Arresting Citizenship Analysis

According to the ACLU, the United States only makes up five percent of the world’s population, yet has 25 percent of the world’s prison population. The U.S. criminal justice system is a system of institutions and practices of the government that have a crucial role of controlling crime, upholding laws and penalties, and control citizens who take advantage of the system. Additionally, the system protects those that face incarceration by protecting citizen’s rights. Citizen’s reserve the right to formulate opinions on the government and these opinions ultimately determine a citizen’s participation in government. In the United States, the criminal justice system is constructed by the legislative branch, which creates the laws, the judicial branch, which enforces the law, and correctional facilities, which teach citizens about their wrong doings and serve time for crimes committed. In Lerman and Weaver’s Arresting Citizenship, the authors explore how the criminal justice system influences American citizens and controls their views of the democratic system of government. There are an ample number of factors that formulate a citizen’s opinion of these institutions. However, quite frequently, African American and

In the landmark Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio, an experienced police officer was patrolling the streets of Cleveland and observed a group of black men were participating in suspicious activity. Since the officer had reasonable suspicion, the officer decided to stop and frisk the men. The officer found a concealed weapon on the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were charged with carrying a weapon even though they were not engaging in illegal