The United States criminal justice system is an ever-changing system that is based on the opinions and ideas of the public. Many of the policies today were established in direct response to polarizing events and generational shifts in ideology. In order to maintain public safety and punish those who break these laws, law enforcement officers arrest offenders and a judge or a group of the law offender’s peers judge their innocence. If found guilty, these individuals are sentenced for a predetermined amount of time in prison and are eventually, evaluated for early release through probation. While on probation, the individual is reintegrated into their community, with restrict limitations that are established for safety. In theory, this system …show more content…
From an equal justice perspective, “all people should be treated equally before the law and equality may best be achieved through individual discretion in the justice process” (Siegel and Worrall, 2013, page 20). Through this perspective, all criminals who commit the same crime would be equally subjected to the same form of punishment. Thus extralegal factors, which include the person’s gender, age, race or previous criminal activity, would not be considered by the judge, when they sentence the severity of the punishment. This limits the injustice within the system and any unfair treatment an offender a may receive while in the system. It also sets clear and rigid guidelines for judges to uphold during sentencing. Truth in sentencing through the equal justice perspective punishes the criminals through equality, yet remains harsh to serve as a form of deterrence for future …show more content…
By viewing the justice system from an equal justice perspective, truth in sentencing does not account for the criminal offender’s motives for breaking the law. A judge may believe it is morally right to lessen the punishment of an offender, who had good intentions for committing the crime. An individual may be placed in a circumstantially difficult situation, which could force them to commit a crime. Unfortunately for those individuals, truth in sentencing in the equal justice perspective does not allow for the judge’s discretion in that case. Therefore, if two people commit the same crime, yet one had negative intentions, he or she would face the same punishment as someone who did not have these intentions. A judge loses this power consider motive because all criminals of the same crime are viewed as equal. By restricting a judge’s discretion, it creates injustice within the courts. Actions are based on their motives and a judge should have the ability to consider it when making a decision that can greatly impact another individual’s life. Therefore, truth in sentencing and the equal justice perspective need the discretion of a judge to justly establish a fair sentence that accounts for all aspects of the individual and their
The author believes the maldistribution of any punishment is not relevant to its justice – The guilty are punished, not one’s race, economic, or social status.
Criminals can come in many different shapes and sizes. For example, a criminal can be classified as being a murderer or a criminal could just simply have committed fraud in a business setting. There is a large diversity of criminals and it is the judge’s job to determine what is a fair punishment for a guilty verdict. Judge Ron Swanson, a federal judge for the Florida District Court of Appeal, deals with using cost-benefit analysis daily to determine what is fair for everyone involved. Before becoming a judge, Judge Swanson was a prosecutor coming out of law school in the University of Florida. As a prosecutor and a judge, Judge Swanson has always worked to bring justice for the victims, the defendant if he or she is innocent, and for the citizens
Capital punishment and bias in sentencing is among many issue minorities faced for many years in the better part of the nineteen hundreds. Now it continues to spill into the twenty first century due to the erroneous issues our criminal justice system has caused many people to suffer. In the book Just Mercy authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson explains many cases of injustice. Stevenson goes into details of numerous cases of wrongfully accused people, thirteen and fourteen year olds being sentenced to death and sentences of life without parole for children. These issues Stevenson raises bring to question whether the death penalty is as viable as it should be. It brings to light the many issues our criminal justice system has today. There
For a majority of the 20th century, sentencing policies had a minimal effect on social inequality (Western and Pettit 2002). In the early 1970s, this began to change when stricter sentencing policies were enacted (Western and Pettit 2002). Sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three-strikes laws were enacted with the purpose of achieving greater consistency, certainty, and severity in sentencing (National Research Council 2014). Numerous inequalities involving race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status have generated an unprecedented rate of incarceration in America, especially among minority populations (Western and Pettit 2010). With numerous social inequalities currently
The governance of our present day public and social order co-exist within the present day individual. Attempts to recognize the essentiality of equality in hopes of achieving an imaginable notion of structure and order, has led evidence based practitioners such as Herbert Packer to approach crime and the criminal justice system through due process and crime control. A system where packer believed in which ones rights are not to be infringed defrauded or abused was to be considered to be the ideal for procedural fairness. “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson pg 9 cjt To convict an individual because proper consideration was not taken will stir up social unrest rather then it’s initial intent, when he or she who has committed the crime is not punished for their doings can cause for a repetition and even collaboration with other’s for a similar or greater crime.
“Most modem sentencing systems in the United States express an explicit commitment to ensuring that a defendant 's sentence is not affected by the defendant 's race or gender (Hessick, 2010).” Even though individuals are protected through the Bill of Rights and Sentencing Reform Acts, there are still disparities in sentencing within the criminal justice systems. Often, race and gender bias negatively affects sentencing.
Sentencing disparity refers to the differences in sentences that are passed down in the same instances. This can happen on a variety of fronts. It can occur with judges, in different states, states v. federal, different prosecutors, among different victims, etc. (Criminal – Sentencing…2017 p.4) A more specific definition from USLegal.com states that, “Sentence disparity refers to an inequality in criminal sentencing which is the result of unfair or unexplained causes, rather than a legitimate use of discretion in the application of the law.”. There are a variety of ways that sentencing disparity affects the justice system. There are three factors that disparity looms around; they are gender disparity, racial disparity, and age disparity. (4
In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution.
The Sentencing Project. (2008). Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers. Retrieved from http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_reducingracialdisparity.pdf
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
The proliferation of harsh mandatory sentencing policies has inhibited the ability of courts to sentence offenders in a way that permits a more "problem solving" approach to crime, as we can see in the most recent community policing and drug court movements today. By eliminating any consideration of the factors contributing to crime and a range of responses, such sentencing policies fail to provide justice for all. Given the cutbacks in prison programming and rates of recidivism, in some cases over 60% or more, the increased use of incarceration in many respects represents a commitment to policies that are both ineffective and unfair. I believe in equal, fair and measured punishment for all. I don't advocate a soft, or a hard approach to punishment. But we must take a more pragmatic look at what the consequences of our actions are when we close our e...
Distributive justice refers to the social issue of how resources will be dispersed amid members of society. For distributive justice to be achieved, it is essential for commodities to be allocated equitably. The question arises of who gets what and should government intervene in this process? Everyone has their own opinion of how resources should be distributed. In the society we live in you need resources to get ahead and unfortunately those who have wealth attain better access to such resources.
Prior to this method of formal rationality, sentencing was decided based on individual circumstances and lacked consistency, as in the case of the Salem Witch Trials. Redefining this process to make it formally rational was an attempt to avoid the sentencing disparities that occurred when judges based sentencing on individual circumstances and situational contexts. Even with this formally rational system, however, disparities still often exist in sentencing as seen in Davis’ case.
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
Offenders are protected today by both the rule of law, ensuring that all offenders are treated equally, regardless of their age, sex or position in the community, and due process, which ensures that all offenders are given a fair trial with the opportunity to defend themselves and be heard (Williams, 2012). Beccaria’s emphasis on punishment being humane and non-violent has also carried through to modern day corrections. It is still the case today that offenders must only receive punishment that is proportionate to the crime they have committed and the punishment is determined by the law. The power of the judges and the magistrates to make decisions on punishment is guided by the legislation and they do not have the power to change the law (Ferrajoli,