Martin Luther King Jr. Paper
Law, crime and justice are becoming more difficult to define based on societal norms, and formal and informal influences. These influences alter the way the justice system and legal citizens exercises the penal code. When I first defined law, crime, and justice I applied only my current knowledge of the subject. Now I can define the words with an added sociological prospective to link how they play a part in the criminal justice system. Dr. King wrote a letter pointing out many of the issues within the courts, police and citizen’s role in social norms. These issues addressed in the past have some parallels that are current to today’s law. He explained that the application of just and unjust laws play a role in how racial discrimination is factored in to decision making. Power structures are another way law, crime and justice can be influenced as well as a deterrence factor for committing a crime. A conflict Dr. King addressed was power structures and everyday citizens that maintain the social norms without challenging the status quo. Lastly, police and courts play a role in the application of laws and the effectiveness of keeping order. These are issues that can be addressed by pointing out the current day criminal justice role and relating it too Dr. King’s perspective.
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King was an activist and a membership leader in the Southern Christian Leader Conference. He practiced non-violent demonstrations and sit ins that he would refer to as a plan of direct action. The reason for the demonstrations was the lack of support to dismantle segregation and have equality, this started because local merchants in Birmingham Alabama did not want to take down racially motivated signs. What the desirable outcome would be for the minority was the authorities addressing and confronting the issues of racial injustices within the law. Instead the demonstration ended in the imprisonment of activists including Dr.
talks about how African Americans in the South were being arrested and publicly chastened by the police force for their nonviolent protests. But, he extols these protests because of what they stand for. He says they “…preserve the evil system of segregation…I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation” (94). Because these people were aiming to end the discrimination they were facing, and did this in a peaceful manner that respected their Judeo-Christian values that all men are created equal, King saw it as exactly what this oppressed group needed. They needed a push of confidence to know that they were being treated unjustly, and that they did have the power to stand up to
non-violent actions against the racial discrimination and hatred among the black community residing in Birmingham. The letter was also aimed towards the freedom and equality to not just the black community but also to the white community, to the social, religious and political community. King wanted to stand up for his thoughts and ideas that everyone should have freedom and equality.
Dr. King is a man who is over flowed of nothing but creditability. Not once he pointed his finger as a child would and blame the Caucasian men for forcing the African-American to attempt to survive a horrific ordeal of history. He encouraged his brother and sisters of color not to protests with bitter and physical violence but to engage hands and peacefully demand to be treated equally. He encouraged his colored brothers and sisters to go back to where they are from with not despair in their hearts, but hope that one day there will be freedom within reach.
Perhaps one of his most sustained acts was his ability to represent the plight of African American rights while simultaneously portraying a palatable character to White America. In addition to leading various civil disobedience campaigns, he served as the movement’s main “strategist, theorist, and symbol maker” while also becoming the “movement’s chief interpreter to white Americans.” Stewart Burns actually goes so far as to suggest King, early on, realized his destiny was to be both a black Moses, delivering his brothers from the injustice of Jim Crow, as well as a Christ-like figure, offering equal measures of love, compassion, and forgiveness. This of course caused him to be disliked and criticized amongst some of the more nationalist and militant black leaders of the time, but inversely, allowed many Americans to sympathize with the movement’s main goals.
the segregationists, resulting in the injury and deaths of many of King’s followers. With these points in mind, King came to the conclusion that the best strategy in gaining the rights of African American was the use of non-violent protest. He believed that violence only “intensifies evil,';
While the study of criminal justice and the formation of criminal justice theories are largely molded by several other disciplines such as psychology and sociology (Wellford, 2007), the study of criminal justice has grown and it is time for it to stand alone as its own scientific discipline. Crime theories are developed through studying individuals and assessing as well as their environment and other social aspects. These theories are then used to help form policies in order to deter the individual or group from committing further crimes. Criminal justice theories are not only used for crime but there are also theories which aid criminal justice personnel in the application of the practices that they use. The criminal justice policies are implemented
Martin Luther King, Jr. is known to be a civil rights activist, humanitarian, a father, and a clergyman. He is well known for fighting for the equal rights of colored people and ending discrimination. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail is an important part of history that showed King’s opinion of a letter that he happened to read in the newspaper written by a group of clergyman. In this letter, the group of clergyman report that colored people, also known as black people, are being violent towards Birmingham City. Also, the clergymen believed the time that will allow segregation to be diminished was not happening anytime soon because it is not convenient. King refuted the clergymen’s argument in a variety of ways using tactics of argumentation and persuasion like appeal to emotion through real life examples, appeal to logic, and even articulating certain phrases through metaphors and word choice. Many of these different tactics of argumentation and persuasion made his letter very effective and is now seen as a great piece that is looked upon highly today.
