The criminal justice system is a delicate framework that is one of the most important aspects of society. The goal of this system being rehabilitation, behavior change, and justice.
However, with 6 million people under correctional supervision, 2.1 million in prisons or jail and
3.9 million on probation and parole, the United States of America by far has the highest incarceration rate compared to other nations. On top of that, the American criminal justice system also spends the most money on its expenditures, reaching nearly 270 billion dollars annually. Based on the numbers alone, it is clear that our justice system is outdated, inefficient, and expensive. Though cultural differences can cause lower rates of incarceration, the primary
difference
…show more content…
If all criminal charges were adjudicated using the constitutionally laid out mechanism of a jury trial, low level distribution
charges would no longer be prosecuted on such a large scale. This is because jury trials are expensive and also require twelve people to take time away from their jobs, families, and personal lives in order to decide whether to subject another human being to a set punishment that the state seeks to inflict. If people are constantly being asked by the state to pause their life and help adjudicate trivial “crimes,” it will cause outrage and send a message to prosecutors to stop wasting both their time and taxpayer money to enforce political platforms, like being tough on crime, that don’t make the community any safer. Instead, plea bargaining defines our court system, with the vast majority of criminal indictments being disposed of this way. Plea bargaining ensures that adjudicating criminal charges is cheap, efficient, and certain, therefore about 95% of cases are handled through guilty pleas rather than jury trials. As the Supreme Court itself has stated, “[American] criminal justice today is for the most part a system of pleas, not
…show more content…
Because a small segment of our population is responsible for a large share of the violent crime, reducing the recidivism rate should be the focus of the Criminal Justice System. Countless studies and statistics have identified a small group of chronic offenders who commit a staggering number of crimes well over one hundred per year. America spends nearly 270 billion dollars annually relating to the criminal justice system, and we must start by reallocating this budget. The reinvestment of the long term incarceration cost will help prevent these crimes entirely in the first place. True crime prevention occurs before the crime takes place, and by investing money in real solutions, education, mental
health treatment and intervention, we can help mitigate crime. It costs roughly $107,000 to incarcerate an inmate for a year, which has since increased by about $57,000 or about 117 percent since 2010. This cost also includes a high chance that the inmate will return to the system later in life. Therefore, it is imperative to prevent that long term cost with intervention and education, which will ultimately save hundreds of thousands of dollars with just one case out