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Essay on the history of the us criminal justice system
Essay on the history of the us criminal justice system
Criminal justice system in the usa
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Isaac Newton is known by many today as the man who theorized, “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.” While this theory holds true to almost every aspect of physical science, there is at least one sociological example of Newtons third law generating controversy. For instance, in the United States murder is crime. However, it’s consequences vary in severity because states vote on this specific kind of law and policiy. Therefore, sentencing’s for this crime ranges from the court-determined proportional number of years in jail, to capital punishment. As a result, the state’s consensus of an “opposed equal reaction” is inflicted as a punishment on those convicted of murder. Nevertheless, the “opposed equal reaction” to …show more content…
murder, across all states, is objectively justice. The murder case of John Wright, in Susan Glaspells, “A Jury of Her Peers”, challenges the readers preconceived notions of justice and punishment by exposing the complications which arise when the basis of judgment comes from somewhere existentially deeper than political ideals. Understanding my attitude towards this story was a trial of applied critical thinking that required juggling with introspection, exploration, and deliberation. By exercising introspection, both during and after I read “A Jury of Her Peers”, I was able to effectively compartmentalize my attitude towards the story.
Although it was difficult to convey at first, I recognized my tendency to divide critical thinking into hypothetical rationale and realistic rationale. For example, I was displeased with the story’s lack of action. So, perhaps if I were a female who was a huge fan of plot, setting, and character driven murder mysteries, then I would have enjoyed the story more. As a seasoned reader of the genre, my instincts would have told me to approach the text with apprehensive patience. Throughout my reading I would be taking note of any suspicions. I would have questioned the significance of minor oddities; like Mrs. Hales recollection of Sheriff Peter’s wife. Furthermore, I may have realized how Mrs. Peters being described as, “someone who didn't seem like a sheriffs wife, for she was small, thin, and didn’t have a strong voice” (Glaspell, 1), meant that she had a character defect which would be exploited at some point. Before eventually finding out the meaning of this foreshadowing, there are several occasions where Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are patronized for their efforts. Mr. Hale even mocks the two women saying, “women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell, 6). Given the era this story takes place in, both women take the high ground and respectfully respond
politely. Ultimately, I would have been extremely disappointed when Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters chose to hide the evidence from the sheriff and attorney. From a female readers standpoint, gender sympathy would feel petty, and like a general waste of the cerebral tango which led Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter’s to enough proof to bring a murderer to justice. Instead of sympathizing with their warped rationale, I would have been disappointed in them for wasting an opportunity to prove how useful and intelligent women are; and for perpetuating the stereotype that women are deceitful and hell bent on betraying men. Still, many questions would remain with regards to Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters obstruction of justice based on their judgment. Questions like, “If spending decades in a prison or prison-like environment is the punishment for taking another humans life, then is taking a human the reward for spending decades in a prison or prison-like environment?”, or, “If Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters knew that murderers in their state were sentenced death, should they be praised as progressive thinkers since they rationalized Mrs. Wright of murdering Mr. Wright by comparing the value of his life to the preliminary number of years she lived out in a personal prison with him?” would smolder in the the back of my mind. Unfortunately, I like action, and therefore, I didn't apply this kind comprehensive hypothetical rationale until I finished reading the story. Conversely, my natural instinct as an action loving man had me applying my idea of realistic rationale into this story from the moment I started reading, and all the way through end. In a realistic sense, my displeasure with the lack of action wasn't strong enough to keep me from enjoying many other aspects of the story. Blessed with a creative imagination, my internal visualizations of the setting and characters kept me interested. Realistically, I found myself making hasty assumptions of characters due to the way I pictured their idiosyncrasies. Before reaching the half way point in the story I was certain Mrs. Hale had killed her own husband and the rest of the story was just leading the reader through her imagination as she rationalized the crime while reflecting back incase she needed to tie up any loose ends. Eventually, the reality of the story made it apparent my imagination was wandering too far from the pages, and I found myself overcome with feelings of guilt and shame linked to the male treatment of female characters in the story. What I couldn't understand was the growing amount of sympathy I felt for a fictional character who murdered her husband and the two women who helped her cover it up. Once I realized that the guilt and shame that I felt was coming from a hypothetically created existence in which I was one of the condescending men, I easily recognized how sympathy I felt came from a hypothetically created existence in which I was Mrs. Wright Through some personal deliberation and a group discussion I regained a balance in my attitude towards this story. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter’s weren't Mrs. Wrights peers, they never talked to her and didn’t consider themselves to be her friend. They didn't protect Mrs. Wright for the sake of a female bond or out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it to relieve the guilt and shame smoldering in the back of their conscience. However, this wasn't their guilt or shame to feel. Because Mrs. Hale and Mrs Peter’s spent an entire day comparing their personal perceptions of reality to a much worse off hypothetical existence in Mrs. Wright’s shoes and their emotions easily got the best of them. They thought they were doing the right thing, but in reality they were acting on emotions generated by a hypothetical existence which they had no realistic reason to feel.
