There many different criminal justice systems in the world today. Some that consists of many of the same policies and some that are considerably different. In the case of France and the U.S. there are a lot of similarities, but I will be focusing on the differences between each of their systems. The aspects that I will be comparing are police, courts, the legal profession, legal education, criminal procedural law, corrections, and juvenile justice and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
The policing system in France is a lot different than the one in the U.S. In France there is one big centralized police system run by the government. Unlike the fragmented police model, which is found in the United States and is attributed to the …show more content…

In America you must go through undergraduate and graduate law school, and then pass the bar in order to get your law degree. It's an advantage because students in France start their career a lot earlier but the disadvantage is the amount of time spent on learning the statutes.
Another major difference is the criminal procedural law. France follows the Code of Criminal Procedure which explains the methods of investigating and judging a person charged with violating the criminal law. France's Criminal Procedure of law has two different aspects that the procedure is taken from. They are preliminary investigations and the trial process. While America obtains most of its laws through the constitution but different from state to state and follows more of a checks and balances procedure. The U.S. relies heavily on the idea of due process which puts emphasis on the right of the defendant. Due process makes it a lot more difficult to prove the guilty. It rests on the belief that it is more desirable for society that ninety nine suspects go free than that a single innocent person be condemned (Gaines and Miller 20). The disadvantage of the French criminal procedure is the lack of individual rights that America demonstrates. The advantage might be the amount of effort that is placed on a case could result in a more reasonable trial.
The prison system in France is also different than our system in America. The French have three