Crime in America
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Abstract
This paper discusses the overall problem of affluence in reference to the Americas judicial system. Despite the formal removal of barriers to gender as well as racial inequality throughout the course of justice, specific instances of financial inequality remains operative. Research shows that poorer people are treated inversely with regards to criminal law, bail and jail, law enforcement, trials, and sentencing. Administrative law is proven to impact poorer people because the agencies in charge of their prosecution are responsible for allocating benefits to their defense. This paper describes the unequal justice suffered by Americans of specific race, gender, and economic standing.
Inequality of Justice in America
The United States developed the ideology of societies built on two uninfringeable principles: political checks and balances and equal justice. Many people simply want a fair trial throughout the judiciary process. They have the right to be heard by an impartial judge who wields power sufficient to grant for defenders and offenders alike. While people are drawn into high profile cases that quickly gain media coverage, the fact that United States justice system induces monetary values to take precedent over decisive verdicts handed down in the courts of law. The United States justice system induces monetary values to take precedent over decisive verdicts handed down in the courts of law.
“The majority of criminal defendants who are too poor to afford to retain their own counsel must rely on one of three types of criminal attorneys: a court-appointed lawyer, a public defender, or a contract lawyer. Nearly 70 percent of state prison inmates had attorneys appointed by the courts; blacks (77 percent) and Hispanics (73 percent) had slightly higher rates (Flavin, 2010)”.
“Like prosecutors and criminal defenders, most judges in the United States are overwhelmingly white and male. Judges tend to come from upper middle-class families, average more than fifty years of age, attend college and law school in their home states, and are typically born in the communities in which they preside. Better educated than the average citizen, a majority of these judges were previously in private legal practice, making more money than they usually do as judges (Flavin, 2010).”
The United States judicial system constantly displays the unequal treatment of African-Americans and minorities. In the criminal justice system, race and gender can be a critical factor whether prosecutions are terminated or continued, or whether the jury returns a guilty or not guilty verdict. Race, gender and economic status unethically impact the formulation of judicial rulings.
“In addition to overtly or substantively unjust laws, certain laws also attempt, in various ways, to undermine the institutional position or constitutional obligations of common law courts (Edlin, 2008) “The last two decades have