Laws serve several purposes in the criminal justice system. The primary purpose of criminal law is to protect, serve, and limit human actions and to help guide human conduct. In addition, the laws provide for penalties and sanctions against those guilty of crimes against property or people. In the modern world, there are three choices for fighting criminals: criminal punishment, private action, and executive control. Although private action and executive control are advantageous in terms of cost and speed, they present great dangers that discourage their use except in exceptional situations. The second objective of criminal law is to punish the offender. Punishing the offender is the most important objective of criminal law, because in doing so; this discourages him from committing crime again while making him pay for his crimes. Retribution does not only mean inflicting corporal punishment through incarceration, but it can also include elements such as rehabilitation and financial retribution, among others. The final purpose of criminal law is to protect the community from criminals. Criminal law constitutes the means by which society protects itself against those who are harmful or dangerous to it. This objective is achieved through sentences designed to deter the offender from repeating the same crime in the future. Criminal law serves several purposes depending on how people perceive it. Some of the functions of criminal law are to separate criminals from society, rehabilitate them, and punish offenders. However, the two main functions of criminal law are to communicate right and wrong to society and to punish those who break the law. The properties of criminal law include natural law... middle of paper ..... .mmunity.There is simply no alternative legal system capable of maintaining a calm and peaceful environment for the people of the world outside of " right ". It is easy to see the need for each nation to enforce its own set of rules. Even though all countries in the world have their own individuality, they all have one considerable feature which is a system of law. It doesn't matter what type of government is in place, the rules are all tailored to the members of their community. Works Cited http://www.hg.org/crime.html. (2012). Criminal law - Guide to criminal law. Retrieved February 18, 2012 from HG.Org.Legal Information Institute. (August 9, 2010). Retrieved February 17, 2012, from Cornell University School of Law: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/criminal_law Schmalleger, F. (2012). Criminal justice. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.