Why Do We Judge People In The Criminal Justice System

I agree with the speaker that the criminal justice system in America treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. I believe that in not only in American society but also around world, wealth has a major roll in the outcome of a situation. Money does what money does best, it buys. Unfortunately, money can buy you your freedom and a judge. With money people look up to you, but without money people look down on you.

Mandatory minimum laws, which set different minimum sentences for crack and powder cocaine possession, are policies that are inflexible, “one-size-fits-all” sentencing laws that undermine the constitutional principle that the punishment should fit the crime and undermine the judicial power to punish an individual in context of the specific circumstances. Similarly, 3-strikes laws also ignores judicial discretion. Truth-in-sentencing policies refer to policies created to have a convict serve the full sentence, regardless of good behavior or other deterrent. These policies are created to only incapacitate people—more specifically minorities—not to rehabilitate them. More people in jail and longer sentences are not helping ensure public safety.

The case sends the message that “families that have money, you can drink and drive . This is a very , very dangerous thing we're telling our children.” This proves that “society is often Unequal” because poor people are treated differently than the rich people.

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws are fundamentally un-American. The Boston University Law Journal states that “mandatory minimum sentences provide plenary decision-making power to prosecutors of the executive branch, while heavily restricting the discretion of the judiciary”(Riley, 2011, p. 286). This significantly weakens the checks and balances of the criminal justice system. This means that mandatory minimums are in conflict with the

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

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

In the article “Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: A Failed Policy,” the author highlights how mandatory minimum sentencing is a policy that has failed in attempt to put an end to drug crimes. Batey stated that the attempts of federal and state thought that they could “get tough on crime,” particularly drug offense, by eliminating the sentence discretion of judges and restoring it with long minimum sentences that applied regardless of defendant's individual circumstances (Batey 24). Moreover, the mandatory minimum sentences take authority away from the judge and give it to the prosecutor, who decides whether to charge the defendant with a crime carrying a long minimum sentence or much less offense. Withal, mandatory minimum sentences have failed due to giving America’s power too much power in plea bargaining, an imbalance that has led to the incarceration of persons too fearful to insist on a hearing that might have released them (Batey 25). Finally, Batey mentions that mandatory minimum sentence policy has filled prisons with the wrong people, which are minor players, not drug kingpins, and even some who are innocent (Batey 25).

Prosecutors operate without accountability and fail to punish high-level dealers and this does not eliminate sentencing disparities. Furthermore, mandatory sentences are responsible for sending many women and people of color to prison. Also, it was thought that harsher, mandatory sentences would serve as a greater deterrent, making it less likely that offenders would re-offend.

Ben Whishaw once said, "The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws." For many years, the criminal justice system has been criticized for its many problems and errors; one in particular that caught my attention was the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. These laws basically set minimum sentences for certain crimes that judges cannot lower, even for extenuating circumstances. The most common of these laws deal with drug offenses and set mandatory minimum sentences for possession of a drug over a certain amount. Sentencing procedures can vary from jurisdiction to Jurisdiction. Most of these laws are ineffective and causes unnecessary jail overcrowding.

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

One of the problems with the law is its principle of removing judicial discretion. This severely hinders a judge's ability to make a punishment fit the crime. While some felons

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.

Consider the following statistics in reference to the disparities among the different groups of defendants when it comes to minimum sentencing in the United States. According to the 2010 Commission’s Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics: over three-quarters (77.4%) of convictions of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty were for drug trafficking offenses; Hispanic offenders accounted for the largest group (38%) of offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty, followed by Black/African American offenders at 31.5%, White/Caucasian offenders at 27.4%, and other race offenders at 2.7%. More than 90% (90.3%) of offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty were men; and Black/African American offenders received relief from a mandatory minimum penalty least often (34.9%), compared to White/Caucasian offenders (46.5%), Hispanic/Latino offenders (55.7%), and other race offenders(58.9%).

There is seen to be a link between power and crime, the more powerful you are, the least likely to be committing a crime, so the lower classes are discriminated here as they don’t have the same power a middle-class or upper-class businessman might have therefore they are labelled to be trouble-makers, they are treated harsher by the criminal justice system than their peers, but the lower class is seen more favourably than ethnic minorities, especially ethnic groups that have less power than them. In the 1960’s, researchers found that blacks were more severely sentenced than whites. Hagan in 1974 reviewed many of the findings supporting racial discrimination and found that studies were not allowing for the possibility that black defendants may be charged with more serious crimes than whites, and may have more serious criminal records (cited in ‘Theoretical Criminology’). Lizotte in 1978 found that blacks have been shown to receive harsher sentences because they are less likely to make bail, since they are less affluent, and this reduces their ability to provide an effective defence.

Different forms of media, such as television, films, books, and newspapers, have similar ways of portraying the criminal justice system. The media constructs representations of crime and justice and in doing this, it presents an often dramatized representation of the criminal justice system; and this does not just influence on the public’s lay view of crime but also for criminal justice experts (Marsh, 2014). In the media it is commonly known that they are a business, and businesses need to make a profit. Because of this, the media’s portrayal of the criminal justice system has been very negative. With the news, their main purpose is to produce what sells. So many of them would edit the information they have gathered and make a story that will sell. Also the media does not show the full process of the criminal justice as a quick process, while in fact it is not. For example, last year, Netflix released a short series called “Making A Murderer”. Most people claimed that they feel like they can solve a crime when they finished watching a series. While that series is very factual, it does not hit every single step of the criminal justice process.