What is plea bargaining?

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You know how sometimes you’re waiting in line, and the person a few spots ahead of you is in an argument with the cashier? It sucks. That one person is holding up the entire line just because they are incapable of coming to an agreement with the cashier. And now, because of them, your entire day is thrown off, simply because two parties could not reach a mutual agreement with each other. In a nutshell, this is plea bargaining. Imagine that the person a few spots ahead of you is a prosecutor and the cashier is the defendant in court. It is the exact same thing. Plea bargaining is a term used when the two parties reach a mutual agreement in a court of law. Usually it involves a little bit of give, and a little bit of take from both parties, but in the end both sides are able to reach a mutual agreement. If people think of plea bargaining as a negative impact on our culture, then they do not realize the good that it truly does for our society and court system.
What is plea bargaining? Basically, plea bargaining is having both sides of a case come together in an agreement. This is done through the process of bargaining or negotiating. What happens is that both sides give and take so that in the end a mutual agreement is reached that will benefit both sides. Typically, in a case involving a plea bargain, the defendant will plead guilty to a lesser charge or sometimes even just a small portion of what they were originally charged. More often than not, once an agreement is reached, the defendant will end up serving less time than they would have originally.
There was not always plea bargaining in our court system. In actuality, plea bargaining is actually a more recent venture. According to Joseph Sanborn, author of A Historical Sketch ...

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...all thing. They can make that impact on society.
If people think of plea bargaining as a negative impact on our culture, then they do not realize the good that it truly does for our society and court system. Although plea bargains can sometimes have a negative context with people, the good that it brings vastly outweighs the bad.

Works Cited

Sanborn, J. (2006, August 20). A historical sketch of plea bargaining. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07418828600088851

Devers, L. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. (2011). Plea and charge bargaining (. GS-10F-0114L). Retrieved from CSR Incorporated website: https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSummary.pdf

Doran, A. (2005, June 5). Plea bargains and mandatory sentencing. Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/plea-bargains-mandatory-sentencing-2419.html

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