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The Structure of Criminal Justice. The phrase criminal justice system refers to a collection of federal, state, and local public agencies that deal with the crime problem. These agencies process suspects, defendants, and convicted offenders and are interdependent insofar as the decisions of one agency affect other agencies.
The criminal justice process varies from state to state, and the federal criminal justice system has its own rules, procedures, and terms to describe the stages of the proceedings. Generally speaking, however, the criminal justice process involves the following stages.