The administration of criminal justice in Michigan is triggered when a crime is committed and law enforcement identifies a suspect. Because of limited resources and practical considerations, many people who commit or attempt to commit crimes are never brought to justice. Sometimes a criminal completes the crime without being detected and leaves law enforcement with no means to identify or apprehend him. In other instances, people who have been victimized choose not to report the crime, and law enforcement agents are never alerted to the fact that criminal activity occurred.[a] However, alleged criminals are apprehended every day. The following section describes what typically ensues following the commission of a crime.
[a] This is obviously difficult to calculate, but one Bureau of Justice Statistics study estimates that, nationally, 52 percent of all violent victimizations between the years 2006 and 2010 went unreported. Lynn Langton et al., “Victimizations Not Reported to the Police, 2006-2010” (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2012), https://perma.cc/NAV9-R2RR.