Criminal Justice System Analysis

The book "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" by Jeffrey H. Reiman provides a very interesting account of how the rich are being treated by the criminal justice system in a more favorable than the poorer and nonviolent criminals who are generally mistreated. Reiman started his book by stating that the recently noted decline in crime rate is skewed. This is clear in the 12th page of his book when he stated that After more than 20 years of telling us that crime was growing out of control and proposing more cops and tougher laws and more prisons, crime rates are now coming down and politicians are jumping to claim credit for the reductions" (Reiman ,p. 12).The book is a well written text that effectively examines the various harmful acts that are committed by the rich in our society. These harmful acts include bribery, medical crimes, and embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as environmental crimes such as unsafe workplaces as well as pollution among many others. Reiman's book, in its thorough analysis of the various harmful acts noted that there is a particular bias against the poor people within the American criminal justice system.He demonstrated that acts like murder, assault and theft that are committed by the poor people are treated by the criminal justice system as very serious crimes while on the other hand, other harmful acts like bribery, medical crimes, embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as

For my empirical essay I decided to observe the interaction between Hooters girls and male customers in order to examine how gender is socially constructed and how this place itself lead to gender inequality at a Hooters restaurant located in Santa Monica. For this purpose, I will describe the servers and their male customers based on their ethnicity, class, and race, in order to demonstrate how theses features connect with gender and how they shape the way people interact in a social situation. In this paper, I want to illustrate that

Have you ever pondered on the inequality of punishment within the United States, and its correlation with its judicial system? A land well known for its prestigious freedom, opportunity, and overall liberty, while its criminal justice system, is supposed to serve justice, but in actuality, justice for whom, for wealthier white men, rather than persons of interest like colored and marginalized people? Systematically, individuals continue to be segregated due to their race, and social class. As a result, this is supporting an unequal punishment for the same type of crime- separate, but unequal.

7) In criminological theories, we saw how police activity is largely geared towards minor visible crimes committed by individuals from the lower stratums of society as oppose to “white collar crimes” committed by those of higher stratums (Dubé, CRM 3701, 2011). Abolitionists argue that by severely punishing some of the poor in order to deter society from committing crimes; we are only further contributing to the inequalities in today’s society.

In recent decades, low-income Americans have been facing the consequences of living in a country whose criminal justice system is greatly influenced by skewed prosecution dynamics, and whose structural discrepancies continue to encourage the mass incarceration phenomenon that affects millions of individuals today. At rates higher than Russia and China, the U.S is incarcerating an entire portion of its population based on irrelevant criteria such as affluence and race. The harsh reality that both, poverty-stricken individuals and prison inmates face today, indicate a dire need for systematic change, and should encourage citizens to become informed members of society. As citizens have come together, and government officials become involved, many reforms have been introduced and passed which are conducive to a more restorative approach to justice.

An inherent marker of this case’s problematic nature can be demonstrated within the representation of the defendants by prosecution. The defendants had their socioeconomic status and previous interactions with the ‘justice’ system flagrantly used against them. They were characterized as those people, the others, the ones who commit crimes – preying on implicit jury biases*1. Their background and the neighborhood they grew up in was used as an excuse to typecast them for a role in prison. It seems obvious that in any case, the class roles of any participants should be irrelevant unless their crime explicitly involves the matter. Instead, theirs were touted as evidence. Additionally, the defendants’ previous transgressions were brought up in an attempt to further incriminate them. Though recidivism rates are essentially astronomical in the United States, this argument is beyond irrelevant and at its heart a fallacy that should make this information irrelevant. (If the defendants had interacted with the justice system before and they were convicted of anything, then the system has failed them. It’s clearly ineffective given that in the eyes of the state the defendants were far from rehabilitated).

