Mr. Moffit
CRJ1
November 21,2011
Criminal Justice System Through American Violet
Every American is guaranteed something and that is individual rights. Individual rights are the rights guaranteed to all members of American Society by the U.S. Constitution(p.8). In the movie American Violet it is shown how the people in Texas are affected by not having individual rights, and how a young, African-American women, Dee Roberts takes a stand against the District Attorney. In the movie it is based of the criminal justice system and all the parts of it. In the movie it shows that if something seems to be unconstitutional fight for your rights because it is stated in the constitution.
In the movie an ACLU(American Civil Liberties Union) attorney decides he wants to help Dee Roberts and take on the Texas District Attorney. The attorney’s name is Sam Conroy and he chooses to defend Ms. Roberts, but that he already knows everybody who works with the district attorney and he is seen as a traitor for helping bring down his associated. Attorney Sam Conroy is playing as an individual-rights advocate. An individual rights advocate is someone who seeks to protect personal freedoms within the process of criminal justice(p12).
The whole point of the movie is to find social justice from the district attorney. Social justice is an ideal that embraces all aspects of civilized life and that is linked to fundamental notions of fairness and to cultural beliefs about right and wrong(13). Mr. Convoy is trying to help not just Dee Roberts but as well the whole town in Texas from being arrested for suspicion of selling of drugs. The people who were accused of selling drugs are eighty five percent were African American. At the end of the movie social justice is found for the town.
Dee Roberts had to go through all aspects of the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is the aggregate of all operating and administrative or technical support agencies that
Cited: Schmalleger, Frank. Criminal Justice Today: an Introductory Text for the Twenty-first Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.