Criminal Justice System Fair

Adrianne Miller
Intro. Social Problems 1160
Dr. Hasling
February 6, 2005
Is the American Criminal Justice System Fair and Just? To answer if America’s criminal justice system is fair and just is a hard question to answer and discuss. The reason behind that statement is because there are so many reasons for why it is fair and just, and then there are many reasons also why it is not fair and just. This topic is something people argue over all the time and one that doesn’t have a correct or wrong answer. If I had to answer this question right away I would say that I am in the middle, I say that because of after reading the chapter on crime It made me see all the problems our criminal justice system has that needs working out.
is committed by young people, with those under 25 accounting for half of all violent crime arrest and three-fifths of all property crime. The book says this because the youth are disengaged from their parents and undergoing peer pressure, which I agree on. I am 22 and when I was in high school which wasn’t long ago I had a couple of friends who would fall under this statement. Some of them came from the lower social class, which our book points out that a bulk of the people processed by the justice system comes from. They say that the police and criminal justice system assume these people are more likely to be criminals. This is where a lot of people would say the criminal justice system is not fair and I would have to agree. Then I would have to come back and say I had friends who did these crimes and went to the youth detention centers and came out much better and stayed out of trouble. So then I would say the criminal justice system is fair and just in some ways, because it is providing a way for these young kids to make their lives better before they enter adulthood while in these
I say this because as our book points out facts that say the court system is biased against racial minorities, which is something I feel strongly about. For example our book says that a study found that minority youth particularly African American is treated worse than whites at every stage of the judicial process. Until this problem of the court system being biased against racial minorities is cut back some I can’t say that part of our criminal system is fair and just. I can say they are somewhat just in the fact of some cases that improves our society, but until they can stop being biased they will not be completely fair and just in my opinion. All I can say about prisons is in my opinion the government puts to much time and effort into them. If our government would put the amount of effort into education as it does prisons our society would be a lot better off. I say this because our book points out prisons provide learning experiences in the art of crime. In my opinion is an awful thing and is only putting worse criminals back out onto our streets when they are paroled. Our book points out that there are categories of people who should receive punishment and should not. I agree with this and if our criminal system would take that into consideration in my opinion that would make prisons a fair and just system. I say that because they would be helping