Hale states “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (561). The same trifles he states women are worried over, are the trifles that if men paid attention to they would have plenty of evidence against Minnie Wright. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter basically decided the fate of Minnie. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Glaspell shows how there is criticism of a legal system that denied women the change of a fair trial by an all-man jury. They found evidence that the men could not find and decided “not to turn it in. All of this held a significant role in the story, but they are the ones that solved the case. In the play the sheriff mocks Mrs. Hale “They Wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it” (563). He also said something in “A Jury of Her Peers” on page 575 line 159. There are not many changes between the play and the short story. Most of the changes happen in the opening of the story when it is more detailed, as to where the play is all about action. If you are watching the play it is much better than the story because you can see all the action and
A story of murder, fear, and the temptation of betrayal is one that easily snatches up the attention of audiences. In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, the author uses her southern female characters to emphasize the direct relationship between friendship and connection. Her plot circles around the disastrous discovery of their fellow housewife’s marital murder, and the events that unfolded causing their ultimate decision in prosecuting or shielding her from the men in the story. The author implements revealing dialogue with subtle detailing and glaring symbolism to display the coveted friendships among women above other relationships and that the paths they take to secure them stem from inveterate personal connections.
The main idea showed in Trifles, the male character, and the empathy described by the females is why the author shows everyone that in every section of this play. Throughout the play, the women were being ignore and belittled by men. With their role, it is showing how back in the early 1900’s men were figured as gods. Women had to give all attention to the children, housekeeping and especially taking care of their spouse. Even though the women think very different as to what men use to think, they still maintain a close relationship in respecting the man 's job. According to Elke Brown, “ As a sheriff 's wife, she is married not only to Mr. Peters, the person but also to his profession”. The women are giving their world just so the men can be satisfied with the job they have and not cause any other problem other than their job. During the play, the men are only looking for hard concrete clues. They seem not to see the reality behind minor things. Mrs. Peters is directed by this belief until she remembers the stillness in her house after a child had died. This memory produces a dominant bond between her and Minnie 's experience of isolation and loneliness. The scene where exactly Mrs. Peters herself attempts to hide the box with the dead canary in it. She is well aware that this action that happens, which can apply to on the society and the way her husband wants the things done. Just because her husband stands
In "A Jury of Her Peer," by Susan Glaspell, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters realize from the
Symbolism is a literary device in which words, phrases or actions allude to something more than their literal meanings. In the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”, a major example of symbolism is the quilt. The quilt is perhaps the biggest example because it can be tied to many other examples of symbolism within the story, and can also be interpreted in different ways.
On one side, she is married to the law, and on the other side, she understands what Minnie has been through. Her husband used to mentally abuse her to the point where she is now basically secluded from everyone and everything in the world. Mr. Hale even makes the comment, “Though I said at the same time that I didn’t know what his wife wanted made much difference to John” (260). The reader feels sympathy for Minnie throughout the story and gets a feeling of justification for her killing her husband and getting revenge. Mrs. Peters seems to have a hard time deciding whether to side with her inner feelings and cover for Minnie or to side with the law.
We then come to the part where the ladies are talking about Mrs. Peter’s interactions with the other women in town. Mrs. Hale said she was not part of the Ladies’ Aid (which seemed like the thing for the women to do in that town), she dressed shabbily which she never did before becoming Mr. Wright’s wife. Mrs. Hale also clearly states that she does not believe that Mrs. Wright killed her husband whereas Mrs. Peters is struggling with this, saying that the Attorney thinks it looks bad because she did not wake up when her husband was being killed in bed right beside her. Mrs. Hale takes the view I would by saying don’t blame her because obviously he didn’t wake up either or maybe he would be alive or at least maybe he could have awakened her in his struggle.
Mrs. Hales feels that her husband has a habit of getting mixed up on the story and she’s worried about that. In comparison, this detail is emphasized through his ramblings in Trifles, which sound like a two year old. It shows in both versions that their interaction with each other is taxing on their relationship. The Peters have a similar relationship to the Hales, but it is more deftly revealed. The sheriff is a a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals.
In “ A Jury of Her Peers”, when the county sheriff and attorney go to the Wright house to investigate a murder. They search for clues to incriminate Mrs. Wright but find nothing. They discover Mr. Wright strangled in his bedroom and saw Mrs. Wright completely unaffected. Although Mrs. Wright claims to have been asleep while the murder occurred, the women conclude she choked her husband, Mr. Wright, as evidenced by the broken bird cage, the strangled canary, and the errant quilt patch.
