Do you have 'arresting' and 'charging' as separate things? We arrest for various reasons one of them being to allow a quicker investigation or to stop someone disappearing. It doesn't mean they are locked up, it means they are taken to a police station asap. They can easily be de-arrested.
Looking at Wikipedia I think being arrested is more serious in the States than it is here.
Yes; they're two separate parts of the process. Each state has it's own process and names for some of the steps, and there are some differences, but the US criminal justice system includes several different points for an independent assessment of probable cause. Warning... lots of confusing legal stuff follows. (See
HERE, as well.)
Once a crime has been commited, several things can happen. A police officer may make an on-view arrest; the cop sees you do it, and nabs you then and there. In misdemeanors, a citizen or police officer may go before a magistrate and give a sworn statement requesting a warrant of arrest; felonies generally must be requested by the police.
In a few cases, for misdemeanors, the police officer may release the accused on a summons, with their written promise to appear. If so, the summons is the charging document. Otherwise, the officer must take the accused before a magistrate without undue delay.
At the magistrate, the officer (or victim in some cases) describes what happened. The magistrate serves two functions: first, they are an independent person assessing whether or not probable cause for the warrant exists, and second, they make the initial bail decision. (If a person was arrested pursuant to an already issued warrant, the magistrate is only making initial bail decisions.)
The accused has the opportunity, generally, to make bail. After all, they're only accused, so we can't keep them in custody unless they're a threat to the public or there's reason to believe that they won't come to court. Issuance of the warrant is when the person is charged -- though you could argue that it doesn't matter until the warrant is served.
Arraignment is the initial appearance before a judge. Generally, this is pro forma; the judge informs the accused of the charges, and may alter or set bail, and may appoint counsel for the accused. Arraignment usually takes just a few minutes, though it may go longer if there's an argument about bail
The next step in the process is the preliminary hearing; the prosecution puts on enough of its case to establish, in the eyes of a judge, whether or not there is probable cause for the case to go to trial. For most misdemeanors, the prelim is often combined with or followed immediately by the trial. Felonies go to the grand jury, a panel of citizens who once again decide whether or not there is probable cause to bind the case over for trial. Only the police officer testifies, and the grand jurors may question the officer. In the courts in my area -- grand jury for most cases is a formality; the saying is that the grand jury will indict a ham sandwich.
After grand jury, a felony finally goes to trial, with the prosecution presenting their case in chief, followed by the defense, followed by any rebuttal case... until the case is handed over to the trier of fact (either a judge or jury).
There are also things like straight indictments at the grand jury... and I haven't bothered distinguishing between courts of record and courts not of record, or district and circuit courts. Or even touched the appellate process.
But that's kind of a nutshell of the Virginia criminal justice process. We only have 49 others... plus the federal system.
