Criminal law is based on the principle of actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea. The principle is to the extent that a man is not guilty of his acts, actus in the absence of a guilty conscience, mens rea (Gardner, 2009). To this end, criminal law justice provides that the person alleging the commission of a crime must proof beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person(s) possessed mens rea, if the court is to hold a criminal liability against the accused. In the case of People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson (1995) or what has come to be famously known as the O.J. Simpson Trial is a classical illustration of how highly the U.S. criminal justice regards the beyond reasonable doubt principle. The United States of America is by all rights a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society comprising mainly of Whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian and Native Americans. This multi-racial society has seen with it the development and manifestation of racial disparity since its inception. Such notions are commonly based on beliefs that some races are more superior to others. Such notions have found root to the core of the American society, and to this end to the justice system which is by all means a social element. Under criminal law, this may be reflected in regards to legal factors as well as extralegal factors. Whereas the legal influences may contain aspects like the seriousness of the crime as well as the criminal records, extralegal notions are based on factors like gender, race, and class amongst others. These thus fail the test of criminal behavior as they are based mainly on the group membership an individual belongs to. Such disparity is experienced due to the existence of a proportion of a specific racial an... ... middle of paper ... ...amely, institutionalized, systematic, contextual, and lastly individual acts. The two are however in comparison based on the fact they both concentrate on the sentencing of individuals for crimes in courts as well as arrests. To this end, they are both deemed to be responsible in the decision making that will lead to one being deemed either guilty or not in a court of law. To this end, there is dire need to reform the justice system to curb the preference of discrimination as well as disparity (Mathis, 2007). The two would lead to great injustices as the victims of both would end up meeting justice in an unfair manner. References Gardner, Anderson. (2009). Criminal Law, 10th Edition. Wadsworth. Mathis, G. (2007). Justice System is Criminal and it’s Time for a Change. Tri-State Defender. Mephis, Tenn. Mauer, M. (2006). Race to Incarcerate. The New Press.
The book was well organized with the first chapter introducing the international nature of racial and ethnicity issues, each of the next chapters focusing on issues involving race, ethnicity, and crime in a specific country, and the last chapter summarizing these findings and discussing the future surrounding these topics. Throughout the book, Gabbidon presents salient points that explain the inequalities and injustices that are present in these modern day countries. Gabbidon validates his theory by providing historical context, current population statistics, criminal justice statistics, and an analysis of crime and race relations for each country profiled. The data presented aligned well with Gabbidon’s objectives and supported his proposed theories. Gabbidon identified the international breadth of the problems involving race, ethnicity, and crime in the selected countries and provided a detailed explanation of the origins of injustice and inequality due to the colonial
Trachtenberg, B. (2009, February). Incarceration policy strikes out: Exploding prison population compromises the U.S. justice system. ABA Journal, 66.
In many nation states, it is noticed that there is a disproportionate number of black people especially those youngsters going through the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation is illustrated by related data released by the U.S. Department of Justice and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. In America, almost 3500 per 100,000 residents of the black male were sent to jail in 2013 which was over seven times more than the ratio their white counterpart had and in England and Wales, 8.5% of young black people aged between 10-17 were arrested during the same period .This essay aims to explore the reasons behind the ethnic overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and believes that the higher rate of offending for some race groups and the existence of systematic racist which partially stems from the contemporary media distortion are attributive to the overrepresentation.
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
The New York Times bestseller book titled Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case examines the O.J. Simpson criminal trial of the mid-1990s. The author, Alan M. Dershowitz, relates the Simpson case to the broad functions and perspectives of the American criminal justice system as a whole. A Harvard law school teacher at the time and one of the most renowned legal minds in the country, Dershowitz served as one of O.J. Simpson’s twelve defense lawyers during the trial. Dershowitz utilizes the Simpson case to illustrate how today’s criminal justice system operates and relates it to the misperceptions of the public. Many outside spectators of the case firmly believed that Simpson committed the crimes for which he was charged for. Therefore, much of the public was simply dumbfounded when Simpson was acquitted. Dershowitz attempts to explain why the jury acquitted Simpson by examining the entire American criminal justice system as a whole.
