Poverty And Crime

“...Much of the recent crime increase threatens the vitality of America’s cities–and thousands of lives–it is not, in itself, the greatest danger in today’s war on cops. The greatest danger lies, rather, in the delegitimation of law and order itself’ (Mac Donald). In the book “The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe,” published in the year of 2016, author Heather Mac Donald provides credible evidence to expand on her viewpoint of our country’s current criminal crisis. In addition to “The War on Cops, Mac Donald has written two other books. Her works “Are Cops Racist?”

In the trial of the four Norfolk sailors, the main reason why they were all convicted was not the proclaimed evidence that wasn’t on the scene, but was the confessions that they were coerced to say during the interrogations. There was virtually no evidence against the four sailors, but the jury sided that they were all guilty. The major problem during the trial was that no evidence was found at the crime scene and the prosecution only badgered the four sailors based on confessions that they were threatened to say or else they

Police used many tactics during the investigation and eventually got one of the boys

Five percent of U.S citizens have been wrongfully convicted. The book “Monster” written by Walter Dean Myers is about Steve who is on trail for a murder that he didn’t commit. There is agreeance with the jury that Steve isn’t guilty because there is a lack of evidence of his involvement and it is inferred that Steve doesn’t have a criminal record. To begin with, there was a lack of evidence of Steve’s involvement. The author wrote “one of the men arguing she points to King”(Myers 114).

I believe that Danforth, the judge, is to blame. He chose to listen to the girls as a verifiable source of information. He makes the ultimate ruling on who lives or dies based on their accusations. He created more fear instead of peace within the community. He didn 't question their credibility until someone else brought that issue to light.

They believe the police planted evidence, however they did not. The bones in the firepit were interwoven with steel belt tires meaning they were burned there along with all the bones down to the tiniest bone in your pinky were found charred in the pit. The car key to Teresa’s RAV4 was found by the police along with Avery’s sweat DNA on it. It’s impossible for the police to have Avery’s sweat and plant it on the key. Now if Avery didn’t commit the crime how come Brendan Dassey’s mother told police her son had bleach on his ants from helping Steven clean his floor.

In America, a teenager can be easily drawn into witnessing a family member being stabbed to death, trafficked into drug/gang cults, or receive severe damages to his/her physical body. Commonly, these kinds of circumstances call the responsible leaders in our community to action, but in the forgotten part of America, they continue uninterrupted. During the late 1980’s, the United States ranked as a developed nation with a competitive capitalist economy and better living standards for the higher social class. Their promises to defend critical human rights remained unrivaled around the globe; yet the United States still possessed areas with lower class people compressed into high rise projects and who struggled to overcome poverty, violence, and prejudice. The lower class people were often given very little to no resources or the

The book On the Run by Alice Goffman narrates six years Goffman spent hanging out in a black poor neighborhood of West Philadelphia that she calls 6th Street. During her stay there, she became friends with a group of resident young men, and got to know their surroundings such as girlfriends and family members. This experience in this disadvantaged neighborhood pushed her to write this book where she describes the neighborhood’s conditions, the violence encountered by the police and the residents, and the injustices of the criminal justice system. The book’s primary argument is that the continuous threat of surveillance and continuous investigations that lead to the arrest and imprisonment of young people did great harm to 6th Street, turning many of its residents into

These five boys were all present in Central Park the night of Meili’s assault and that night, April 19th 1989, they were taken to the central park precinct. They were questioned for over twenty-four hours and forced to give a false confession. They were proven innocent thirteen years later when Reyes admitted to the crime and was proven guilty. All of the boys spent at least seven years in prison for this crime they did not even

Since the founding of our judicial system there have always been individuals claiming innocence to a crime that they have been found guilty of, traditionally, after their sentencing no matter how innocent they may or may not be would have to serve, live and possibly die by the decision of their peers. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck alongside Peter J. Neufeld faces this issue by challenging the sentencing of convicted individuals who claim their innocence and have factual ground to stand upon. The Innocence Project uses the recent advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to prove their client’s innocence by using methods that were not available, too primitive or not provided to their clients during their investigation,

American Journal of Political Science. Hurwitz and Peffley write on how stereotypes about African Americans have an effect on people’s attitudes towards crime and policy. The authors discuss the link on race and crime and how the media has a lot to do with it. This work will be helpful to my research because of the stereotype linking blacks to crime. It will support my thesis on how race is spread throughout

The United States prides itself on being a country of opportunities where the underprivileged can rise up and everyone is treated equally, but is that really the case? In reality the income of an individual gives them advantages of going above the system. The sociological explanation of the influence of the wealthy over the criminal justice system is described in the of the Pyrrhic defeat theory written in Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton book The Rich Get Richer and the Poor get Prison Ideology, class and Criminal Justice. The Pyrrhic defeat theory emphasizes the failure of the criminal justice is the consequence of success for those in power, who are taking advantage of the system.

The principle in law that one is innocent until proven guilty has created much discourse. There are those who feel that the moment that one is arrested, there is reasonable belief that they committed the crime. However, there are those who feel that just as the principle states, one is, and should be taken as a victim and the outcome could be either way: guilty or not guilty. In fact, this argument is supported by the many cases of malicious prosecutions and mistaken identities.

Description: The Confessions a case indicating innocent people violated by the justice system that breach trust and the belief of being honest will prevail. Bike, O. (1997). The Confessions. Retrieved October 8, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/

Poverty is defined as the state of being unable to fulfill basic needs of human beings. Poverty is the lack of resources leading to physical deprivation. Poor people are unable to fulfill basic survival needs such as food, clothing, shelter. These are the needs of lowest order and assume top priority. Poor people are unknown of their lack of voice, power, and rights, which leads them to exploitation.