The Justice System In Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

For being such an advanced country, America’s biggest issue stays unresolved. That issue is its justice system. In the book Just Mercy, the author Bryan Stevenson writes, “We have to reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent.” The majority of prisoners in the U.S. are black, mentally ill, or poor. Minorities are treated harshly by the justice system in the United States because it’s built to benefit the rich, guilty, and white. These issues that have plagued the U.S. for decades are both explored in the book, Just Mercy, and the movie, The 13th.
African-Americans have been oppressed in the United States for centuries, the beginning of the prison system

In The 13th they go over the fact that African-Americans were put into prison for long sentences for petty crimes, and were able to become enslaved because the 13th amendment allows it, as long as it’s a punishment for a crime. After slavery it was challenging for African-Americans to find jobs, so some, mostly black men, had to resort to theft to feed their families, but if they were caught they were put into prison for elongated sentences. This made the stereotype of fatherless black homes and that African-Americans were thieves and a cycle of African-Americans going in and out of prison. In Just Mercy, an African-American, Walter Micmillian, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. Although he has proven his innocence with witnesses and alibis, he is determined to be guilty. There is no evidence that Walter committed the crime,