From the creation of the United States, legislation urged for accurate judiciary sentencing and fair treatment under the law, even including such requirements in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. However, as time went on, the judicial system continued to be horrifically flawed without regard for the legality of its failings. As a result, the biggest threat to the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence, in present day America is corruption in the justice and police system.
Corruption worms its way into many aspects of everyday society, though very prominently in the United States’ justice system. A large threat against the right of life, within the inalienable rights, is the excessive use of force by police, often at the risk of minority lives. From Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man who was killed for making a phone call in his own backyard, to Charles Kinsey, another unarmed black man who was shot for doing his job, there is no shortage of cases that show minorities facing police violence
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Incidents of liberty violations have also been recorded in the modern day. A recent study shows that, for every white person imprisoned, there are over 5 African American people in prison (Nellis). The disparity between black and white incarceration rates shows the extent to which the United States prioritizes white liberty and white freedom over the liberty of people of color. This acts as a direct threat to the inalienable right to liberty in the United States, because it immediately shows the double standard when convicting people of color in contrast to when convicting white people. White privilege allows for white juries and white judges to keep white people free and to keep people of color, especially African Americans, imprisoned for similar or lesser