Criminal justice system in the context of "Correctional justice"

An examining magistrate is a judge in an inquisitorial system of law who carries out pre-trial investigations into allegations of crime and in some cases makes a recommendation for prosecution. Also known as an investigating magistrate, inquisitorial magistrate, or investigating judge, the exact role and standing of examining magistrates varies by jurisdiction. Common duties and powers of the examining magistrate include overseeing ongoing criminal investigations, issuing search warrants, authorizing wiretaps, making decisions on pretrial detention, interrogating the accused person, questioning witnesses, examining evidence, as well as compiling a dossier of evidence in preparation for trial.

Investigating judges in France have an important role in the French judiciary. They are also a feature of the Spanish, Dutch, Belgian and Greek criminal justice systems, although the extent of the examining magistrate's role has generally diminished over time. Since the late 20th and early 21st centuries, several countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, and Italy, have abolished the position of examining magistrate outright. In some cases, they have created new positions that take on some of these responsibilities.

A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe. Destitute people who were unable to pay a court-ordered judgment would be incarcerated in these prisons until they had worked off their debt via labour or secured outside funds to pay the balance. The product of their labour went towards both the costs of their incarceration and their accrued debt. Increasing access and lenience throughout the history of bankruptcy law have made prison terms for unaggravated indigence obsolete over most of the world.

Since the late 20th century, the term debtors' prison has also sometimes been applied by critics to criminal justice systems in which a court can sentence someone to prison over willfully unpaid criminal fees, usually following the order of a judge. For example, in some jurisdictions within the United States, people can be held in contempt of court and jailed after willful non-payment of child support, garnishments, confiscations, fines, or back taxes. Additionally, though properly served civil duties over private debts in nations such as the United States will merely result in a default judgment being rendered in absentia if the defendant willfully declines to appear by law, a substantial number of indigent debtors are legally incarcerated for the crime of failing to appear at civil debt proceedings as ordered by a judge. In this case, the crime is not indigence, but disobeying the judge's order to appear before the court. Critics argue that the "willful" terminology is subject to individual mens rea determination by a judge, rather than statute, and that since this presents the potential for judges to incarcerate legitimately indigent individuals, it amounts to a de facto "debtors' prison" system.

In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes. These functions commonly include imprisonment, parole, and probation. A typical correctional institution is a prison. A correctional system, also known as a penal system, thus refers to a network of agencies that administer a jurisdiction's prisons, and community-based programs like parole, and probation boards. This system is part of the larger criminal justice system, which additionally includes police, prosecution and courts.

"Corrections" is also the name of a field of academic study concerned with the theories, policies, and programs pertaining to the practice of corrections. Its object of study includes personnel training and management as well as the experiences of those on the other side of the fence — the unwilling subjects of the correctional process. Stohr and colleagues (2008) write that "Earlier scholars were more honest, calling what we now call corrections by the name penology, which means the study of punishment for crime."

In British politics, the shadow home secretary (formally known as the shadow secretary of state for the home department) is the person within the shadow cabinet who shadows the home secretary; this effectively means scrutinising government policy on home affairs including policing, national security, and matters of citizenship. The shadow home secretary also formerly had responsibility for the criminal justice system and the prison service; these responsibilities are now held by the shadow justice secretary. If the opposition party is elected to government, the Shadow Home Secretary often becomes the new Home Secretary, though this is not always the case. The office is currently held by Chris Philp, a member of the Conservative shadow cabinet.

In recent decades, the positions of home secretary and shadow home secretary have alternated between the Conservative and Labour parties. The corresponding position for the Liberal Democrats is the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson.

Forensic dentistry or forensic odontology involves the handling, examination, and evaluation of dental evidence in a criminal justice context. Forensic dentistry is used in both criminal and civil law. Forensic dentists assist investigative agencies in identifying human remains, particularly in cases when identifying information is otherwise scarce or nonexistent—for instance, identifying burn victims by consulting the victim's dental records. Forensic dentists may also be asked to assist in determining the age, race, occupation, previous dental history, and socioeconomic status of unidentified human beings.

Forensic dentists may make their determinations by using radiographs, ante- and post-mortem photographs, and DNA analysis. Another type of evidence that may be analyzed is bite marks, whether left on the victim (by the attacker), the perpetrator (from the victim of an attack), or on an object found at the crime scene. However, this latter application of forensic dentistry has proven highly controversial, as no scientific studies or evidence substantiate that bite marks can demonstrate sufficient detail for positive identification and numerous instances where experts diverge widely in their evaluations of the same bite mark evidence.