Argumentative Essay On Criminal Justice

It shouldn’t be that way. For those who commit a lower-level crime like drug possession, petty theft, or selling marijuana, prison is not just unfair, it is also a bad sanction for society at large. Reduce sentence minimums and maximums currently on the books. If someone commits a serious crime, like robbery, they should be punished. But there’s little evidence that staying in prison for such long periods of time, such as the 20 or 30-year sentences imposed, will rehabilitate prisoners.

Prosecution & Sentencing Issues Wrongful Convictions Mateusz Konieczkowski CRM 420-01 Professor Rivolta 5 May 2015 Central Connecticut State University #1 There has been many times where the tough-on-crime approach has characterized our Criminal Justice System since the early 1980’s. One of these policies is the Sentencing guideline. Many times, when judges following the sentencing polices, they are too soft on the criminals. Some criminals get away with the crime that they have done. Even in the book illustrates how “a second problem was the recognition of racial disparities” (Mays & Ruddel, 2015).

The perception is that criminals receive less punishment than they deserve in order to facility the process. However, other individuals will accept a more significant plea when they feel overwhelmed by the system and fear incarceration from a jury trial. Those accused of crimes who have limited resources, a questionable past, or a history of criminal behavior will see the plea bargain as the less of two evils. (Rakoff) Many victims often feel cheated by the system and victimized again.

When a judge is considering sentencing to convict an offender specific deterrence should be more valuable than general deterrence but both are needed in the sentencing process. For the offender not to reoffend specific deterrence need to be embedded to determine the certainty of the crime. So the offender will not commit the same crime twice. Overall doing the sentencing process the judge have the right to use this offender specific deterrence to promote general deterrence to the public. This will allow other to fear the consequences and possibly punishment if they commit this specific crime.

Where the U.S. tends to do well with the preservation of the Social Contract and our Natural Rights, there are evident holes in the upholding of the Rule of Law. The largest of these holes is judicial bias. As described in the UCONN School of Law’s website, libguides.law.uconn.edu, “although judges are supposed to be impartial, as they promise in their oath… they are human and do harbor implicit biases influenced by their identity and experiences.” The school explains that, since judges use more intuition “than deliberative judging,” their implicit biases are applied to cases. Several times, such as in the case of Justin Bieber’s dropped 2014 DUI case (CNN.com), celebrities and other prominent figures have had their charges eased or even dropped through bias, whereas in the case of a regular citizen, the charges would have been the status quo.

The justice system in the United States of America is not fair. Michelle Alexander writes a great article “Locked Up In America” describing how people gets into the justice system and how their life is when coming out of jail. People that are convicted of any crime they are labeled as criminals and felons. Criminals does not get properly punished for their crimes if they did they wouldn’t be so many people going in and out of jail. The justice system should have different ways of punishing a person according to the crime they commit, just by putting them in jail and assuming that is going to change them is not a good way of going about that.

The Criminal Justice system is one of the most important vessels within society due to its role in ensuring that society is abiding by its laws and holding those who transgress these laws to account. Despite its crucial role in society, it has also been under some scrutiny in regards to how effective it actually is, which results in arguments that it doesn’t properly fulfil its job as a carrier of justice. A focus on the criminal justice system is a subject of interest because it helps us understand the tension within society between individual rights and freedoms. (Schmalleger, F. and Koppel, T, 1999) Thus, this essay will be arguing that the criminal justice system is indeed broken.

So in a nut shell, every state has its own set of rules for the punishment of criminals called sentencing guidelines, which are sentencing policies prosecutors and judges use for people convicted of serious misdemeanors and felonies (Peak,2015). The crime and the criminal 's previous criminal history is considered when a judge hands down a sentence. People that oppose alternative sentencing argue that an individual 's circumstances are unique and should be considered during sentencing, otherwise there is a possibility of

Several factors have contributed to this, namely harsh sentencing laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and the war on drugs being a major factor. It has often been argued that this approach to criminal justice has made ineffective and unjust use of the law, and has had a disproportionate impact on the communities of color as a result. Criminal justice reform advocates also call for changes to the way that evidence is handled, as well as improvements to the quality of legal representation for defendants. Taking a further step to address the issue of recidivism, or the likelihood that a person will reoffend after being released from prison. As a result, criminal justice reform is about creating a fairer and more just system that addresses the needs of everyone involved, from victims to defendants to society as a whole.

Mass incarceration is the way that the United States has locked up millions of people over the last forty years using unnecessary and disproportionate policies. Contrary to popular belief, this is racially fueled as most of these policies saw to it that blacks and latinos be locked up for longer than their white peers and for smaller crimes. These racist roots within the system can be traced back to when the first slave ship arrived in the US. But our first major prison boom was seen after the American Civil war. I know that the Civil War was far more than forty years ago.

Students in the criminal justice department are taught that our main objective in the justice system and our careers is to serve and also protect those involved in our community. For as long as I can remember, my goal in life has been to provide service by protecting and serving those who are close to me. My penchant for service is what eventually led me to the Criminal Justice program at Valdosta State University. This passion for service began at a very young age when my life was turned upside down when I relocated from Puerto Rico to the state of Georgia due to a tragic car accident that led to the end of my father’s life. This sudden change of lifestyle and heartbreak came with an extreme amount of struggle and culture shock not just

Over 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.

The court system should acknowledge the offenders past and realize that the reasons they are committing crimes are not their free will, it is elements in their past that have caused them to act in a deviant manner. Furthermore, Cullen and Johnson (2017) agree by stating, “science has demonstrated that un-chosen individual traits (e.g., temperament, self-control, IQ) and un-chosen social circumstances (e.g., family, school, community) can be

There are three components that make up the criminal justice system – the police, courts, and correctional facilities – they all work together in order to protect individuals and their rights as a citizen of society to live without the fear of becoming the victim of a crime. Crime, simply put is when a person violates criminal law; the criminal justice system is society’s way of implementing social control. When all three components of the criminal justice work together, it functions almost perfectly. For a person to enter the criminal justice system, the process must begin with the law enforcement.

Immigration has always been a crucial topic in the United States government. Especially when it comes to giving amnesty and passing an immigration reform to 11 million immigrants, that live in the country. Many citizens believe that immigrants are detrimental to the well-being of the United States and do not agree with the passage of an immigration reform. One reason is that many believe immigrants take away the jobs of American citizens. Other reasons are that immigrants bring crime to the country and affect the economy.