Analysis Of Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

In the book “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, the author is a lawyer and founder of the Equal Injustice Initiative who helps and defends those that are in desperate needs. Stevenson tells different stories of different cases that he had through the course of his professional career. One of the most heartbreaking stories that Stevenson shares on his books is about a boy named Charlie. Charlie is a fourteen years old who murdered his stepfather because he was abusive with his mom and left her unconscious on the floor. Charlie was sentenced to an adult prison because his stepfather was an ex-police officer. When Steven heard about Charlie’s case he ran to the prison to go see him and the first thing that Charlie tells Stevenson is how every night he would get sexually abused in prison by so many men ,and how they would do really awful things to him. “Florida is one of a few states that allows the prosecutor to decide to charge a child in adult court for certain crimes and has no minimum age for trying a child as an adult.”(Stevenson). Charlie’s case is not an unusual one. There are hundreds of prisoners currently in US prisons who are suffering ridiculous prison sentences while other prisoners with more violent, heinous, and terrible crimes have been sentenced to lesser time in jail or are already out. In order to understand why this is still a problem, it’s important to first understand the current issues facing prisons today and what effects come from these issues. Then

Not one person, was created to be perfect beings, but children are pure and innocent and their mental and critical thinking skills are not fully developed and strong enough to handle adult prisons. On the other hand, children are most likely to vividly remember delinquent actions they performed whether it was done intentionally in a “heat of the moment” action such as Charlie’s case in Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy” or unintentionally due to peer-pressure or self-protection in most juveniles’ case. Moreover, the justice system is hypocritical to their own children, “Protect the young” but places the young in harm’s way. Children in adult prisons are prone to rape, suicide and assault than in juvenile detention centers according to studies on juvenile suicide in adult institutions and youth facilities in the1980’s. The studies indicated that “the suicide rate of juveniles in adult jails is 7.7 times more likely than of juvenile detention centers. In 1989, five times as many youth held in adult prisons answered yes to the question "has anyone attempted to sexually attack or rape you" than those held in juvenile institutions while about 10% of the youth interviewed reported a sexual attack, or rape attempt.(Zeidenberg).Another factor of why children should not be tried as adults is that youths are easily victimized and beaten up by inmates and most likely staff, they are also for example

In the novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, it is extremely apparent that there is a link between poverty, wealth, injustice, and justice. This book incorporates a strong theme of poverty and how it relates to justice, as well as injustice. Furthermore, it very apparently works to explain and provide examples of problems within the justice system, and the urgency that these be corrected. One major problem being poverty in relation to obtaining justice. This being said, throughout my personal reading of the book, I have come to agree with Stevenson's statement, "the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice" (Stevenson 18).

The book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and the film “Shawshank Redemption” both contain similarities and differences in reference to the justice system. Both the book and the film have characters in them which go through certain situations. Some of the similarities and differences being shown have to do with hope, industrialization, and how people are being treated by guards.

In the article “On Punishment and Teen Killers” by Jennifer Jenkins asserts that teens are becoming more violent and starting commit more crimes because of the national television they watch.Jenkins tells the reader about “JLWOP” (Juvenile Life Without Parole) and how kids are being sentenced to life in prison without parole.Some people are trying to advocate to minimize the offender culpability because of their age.While kids are getting sentenced to life without parole, this disproves juvenile advocates reliance on the undeveloped brain.Some juvenile offenders truly understand what the victim family go through and how long it takes them to recover.There were millions of dollars spent to end JLWOP and to set convicted murderers free.

The novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson covers many aspects of the legal system, including Stevenson’s quest to get prisoners who were convicted as adolescents out of adult prison. Through Stevenson’s experiences, he sees first hand experience of children that are sent to adult prisons. Specifically he saw how the prisoners who were convicted as children revert to a very low mental state and often have a great deal of trouble readjusting if they are even remotely capable of doing so. One of these experiences that Bryan Stevenson encountered was with a young fourteen year old named Charlie and the impacts of an adult world in a child’s head. Children should never be pushed into adult prisons or receive adult punishments because of their lack of clear understanding of difficult situations.

