea that you are innocent until proven guilty. Finally, where the Crime Control Model emulates an assembly line, the Due Process Model imitates an obstacle course, where law enforcement is hindered at every step by protective rights of the