In the wake of President Obama’s election, the United States seems to be progressing towards a post-racial society. However, the rates of mass incarceration of black males in America deem this to be otherwise. Understanding mass incarceration as a modern racial caste system will reveal the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy America. The history of social control in the United States dates back to the first racial caste systems: slavery and the Jim Crow Laws. Although these caste systems were outlawed by the 13th amendment and Civil Rights Act respectively, they are given new life and tailored to the needs of the time.In other words, racial caste in America has not ended but has merely been redesigned in the shape of mass incarceration. Once again, the fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system show evidence of a new racial caste system at work. The structure of the criminal justice system brings a disproportionate number of young black males into prisons, relegating them to a permanent second-class status, and ensuring there chances of freedom are slim. Even when minorities are released from prisons, they are discriminated against and most usually end up back in prisons . The role of race in criminal justice system is set up to discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of minority men. From stopping, searching, and arresting, to plea bargaining and sentencing it is apparent that in every phases of the criminal justice system race plays a huge factor. Race and structure of Criminal Justice System, also, inhibit the integration of ex offenders into society and instead of freedom, relea...
The O.J. Simpson case has been hailed "The Trial of the Century. " One of the longest running court trials in history, this case was filled with conspiracy, controversy, and the power of celebrity. The biggest part of the trial was the evidence. The submission of the blood samples, the DNA testing, and the articles of clothing made the case for what it was. Amidst all the accusations of planted evidence and conspiracy plans against Simpson, the jury and Judge Ito had to try to sift through and find Simpson guilty or not guilty.
Numerous studies have been done to see how race and crime correlate with each other. Although the results are somewhat changeable, some studies mostly demonstrate that certain categories of racial minorities—males, the young, and the unemployed—are singled out for harsher treatment. Other studies find that each of these offender characteristics had a direct effect on sentence outcomes, but that the combination of race or ethnicity and one or more of the other characteristics were more powerful predictors of sentence severity than any characteristics individually. Although the offender’s race, ethnicity, and sex are not included in this list of factors explicitly, many of the factors that judges are required to take into account—such as family ties, employment, financial resources, community ties, and criminal history—are linked to race, ethnicity, and sex. Thus, the offender’s race, ethnicity, and sex may influence the likelihood of pretrial detention indirectly.
Even though racism has always been a problem since the beginning of time, recently in the United States, there has been a rise in discrimination and violence has been directed towards the African American minority primarily from those in the white majority who believe they are more superior, especially in our criminal justice system. There are many different reasons for the ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system between the majority and the minority, but some key reasons are differential involvement, individual racism, and institutional racism to why racial disparities exist in
quote from the People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson was one of
The criminal justice system is united under one basic law body, in which no racism is present. Personal beliefs and anecdotes prove nothing, the criminal justice system isn’t racist. Although it may seem African Americans are highly discriminated upon in the justice system, there is ample amounts of data to prove otherwise. The criminal justice system is united under one basic law body, in which no racism is present. The system is not to blame for the racial differences found in the United States criminal justice system. The racial issues found in the system are due to inner city isolation and common crime patterns involving drugs even if it may seem as if the system is racist.
The main purpose of this article is to look at the possible link between race and exoneration, and how race and wrongful convictions lead to the exonerations. There were three reasons that the authors chose this topic to research. The first reason was the research previously done in the field show racial biased in the criminal justice system. This paper looks at how that effects wrongful conviction and the subsequent exoneration. The second reason is because if there is an innocent person in prison that means that the real culprit is still out there, and more than likely committing more crimes. The third reason is racial composition of the dyad, victim and the perpetrator. This article is the first to mention the dyad and the authors focus on that in their discussion of wrongful conviction. This article is a very insightful look at the problem of the racial bias in the system that leads to wrongful conviction and how that leads to exoneration. It effectively explains the causes of wrongful convictions and how race affects those causes, especially how the dyad is incorporated in it.
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
With practices that are aimed at reducing discrimination the argument has been made that racial discrimination is no longer an immediate issue in the American society. It has additionally been argued that the United States Constitution protects all of its citizens, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, monetary status. With that statement, it is said that race has nothing to argue for in the American criminal justice system. Although the Constitution pledges equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etcetera, racism still occurs in the American law enforcement and criminal justice systems.
Discrimination is all over the world and it's is a very serious problem in society. We judge each other daily because of their gender, ethnicity, religion, age, and the way a person behaves. Discrimination is the “unequal treatment provided to one or more parties based on a mutual accord or some other logical or illogical reason” (merriam-webster). In the modern world of the United State of America the topic of discrimination in the Justice system is debatable because there is considerable evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. The United States has an extended history of discrimination in several aspects of life, including employment, public accommodations and education. Nowadays there are extremely biased individuals and