Penal Injustice

Criminal disenfranchisement, while currently upheld by Supreme Court review, has a growing base of supporters for the overturning of such exclusionary practices. In fact, according to a recent study, the majority of the mass public, between 52 and 80 percent depending on the crime committed, vastly supports the re-enfranchisement of previously convicted felons not currently imprisoned (Manza, Brooks, & Uggen, 2003).

“Beginning in the 1970s, the prison population began swelling, climbing steadily through 2009. Now, this nation imprisons more of its residents, 2.2 million, than any other.The United States jails a quarter of the world 's prisoners, although it contains only 5 percent of the world 's population. The statistics are sobering for a republic that celebrates justice, fairness and equality as the granite pillars of its democracy. (Walsh, 2016).” The underlying foundations of America 's mass-imprisonment arrangements are tangled ever, legislative issues, social clash and imbalance. It 's a pretzel-rationale maze, and to fathom it or even disentangle it, investigators say, will require clearing, head-on changes. However, those early endeavors in the long run exploded backward, Hinton said, throwing “ "low-income youth — whose families are on welfare, who live in public housing projects, who attend urban public schools, and who have family members with arrest records — as potentially delinquent." ( Walsh, 2016). With regards to the criminal equity framework, examiners say that lessening imbalance essentially would require an update of the country 's sentencing framework, better preoccupation and avoidance programs, jail changes, more successful policing arrangements and preparing, and complete support for previous detainees attempting to shape stable lives. The prison system is unfair because of the mass incarceration of blacks, the war on drugs, the population and the prison

At one point the United States Court System paid no attention to inmate complaints and concerns. However, that changed when the Supreme Court took an interest in prisoner litigations. Lawmakers finally began to see inmates as American citizens who still were afforded certain liberties according to the United States Constitution. Once perspectives began to change about the prisoners and their rights, petitions addressing the violations of inmate’s civil liberties started to flood into the courts. The American court system is aware that prisoners do have some rights, but they would naturally be fewer than free citizens (Carlson & Garrett, 2008). The limitation of rights is mandatory to sustain security in prisons or jails. The federal government stepped in and

The criminal justice system accepts responsibility for making our neighborhoods and cities safe for all. The repercussions of removing people from their families and communities and then depositing them back later, without any assistance or substantial rehabilitation, are grave.9 Men and women who have served extensive prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are not only left with little or no social support but also clearly marked by the criminal justice system as potentially threatening repeat offenders. Although mass incarceration policies have recently received a great deal of attention (due to incarceration becoming prohibitively costly), failure to address the legacy of racism passed down by our forefathers and its ties to economic oppression will only result in the continued reinvention of Jim

The Prison Industrial Complex has created a system of force free labor that strips prisoners of their political, economic, and social rights, ultimately relegating them to second-class citizenship, inside and outside of the prison walls. Denying former enslaved people citizenship was essential to the formation of the original union and hundreds of years later, America remains a nonegalitarian society. Not only are those incarcerated barred from suffrage, as throughout much of US history for African Americans, but they also endure legalized discrimination in housing, education, public welfare and employment. Though there has been a change in language and people are no longer explicitly discriminatory or prejudiced based on race, they remain so on criminality and income, both significant indicators of race in this country. This is most evident once persons are released from prison. Not only can they be returned to prison for the most minor infractions, like missing a parole meeting or associating with the wrong crowd, but they also face great adversity when trying to get back into the workforce or readjust to normal life. It is no secret that having a history of incarceration impedes future economic success, and Pew data finds that incarceration reduced subsequent wages by eleven percent, cut annual employment by nine weeks, and reduced yearly earnings by forty percent (Khalek, 2001). This all in addition to the psychological harm and the damage to family home units prisons

For example, the incident that took place back in April where four on duty African Americans parole officers were pulled over and held at gun point by white police officers. According to CNN.com “On the morning of April 21, 2014, the parole officers were on their way back from attempting to execute an arrest warrant when they were stopped on the side of the road by police officers, some of whom had their weapons drawn. The parole officers stated they were all wearing their department-issued bullet proof vests with their gold badges displayed prominently around their necks. Additionally, they said their car had an official New York State placard displayed conspicuously on the dashboard, according to court documents.” This incident displays

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.