Just Mercy was written in 2014 by Stevenson Bryan. This story takes place in Montgomery Alabama. This story is about the broken system of justice. How people are judged unfairly even in the supreme Court. Bryan Stevenson primarily focuses on death penalty cases and juveniles sentenced to life or death. He provides relief for those incarcerated also, he understands the need to fix this criminal justice system by focusing on poverty, and racial disparities. Stevenson chooses cases that did not receive justice. This book discusses the prison life and how they are treated. It also decides about the different cases and how each case has one theory. It provides additional insight into the rush to incarcerate for life people as young teenagers, putting them in an adult prison. Where they are certain to suffer from sexual, mentally and physical abuse.

Bryan Stevenson, the author of Just Mercy, has many themes in his book. One of which is the importance of human life. He goes through many cases of which, in the end, he realizes that every human deserves empathy and mercy and a fair chance at living their lives. Throughout the novel there is one specific case that changes Stevenson’s perspective the most however. This case is the Walter McMillian case that demonstrates the unfairness that was tolerated for death row inmates. Stevenson expresses this theme throughout the book. Some examples are through the McMillian case, the mental patient case, the juvenile case, and his own experience.

What if you were innocent, but people couldn't see past your race and called you "guilty" for something you didn't do? This is one of the problems in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a girl named Scout, who is growing up during The Great Depression. Just Mercy is about an upstart lawyer that deals with racial discrimination in the court system. Both To Kill a Mockingbird and Just Mercy correlate with each other, are significant today, and can be tied back to racial profiling.

Segregation and discrimination both happen to African Americans in Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. They are viewed as less, like they show be treated differently. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the town of Maycomb took Bob Ewell's word over Tom Robinson's because he was of a different race. Bryan Stevenson mentions that many young African Americans go to prison because they did something bad, but this then affects these children for the rest of their lives. Many African Americans are still affected today by the justice system and how they are treated by other people. Racial injustice has been a huge part of history and both, Just Mercy and To Kill a Mockingbird talk about racial injustice, that is still happening today.

A month ago we started reading the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. At first it was like any other assigned book, you read it because it is assigned and you want a good grade. You don’t try especially hard to connect to the text and count the pages until you are done. Then it changed. Stevenson’s voice shined through and he began to tell stories about people who I never gave a second thought about, child murderers, wrongly convicted mothers and exonerated death row inmates. I connected to this book in a way I’ve never connected to an assigned book before. I began to look forward to reading further and reading ahead before the chapters were assigned. I discussed the book not only at school but at home any chance I could get. I began

Juvenile incarceration has been a controversial issue long before the formation of the Juvenile Justice system. During the 18th century, Americans adopted Great Britain’s English Common Laws, which believed in “malice supplies the age” (Blackstone, 1769). This meant that children as young as seven years old could be convicted of crimes to the same degree as adults. During this period, the courts did not acknowledge the variance in cognition between children and adults, so they were tried equally. As a result, children were incarcerated with adult offenders, where they were exposed to risk of maltreatment and corruption (The American Bar Association).

In the justice systems of North America there are many cases where the innocent party does not initially see retribution, and in some cases may be wrongfully convicted. Many cases of this nature do eventually reach a fair and just conclusion, with few or no ill effects. In cases that do not reach a fair and just conclusion and some that do, there are many damages and ill effects to both society and the true innocent party. Among this second subset of cases, those concerning youth suspects are not always treated fairly and may incur excess physiological and psychological damages. It is with this that the miscarriage of justice in juvenile criminal cases leads to many damaging effects with neither a clear nor easy pathway to recovery.

Julia Mlynarczyk 11/12/17 Catholic Ethics Period 7 Just Mercy Final Assessment : Choice 4 What is the justice? For such a simple word, its’ meaning is often never truly found for most. Bryan Stevenson’s novel, Just Mercy, tells the story of a lawyer fighting for those wrongfully accused and put on death row. Stevenson focuses the main theme of this novel on the statement, “the opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice.”

At the beginning of 1970’s the prison population was 300,000 people today is has increased to 2.3 million people behind bars making America the first country to have the largest rising prison population in the world. It takes an extremely strong, patient and humble soul to save the many lives of those who have been incarcerated for petty crimes, and given unreasonable sentences as a result. Bryan Stevenson, an inspiring, brilliant and influential attorney, is an epitome of mercy and justice as he describes the lives affected by America’s corrupted prison system. As a broken individual saving broken lives, it is exceedingly significant for Stevenson to remember the intelligent words from his Grandmother as she often told Stevenson, “You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close” (14). Stevenson gets close to these heartbreaking issues by presenting himself as a Stonecatcher for the numerous individuals who have been abandoned because of poverty, mental disabilities, as well as abandoned by society.