I like this play quite a lot. It's got murder, mystery and deceit. It's interesting that the play bases a lot on stereotypes. The men are the sheriff, deputy and the attorney sent out to discover the details of the murder of a man found hanged in his bed. They look carefully in the bedroom and outside in the barn for clues and the women are sent in, I think initially, to gather some things for Mrs. Wright. The women are mocked at by the men. Worrying about things like jelly freezing and sewing. Mrs. Hale "Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break"; Hale "Well, women are used to worrying over trifles." They are not taken seriously. They are women and are not intelligent enough to understand the concept of solving a murder. The men forgot, it's the little things that bother people the most and for Mrs. Wright, it must have been death of her canary.
The power of women is different than that of men. Women display a subtle and indirect kind of power, but can be resilient enough to impact the outside world. In Trifles, Susan Glaspell delivers the idea that gender and authority are chauvinistic issues that confirm male characters as the power holders, while the female characters are less significant and often weak. This insignificance and weakness indicated in the play by the fact that the women had the evidence to solve a murder, but the men just ignored the women as if they had no value to the case at all. This weakness and inability of the female to contest the man’s view are apparent. According to Ben-Zvi, “Women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity-passivity, restraint, and nurture; thus the rush to isolate and label the female offender, to cauterize the act” (141). This play presents women against men, Ms. Wright against her husband, the two women against their spouses and the other men. The male characters are logical, arrogant, and stupid while the women are sympathetic, loyal, and drawn to empathize with Mrs. Wright and forgive her crime. The play questions the extent to which one should maintain loyalty to others. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale try to withhold incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright, and by challenging the reader to question whether
In today’s society, many women are powerful, independent, and for the most part treated equal to men, but before the 1920's women were restrained by the men. Imagine what being a woman in this era would be like. In Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles,” she addresses the life of women in the 1900’s by examining the marital relationships among the characters, specifically between Mrs. Wright and Mr. Wright, the Sheriff and Mrs. Peters, and last Mr. Hale and Mrs. Hale. Glaspell accomplishes this by separating the husbands and wives into different rooms in the home of the Wrights, leaving the women all together in the living room and kitchen, which is where they find the crime scene evidence. The point being is that the men did not consider what the
The film A Jury of her Peers, is similar to the play, Trifles because it highlights similar points that are referenced in the text and is clear it was used as a basis for the foundation of the film. The names of Mr. and Mrs. Wright are changed to Mr. and Mrs. Burke. The use of facts to outline the climax, are the same as used in the play. Such as the building of suspense of the discovering of the bird and its strangulation and whether Mrs. Burke or Mr. Burke is to place blame. However, as an adaptation, opinions are added into the original framework of the play to add a touch of personalization. The film interprets the drama as a murder mystery, as the attorney and the sheriff search the household to find evidence to place blame on Mrs. Burke. A jury of her Peers, works to portray the emotions of Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, as they discover items that would, (if found by the men) possibly prove her guilty (Bourne, 2013).
...t allow her freedom and friendships and may have payed for it with his life. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, knowing and understanding the desperation and alienation that this housewife felt, found the proof of a motive for the murder, despite the taunting and teasing from the men who were suppose to be the ones looking for the evidence. The false ideas that these men had towards all of the females ended up hurting them and keeping them from the truth. Instead of the wives offering up the evidence that was discovered, they decided to hide it from the men to protect Mrs. Wright. The disparaging attitudes presented by the men may have seemed harmless at the time, but it kept them from the truth and it made the women feel like their idea would be disregarded. Ultimately, if you look deeper, this male dominant society was harmful to not only women, but to the men as well.
In fact, when Mrs. Hale comments that Mrs. Wright was not one for housekeeping, Mrs. Peters replies by saying “Well, I don’t know as Wright had either.” (748). The disheveled state that the house is in, as well as the fact that Mr. Wright is characterized as a hard man who is unwilling to share his part expresses the idea that their marriage was unhappy, and in turn, Mrs. Wright could have motive to harm him. Likewise, when the men leave the women to find clothes for Mrs. Wright, the two discover more possible evidence that the men will shrug off. For example, Mrs. Hale examines some quilt work that Mrs. Wright was working on, and notices that the most recent square is very sloppy compared to the rest of the work on the quilt. Moreover, the fact that they believe she crafted it by knotting is very significant (750). This correlation times closely with Mr. Wright’s time of death, and could indicate as a stressor, which the women can pick up on. Since the men laugh at their seemingly trivial observation, they are close to solving the crime on their