The justice system has lost sight of its main purpose, which is to properly carry out the laws amongst society. The system has imprisoned many people under foul circumstances causing the increased prison rates in the United States. The creators of the laws have aided in convicting people quicker, but the downfall is that the laws do not always sentence those who deserve imprisonment. Some officials no longer care about proper and fair convictions for those who break the law because the more people they convict the more money they make. Prisons have turned into a place where financial gain is the main purpose. The U.S needs to stop the corruption of its justice system that has allowed greed and power to pervert prisons from places of reform to places for profit and subjugation.

Our criminal justice system is complex and multi-faceted. When people talk about criminal justice reform, they are actually referring to a number of distinct issues and problems. On a national level, the focus on reform can be seen as a recognition that the “tough on crime” legislation that was all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s – mandatory minimums, “three strikes” laws, enhanced sentences for drug crimes to name a few examples – created more problems than they were designed

The United States criminal justice system is not working. We throw the criminals into the system and forget about them. There is little to no effort to reintegrate them into society. “According to a report from HM Inspectorate

People are arrested every day in the United States. They are put on probation or sent to jail, and sometimes they are let out on parole; there are millions of people affected. In 1995 alone there were over five million people under some form of correctional supervision, and the number is steadily increasing. The incarceration rate is skyrocketing: the number of prison inmates per 100,000 people has risen from 139 in 1980 to 411 in 1995. This is an immense financial burden on the country. Federal expenditure for correctional institutions alone increased 248% from 1982 to 1992. Obviously something has to be changed in the justice system. If the crime rate is rising this

The current criminal justice system is flawed. There is no way around that. There are too many inconsistencies with how things are handled. Wrongful convictions, death row exonerations, and abuse of power are just a few of the troubling points I can speak about. Reforms and changes in policy can only go so far. A new alternative approach to dealing with criminal behavior has emerged however. This new approach is called restorative justice.

The criminal justice system was put in place to serve justice to those that deserve it and punishing those that break the laws. The tiers of power include police departments to enforce the law, courts to prosecute the guilty or prove innocence, and corrections facilities to contain those that are being punished. The American Justice System has a responsibility to protect and uphold the freedoms of citizens. Although throughout history, the justice system has failed to carry out their initial purpose. Courts can no longer tell the difference between innocence and guilt, police are using their power to gain leverage over citizens, and incarceration rates in the US are higher than the next couple of countries combined. These are some effects that prove the failure of the American justice system.

The purpose of this paper has several different agendas. Firstly, I will describe a firsthand experience of the justice system through the eyes of a friend of mine, whom I recently had the fortunate opportunity to sit down and interview him for his full story. Secondly, I briefly will examine the current justice system, using my friends experience. And finally, I will expound on some of my opinions of the current justice system after listening to my friends story, and discuss some of the new insight I received while doing this paper along with the readings provided in my class, 'Intro to Criminal Justice '. My friends name is Marshall Ward, he was a former inmate for less than a year as a result of him finding himself in the 'wrong place at the wrong time '. I also want to add that perhaps him being with the wrong crowd did not help his case at all. Marshall is a former co-worker of mine and we have managed to stay in touch over the years since my husband and I have moved out of state. I interviewed him via Skype last week, asking him not only for his side of the story alone, but to also listen to his views about the current justice system. I asked him if he felt it was an effective system, and what things could be changed for the better. I also took note on what he felt needed to be changed.

Not only is our criminal justice system taking away harmless members of our society and caging them in a crowded space where health conditions are poor but it also strips them of any kind of hopes and dreams they had about their futures. According to senior counsel Lauren-Brooke Eisen and director Inimai Chettiar of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, of 2 million incarcerated people, 25% of prisoners (364,000 people) are almost all non-violent, lower-level offenders, who would be better served by alternatives to