Within the Federal Government there are three main branches; “the Legislative, the Judicial, and Executive” (Phaedra Trethan, 2013). They have the same basic shape and the same basic roles were written in the Constitution in 1787.
Some of the most important historical developments that Beckett (1997) attributed to the politicization of criminal justice practices and policies were beginning with the civil rights movement. There was a tremendous amount of discourse occurring during this time about whether or not African Americans should have the same rights as whites. As well as, the thought that many African Americans were responsible for the increase in crime. Therefore, in the political sector we saw a power struggle between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans wanted to portray the issues that crime and drug use were increasing rapidly due to the way the African Americans were raised.
The demonstrations resulted in the arrest of protesters, including Martin Luther King. After King was arrested in Birmingham for taking part in a peaceful march to draw attention to the way that African-Americans were being treated there, their lack of voter rights, and the extreme injustice they faced in Alabama, he wrote his now famous “Letter from Birmingham.” In order to gain an understanding of King’s purpose for the letter, it is important to begin by explaining “A Call of Unity”, a letter written by a group of white clergymen urging the end to the demonstrations. The letter was published in the Birmingham Post Herald with a copy given to King. The letter made many claims including that the demonstrations were led by outsiders, they were unwise and untimely, and urged the black community to withdraw their support (Carpenter, Durick, Grafman, Hardin, Murray, Ramage, Stallings, & Harmon, 1963)....
King traveled the country making speeches and inspiring people to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He organized non-violent student sit-ins and fought for the rights of the black population. In his speech, he proclaimed a free and better nation of equality and that both races, the blacks and the whites, should join together to achieve common ground and to support each other instead of fighting against one another. King’s vision is that all people should be judged by their “personality and character and not by their color of skin”(‘I Have a Dream”). All the points he made in his speech were so strong that lots of people were interested in his thoughts. He dreamed of a land where the blacks could vote and have a reason to vote and where every citizen would be treated the same and with the same justice.
In this paper, I propose to talk about how all the three parts of the criminal justice system works and also delve a little bit on the issue of racism in context of the criminal justice system as a lot of people believe that the system most of the times acts keeping the individual’s race in mind.
The definition of justice and the means by which it must be distributed differ depending on an individual’s background, culture, and own personal morals. As a country of many individualistic citizens, the United States has always tried its best to protect, but not coddle, its people in this area. Therefore, the criminal justice history of the United States is quite extensive and diverse; with each introduction of a new era, more modern technologies and ideals are incorporated into government, all with American citizens’ best interests in mind.
The criminal justice system views any crime as a crime committed against the state and places much emphasis on retribution and paying back to the community, through time, fines or community work. Historically punishment has been a very public affair, which was once a key aspect of the punishment process, through the use of the stocks, dunking chair, pillory, and hangman’s noose, although in today’s society punishment has become a lot more private (Newburn, 2007). However it has been argued that although the debt against the state has been paid, the victim of the crime has been left with no legal input to seek adequate retribution from the offender, leaving the victim perhaps feeling unsatisfied with the criminal justice process.
There are many different aspects of criminal justice policy. One in particular is the different theories of crime and how they affect the criminal justice system. The Classical School of criminology is a theory about evolving from a capital punishment type of view to more humane ways of punishing people. Positivist criminology is maintaining the control of human behavior and criminal behavior. They did this through three different categories of Biological studies, which are five methodologies of crime that were mainly focused on biological theories, Psychological theories, which contains four separate theories, and the Sociological theories, which also includes four different methods of explaining why crime exists. The last theory is about Critical criminology. Their goal was to transform society in a way that would liberate and empower subordinate groups of individuals.