ipl-logo

American Justice System Fair Essay

1275 Words6 Pages

Is the American Justice System fair? This question has caused many controversies amongst Americans. Every year, stories emerge that serve as a reminder that the American Justice system, means injustice for many. The real question is who is sent to prison and who walks free? A question that many would like to believe is properly answered by judges, jurors, and attorneys. But unfortunately, that is not the case. I will be elaborating on a specific case that will emphasize on how our justice system can truly be biased. The criminal justice system is comprised of three major institutions which process a case from inception, through trial, to punishment. A case begins with law enforcement officials, who investigate a crime and gather the evidence to identify and use against the presumed perpetrator. The case continues with the court system, which weighs the evidence to determine if the defendant is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If so the corrections system comes into play with incarceration or probation. In addition, this brings me to Kalief Browder. Many might not know this name, but the ones that do know the horrific story that follows. In the spring of 2010, Browder an African American teenager was arrested for a robbery that he insisted he did not commit. He was sent to Riker’s Island where he …show more content…

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the majority of those being held in federal prisons are convicted of drug offenses mainly marijuana. 1 out of every one 100 Americans are serving time behind bars. Minor criminals, from drug users to petty thieves, are being handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism. This is the culmination of a justice system which has characterized the United States as a justice system based upon increasing the power and wealth of a corrupt corporation instead of it being a justice system for the

Show More
Related
437 Words | 2 Pages

Similarly, Kalief Browder lost a portion of his life in jail due to wrongful conviction. As mentioned in “Before The Law” an article published in The New Yorker, Browder was a 16 year old boy walking down the streets of the Bronx with a friend when he was approached by police officers, “An officer said that a man had just reported that they had robbed him.” Both Browder and his friend were taken down to the precinct and then to booking where his friend was let go, but he wasn’t. Since Browder had been on probation at the time the judge held him with a bail set at three thousand dollars, being charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. Seeing that the bail was was too expensive for his family to pay, Browder was sent to Rikers Island where he would spend 3 years awaiting a trial for a crime he didn’t commit.

Read More
1586 Words | 7 Pages

The criminal justice system may be more corrupt than the people who fill our prisons. It is amazing to see the many ways that certain parts of society actually benefit from the current system we support. This book,The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison, by authors Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, has open my eyes to a very corrupt idealism. They are very precise in their supporting examples as well by walking the reader through each step and analogy.

Read More
1280 Words | 6 Pages

The United States is a country which every day is as much as changes in their justice systems, as in the constitution in order to defend the rights of citizens and improve as a country. Is America a country completely free of injustice, discrimination and respect for the rights of citizens ?. There are two things related to the improvement and stability of the country. According to Obama's Speech he was trying to make many changes and implement new laws for equality of all people as well as a fair justice system for all citizens regardless of race. In his speech the appeal rhetorical most used was Logos, after pathos and finally ethos.

Read More
1508 Words | 7 Pages

We like to say that “Justice is blind,” but justice is decided among people, and people are not perfect or impartial. When convicted of a crime, a person is

Read More
329 Words | 2 Pages

When one thinks about the court systems and the way justice is served they see a system that is fair and just. A system that correctly provides punishment to the guilty party, and one that can discover the truth within the innocent party. On the surface level this appears to be true. Hundreds of thousands of people are incarcerated each year in the United States, which in reality provides a false sense of safety to citizens. While a large percentage of incarcerations are of guilty parties, according to a study in C. Ronald Huff’s book, Convicted But Innocent: Wrongful Conviction and Public Policy, approximately 100,000 innocent people are convicted every year.

Read More
823 Words | 4 Pages

For the same crimes, minorities are given harsher punishments, according to the literature (Feld, Singer, Skolnick, & Roberts, 2012). Cultural bias toward the LGBTQ community and the impoverished are two structural problems that must be addressed (The Balance, 2019). This bias may lead to erroneous accusations and convictions of otherwise innocent persons. American Jury System The jury system is an important part of the American criminal justice system because it guarantees defendants the opportunity to be tried by a group of their peers.

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

In spite of its purpose and promise to uphold fairness and equality, the justice system is inherently unjust as it disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, perpetuates systemic biases and discrimination,

Read More
1728 Words | 7 Pages

The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.

Read More
2057 Words | 9 Pages

Jury Systems and Racial Injustice Juries are the way we make sure trials are fair, but when your jury is biased the result of the trial are often inequitable. Today we do our best to make sure trials have impartial jurors, but this was not always the case. In the 1930’s, and a lot of other decades too, the right for African Americans to have an unbiased jury was not fulfilled. This caused many African Americans to be sentenced to death when they otherwise would not have been.

Read More
494 Words | 2 Pages

Some people believe that our justice system is broken. I 'm here to say otherwise... Not too long ago, Obama actually gave a speech about our criminal justice system. He called for better conditions for prisoners, saying, "They are also Americans." He deplored overcrowding.

Read More
965 Words | 4 Pages

People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

The prison-industrial complex is a corrupt political system that consists of overpowered politicians whose sole ambition is exploiting poor, uneducated, and under-privileged Americans to make money. Although, it wasn’t initially the purpose when Rockefeller started the war on drugs, but he started something bigger than he could’ve imagined at that time. The prison system has been proven to be ineffective, and costly waste of resources. However, it probably won’t be abolished due to the cash flow that it brings to some of the largest corporations in the

Read More
874 Words | 4 Pages

isn’t the only thing people believe needs to change; the reasons for arrests have been criticized by many. America incarcerates more citizens for drug related crimes than any other place in the world. Of the roughly 200,000 in federal prison, 52% are being held for drug crimes and only 8% are for violent crimes, such as: murder, assault, and robbery (Waldman, 2013). Many believe that the “War on Drugs” must become less aggressive because of its large contribution to the prison population. The distribution of prisoners by race has also raised concern among Americans.

Read More
1666 Words | 7 Pages

Men make laws to instill order in a society and prevent chaos in any shape or form. Naturally, laws will always be somewhat unjust because it is impossible to consistently construct laws that directly and equally benefit all members of a society. There will always be a majority that makes the laws and a minority that has to obey the laws. Although laws are usually the standard of morality by which we live by, they must be disobeyed in certain situations. These situations are, but not limited to, an undemocratic formation of aforementioned laws, laws that are inherently unjust according to human law which can be synonymous with God’s law.

Read More
5157 Words | 21 Pages

ABSTRACT “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcolm X

Read More

More about American Justice System Fair Essay

Open Document