Criminal Justice Issues In The Movie Crash

During the last four weeks, those participating in UB's course entitled, “Criminal Justice Issues - Crime and Justice in Film” had the opportunity to view movies and read literature as it relates to crime and the criminal justice system. The movies and the readings focused our attention on the criminal justice system and how race, social class, gender, philosophies of punishment, prisons, sexuality and violence has perhaps forced us to form opinions or thoughts about our own lives. As I reflect back over the films and readings for this assignment, I’m more aware of my views and opinions of the above issues and stance regarding them. For the purpose of this paper, I chose to concentrate directly regarding the issues of race relations. In

In the film the director Paul Haggis covers the lives of various people ranging from different careers and cultures such as a black and white detective, Caucasian officer, black film director, Persian store owner, Hispanic locksmith, and etc. While all their lives differed, all had some sort of similarities and feelings towards law or injustices. Also, the characters assumption of each other, allowed them to prejudge with preconceived ideas of different cultures, social classes and gender. Therefore, even today, we judge people by their skin color, social class, sexual preference, etc. without getting to know the person. Moreover, the criminal justice system plays a part by unintentionally turning people against each other. Your race can determine how you’re treated even if you’re stopped for a minor traffic violation. Most blacks feel they are mistreated in this area. I believe these issues, played out through various people and various social classes resort back to one final commonality - people have some type of resentment and inward prejudice against other groups, whether its race, social status, homophobia, or religion. It’s sad how we allow our judgment and hate to control our actions towards people who we see as different. I believe the cinema in some cases have added fuel to the fire. They

The film starts off with the incident of a detective and his partner being in a car accident with an Asian lady who dramatically exchanges racial remarks at one another. This is just the opening to the racial tension seen throughout the film, as the next scene travels back to the day before to uncover a situation against a gun store owner and a Persian father and daughter. “The father gets degraded by the store owner calling him out of his name as an insult to his race and was ultimately thrown out the store by security. Enraged by what was witnessed, the daughter demanded their purchase of a firearm be granted before her departure (Haggis, 2005). As the examples of racial relations occurred frequently throughout the film I believe Haggis was trying to bring to light the many different ideologies of race and how people respond differently. Such as the detective in the film using his authority of power over non-whites was evidence to what we see today as more and more police brutality lawsuits