News Analysis : A Mockery Of Justice For The Poor Essay

In our country, hundreds of people are apprehended every day for misdemeanors crimes. Our local justice system will then charge these individuals with fines that can be as much as $2,000 or more. Failure to pay this said fine can immediately result in potential jail time. Yet, if you can pay your bail, you will spend no more than 24 hours in a local facility. Many of these people are poor, while the remainder of these people tends to be middle to upper-class citizens.

Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.

A competing argument is that although expenses are high when it comes to legal aid, that is how it should be. For those that can afford justice deserve it. Wealthy families harbor the view that the legal aid agencies are provided with the tax payers dollar for those who cannot afford to be adequately represented and perhaps that if people are truly masters of teir fate that they would either have not been in such a situation or should have the means by which to solve it.

The criminal justice system is made for two groups of people: the poor and the wealthy.

Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within

This insinuates that the court system prioritizes getting through cases as quickly as possible to give the community a sense of reassurance that a criminal is off the streets. Poor people accused of crimes typically cannot afford a lawyer who will put their time and effort into proving their innocence, which results in them not receiving the justice they deserve. A

Throughout the riveting and eye-opening memoir, Just Mercy, by influential lawyer Bryan Stevenson readers are given a real insight on the predominance of racial minorities on crime sentencings. He opens up on the taboo topics of prejudice and sentencing the poor and weak simply because it’s convenient. This is re-affirmed through New York Times article by Shaila Dewan, “Court by Court, Lawyers Fight Policies that Fall Heavily on the Poor,” where she point blank states “[the justice system] is waging a guerilla campaign to reserve what they consider unconstitutional practices that penalize the poor.” In addition to both of these sources, the video “Keeping the Poor Out of Jail” by Kassie Bracken and Jessica Naudziunas, two Harvard law school students, upholds the same beliefs about inequality as they take on local justice systems and current policies targeting the poor. Although the fourteenth amendment states no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws poverty remains to be an exception to some degree. Those living in poverty lack the same equality as the rest of the US, not being given fair chances in trials or overly punished for their lack of resources. There needs to be an improvement in our justice system so we can eliminate the injustice on the impoverished, whether it be a more involved state-provided lawyer or an adequate, unbiased, and

A Critical Analysis of The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Jimmy Santiago Baca is a winner of the International Prize for his work in, A Place to Stand. The making of a poet. He writes, “I had no money. There is no way I’m going to make bail” (Baca, 187). In some cases, prisoners are only locked up because they had to get appointed a defense attorney who convinced them to plead to the charges so they would not have to go to trial and risk getting an extended amount of time. District attorneys are elected by the citizens and those people want someone who is tough on crime. If the district attorney is not tough on crime, the people will not reelect him. This can lead to many innocent lives being wasted; For instance, some criminals will sit in a cell for decades for the smallest offense. However, if a prisoner attempts to plead not guilty and the case goes to a trial by jury and they do find him or her guilty, they will be sentenced to an even longer term. It is obvious that our justice system is unfair and against human morals and ethics. They are somehow “innocent until proven guilty” yet they cannot afford to prove themselves innocent. Not only is poverty a reason for the rising increase in the population of inmates, many lack the education needed to understand the law or what they are being accused of.

The issue of poverty in the United States seems to lie on the grounds of race education and family structure. As expected I found that educational levels paralleled poverty levels. Unexpected , research was found to prove that race did in fact play a substantial role in poverty. Family structure along with other influential factors either locked an individual into poverty or provided a means for escape from the continuing cycle. Other factors contributing to poverty was the location of homes or neighborhoods and the accessibility to better paying jobs.

Our nation is supposed to symbolize freedom, happiness and social equality . However, manny still fall victim to the social injustice brought upon our society. The novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Portrays these social injustices despite being published many years ago.

In the United States, the adversarial system of justice relies on ensuring a criminal defendant receives a fair trial. The sixth amendment gives defendants the right to legal representation in criminal trials even if they cannot afford one themselves. Each city and county in the United States ensures a defendant the right to counsel. There are different ways cities and counties across the United States provide representation for indigent defendants. One such approach to indigent defense is public defender programs and is a popular system used by many states today. Public defender programs have been around since the 1900’s but gained popularity throughout the years due to the many indigent defense cases.

Social injustice has flooded the world and will continue to flood the world until someone stops all this evil. In Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, there is poverty and racism ruling over the South. Scout Finch has yet to realize all the evil surrounding her and her family. The evil that takes over Maycomb is the racism that lives in the hearts of its citizens. In To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, readers see a view of social injustices caused by racism through the Maycomb citizens who see the world through a veil of hypocrisy, which is shown by their actions in the way they talk down to Tom, and the truths of Maycomb’s society.

There comes a time, in most citizens’ lives when they must stand against their government to produce change. Change can only be acquired if people take the necessary actions for it to take place. Nelson Mandela was a historical revolutionist who helped his people in Africa, to revolt against the government, in order to bring about change. As a result, he was sentenced to prison for 27 years for trying to overthrow the government. Many revolutionist, such as Arundhati Roy and Martin Luther King Jr., explain in their essays how the role of the citizen is to stand against injustice, and how the government labels them as anti-national because of it.

Criminals with no money, often minorities, cannot hire the lawyers needed to defend them so they will most likely be found guilty of the crime they committed.