Legal Depravity: Inequality Of The Criminal Justice System

"I felt the need to explain to people what Walter had taught me. Walter made me understand why 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. A system that denies the poor the legal help they need, that makes wealth and status more important than culpability, must be changed." (Stevenson 313)

The inequality or equality of black Americans in the criminal justice system have been rigged for a long time.Therefore, I think there is injustice in police killings of blacks, and the sentencing of blacks, and how they are put there, while waiting for trial.

Heinous crimes need punishments. In our current judicial system, the wealth of defendants often allows for lesser sentences for crimes. Be it because a real sentence will cause too much strain on the criminal or because someone was not told “no” enough times as a kid, wealthy people are getting off with little to no punishment. This epidemic is often referred to as “affluenza,” a “disease of the rich that makes them unable to understand the consequences of their behavior,” but it is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the psychology book that lists all mental disorders, which pretty much means that it is not real: it is a made-up disease (Szalavitz). "Affluenza" is something people use to describe what rich kids "have" if their parents

I never realized how money affects the level of justice people receive. As perfectly exemplified through the OJ Simpson, the richer a person is, the better chance they have at getting the verdict they desire. Although not all for hire defense lawyers are better than public defenders, but good defense lawyers are able to charge so much money because they are extremely good at their job and help get their client acquitted. In any other circumstance other than OJ Simpson, a black male accused of double homicide would never have been able to get acquitted. OJ could afford a legal team made up of experts and his legal team costed him $50,000 a day, more than some people make in a whole year. If he wasn’t rich, he would currently be in jail and there for the rest of his life. This is true most cases; money, which gets someone a better lawyer, gives them a better chance at a better sentence. To me, this says that having money and being rich means the law works more in their favor, or is able to argue better in their favor, and that is a fundamental error in our justice system.

Since when is the punishment a person receives dependent on the amount of money they have and not the severity of the crime. With this philosophy guilty billionaires can commit murder with no repercussions except a slap on the wrist whereas innocent citizens that can’t afford a lawyer are being put away in jail for petty crimes. Yes, celebrities have earnt the money by choosing a business that pays thousands for an attractive person that can sing but why are we allowing these people to believe that they are above the law? Because the government is

Inequality can be defined as a person or a group of people not having equal rights or having less of an advantage in certain situations compared to others. Some of the examples that this inequality can be in the form of are: gender, race, ethnicity, and class. On one hand, it could be argued that there is disparity not only within the police force, for instance in particular the Met Police, but also between the police and society itself. However, on the other hand, it can be stated that there is not discrimination in the police service and that the police are not racist or that there may be some inequality but this is being improved on.

In recent years, there have been many cases of the rich “getting away with murder.” One example that I absolutely love is, Ethan Couch.All at the age of 16, Ethan Couch was driving under the influence of stolen beer cases. When he killed 4 people and injured 9 people all together. Couch was then indicted with 4 charges of intoxicated manslaughter, but the judge only gave him 10 years of probation. Since it was argued that he had “affluenza.” Affluenza’s dictionary definition is “a psychological malaise supposedly affecting wealthy young people, symptoms of which include a lack of motivation, feelings of guilt, and a sense of isolation.” This basically gave him a get out jail free card, since his parents were too rich to teach him to be a

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth”. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president made this declaration during the Gettysburg address. “Of the people, for the people, by the people.” This is one of many principles our once “great” nation, the United States of America. On average 10 million people are arrested in America. All for different; reasons, drugs, murder, burglary, and so on. These people who are arrested get charged for whatever the case may be in a country that praises fair and equal trials no matter your race, religion, sexual preference, gender, etc. However, unfortunately, that is not always the case. Every day someone, somewhere becomes another victim of injustice in the American justice

Working class is likely to be punished whereas dominant groups control the criminal justice system as well as are less likely to be punished” (What is Deviance PowerPoint). When dealing with the criminal justice system, most people that are committed of a crime are either unemployed, poor, or uneducated. The lower class are viewed as the main people to commit a crime due to the fact that they believe they have nothing to live for. For example, uneducated people tend to become involved in gang banging, because they do not fear death and they know they will die sooner or later. Poor people commit deviant crimes such as theft due to the fact that they cannot afford food or clothes.

In this case the term “ Affluenza“ became another new term for psychologists of the rich, to allow a defendant an excuse for his behavior. Sixteen year old defendant Ethan Couch used “Affluenza” an invented word. Affluenza literally means that Ethan Couch was “ too rich and spoiled” to know right from wrong, even though his actions resulted in four deaths. Psychologist Gary Miller testified that Couch only knew that if “it feels right, do it”. However, in July, that same year, a judge in the same county sentenced nineteen year old Cristian Leos to eight years in jail for a similar crime of hitting someone with a car and charged with vehicular manslaughter, however Leos did not “suffer from the burdens of extreme wealth” (Fleischer 2). Therefore, the justice system seems two-tiered, and the rich with their burden of great wealth don’t know any better; but average people without the burden of wealth should know better. Fleisher stated that “ As long as he keeps up his mask of wealth and entitlement he is a immune from harm” (Fleischer 2). Unfortunately, justice seems unbalanced because wealth and power play an important part of how defendants are sentenced and how or if they are

Slowly but steadily, this then widen the current divide in the American society in which the wealthy get more privileges despite the crimes they committed; and the impecunious get more oppressed, furthering the gap between the rich and the poor. Under prosecution of white-collar criminals and over prosecution of street criminals are, therefore, degrading the American core values of equality and social justice in addition to the elite-level crime offenders being treated and seen as more socially acceptable than the low-level crime offenders.

Life is a series of choices and opinions. People judge things subconsciously because it is human nature to do so. Those opinions and biases affect the very institution that was supposed to be fair. The judicial system was created to treat all men equally and give everyone a fair trial. However, the judges are human too and they have opinions just like anyone else. They judge people from the moment they first set eyes on them. The impressions they receive affect their ultimate decision about whether one is innocent or guilty and the punishment for the crime. The justice system is more lenient towards the rich and celebrities because the rich make excuses for their crimes, they can afford better lawyers and celebrities aren’t held to the same

Society views many crimes , such as assault, rape, battery, robbery. Murder, and burglary as uncommon behavior. However some crimes, like people who committed a violation of the law against selling produce to people on the weekend is not uncommon at all. Not all uncommon acts are illegal. The society's criminal justice system punishes criminals / people who have committed an illegal acts that are interfering with the norm of society.

There are multiple issues that concern me in the criminal justice system. However one stands out above the rest, as it has been a problem since the establishment of our country, and although it has greatly changed; the fact that it exists is still shocking and disheartening. Laws are not equally created and punishment is not equally distributed amongst people of different economic class. Laws benefit the wealthy people while punishing the lower economic class. The outright practice and flaunting of this policy/procedure is a major issue in the criminal justice system.

The unjustness of the law: a study on the power of money in delinquent cases