Social class in relation to the justice system adversely affects not only minorities who are concentrated in marginalized communities (Rios, 2011), but also affects White people. Poor Whites compared to poor minorities may face similar obstacles, but they are not treated the same by all agents involved in the justice system. Discretion by police

The Justice system seeks to prevent crimes and to capture those who have committed crimes. But what are the causes of crime, maybe poverty, or greed, or is sometimes caused by the system. Is the risk worth the reward and is reward the worth risking the punishment? Power and influence is threaded deeply into the Criminal Justice System. Are all offenders caught and processed with the same demeanor and given the same punishment? The system needs to be impartial to all offenders regardless of the offender’s social position, job or yearly income. The general punishment for most crimes is incarceration in most states with a difference in duration to adjust per each crime. This is the deterrent against crime. This is what should be keeping

The next topic we discussed was in what way’s he believes that our criminal justice system is not working. The first thing he stated was how some of the prisons are max facilities. He knew first hand of one. When he attended the Charles County Dentation Center they are not allowed outside at all. He was under lock and key for 14 months with no chance of getting just the tinniest bit of fresh air. He would like for all prisons to change from max facilities. People need exercise and fresh air, it is good for their bodies. He believes that everyone should be able to have some time outside. That there should be different programs for everyone. He believes that depending on the crime that the person committed he or she should be able to go outside

The relationship between social class and criminal victimization is one that has been studied by criminal justice theorists and sociologists since the creation of our modern criminal justice system. The parameters of social class has been debated by famous sociologist over the centuries, causing the relation to criminal victimization to be somewhat skewed. The criminal justice policies of America are modeled after the common believe that those who are positioned at the bottom of the social class experience an increase in criminal victimization. This theory has had both a negative and positive effect on the members of the lower levels of the social

Knowledge of U.S. history is crucial in terms of understanding the criminal justice system because history tells why it is they way it is now, what goals and values the system is trying to reach and preserve. History repeats, by gaining knowledge of history, we can better understand and improve the current situation, preventing results that we do not want from occurring.

Class is defined as “the system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status” (Oxford Dictionary). Most people commit crimes based on what their status in life is. If a person is poor, they are more likely to steal food, and other material possessions. If a person is rich, they are more likely to commit white-collar crimes, such as fraud. Variances in socioeconomic status, such as the disparities in the distribution of wealth, income, and access to resources, mitigate social problems. Lower socioeconomic status, and the things that are influenced by it such as low education levels, and poverty, affect many parts of our society (APA). All of these factors, have been shown to be more prevalent in prisons, and thus affect the prosecution phase of the judicial system. In this paper, I will analyze how class, both social and economic, has an effect on sentencing, and the trying of a person accused of a crime.

where children would receive individualized attention from a concerned judge (Anon, 2018). Yet by midcentury, public concern grew about the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system and the rise in crime, as major disparities in treatment began to arise, and were a direct result of the lenient system, which saw the fate of adolescents being determined by juvenile court judges whose mood or temperament would affect how they treated a certain case. By the 1970’s, the Supreme Court officially formalized the juvenile courts, yet the public once again began to perceive that juvenile crime was on the rise and that the system was still too lenient, resulting in punitive laws, including mandatory sentences and automatic adult court transfers for

The general idea of the Criminal Justice system in the United States is that everyone be treated equal despite race, ethnicity, sexuality, and class. However, social class must be taken in consideration when examining criminology and criminal justice. It is often viewed as a crucial factor that influences individuals to commit a crime. A person’s social status structures “social interactions”, as every role has a specific behavior that is associated with it as well as power. Within the “hierarchical organization of social statuses” people have access to certain resources, wealth, and education that sometimes controls the outcomes that it occurs. The class you are born in usually determines what crimes are committed though everyone is capable of doing the same crimes, some crimes are more accepted. Those who are in a lower class are more likely to do a blue collar crime while someone in a higher class commits a white

“Crime is a political concept designed to protect the power and position of the upper classes at the expense of the poor” (Siegel, 2015), because anyone with political power controls the definition of crime and how our criminal justice system enforces the law. Therefore, criminal law, behaviors, and disciplinary responses to crime are shaped, in part, by the inequality of society.