Discrimination against the minority population is a major problem in the United States society’s justice system. There are many examples where African American and low-income minorities are treated differently and not given the chance to prove their innocence. The law enforcement promises to treat all men or women equal opportunity, but the same system has put 120,000 innocent African Americans in prison. While most of them still remain in prisons, injustice by law enforcements is still a burden to the minorities in America. Moreover, wrongful conviction is a horrible injustice when a person spends years in jail. This is getting recognized by the U.S. system but often late. In many cases by the time a person is proven innocent, he or she might …show more content…
Some of those reasons are eyewitness identification, false confession, and police investigation, according to the Innocence Project (Cordazo 5). About 80% of wrongful convictions happen due to eyewitness mistake. According to psychology, the human brain cannot record all the information it takes, leading to a high level of uncertainties when it comes to identifying the right criminal. Further factors of eyewitness mis-identification include extreme stress, which can also decrease a person’s recall memory, causing the witness to recognize the face of a well-known memory but not actual criminal. These are some of the problems with eyewitness identification and this makes matters worse. Police procedures have loopholes and they often rely on “ suspect lineups”. Sometimes even lineups are wrong because research shows that errors happen and a suspect might be selected based on the facial similarity, instead of victim report. A false confession is the second and most harmful evidence that a victim can confess to. In the U.S, false confession results in nearly 200 felony convictions every six months. Therefore, to improve the accuracy of convictions, all interrogations should be thoroughly examined and recorded as evidence. Police investigation is another cause that leads to wrongful conviction. In most cases, there is little investigation done because of the limited fund, and this makes the police report the final copy …show more content…
There are several areas where reforms can help prevent wrongful convictions of the innocent people in the future. Most law enforcement agencies still use the same methods they have used since the last two-decade. Research has shown that eyewitness identification, risk is reduced significantly, if the officer who is doing lineup is unaware of the suspect. Also, when the victim viewing the photos of the suspect should be told that his suspect might not be in the pictures, or lineup so the investigation will continue. Another way we can take a step forward in reforming is by recording interrogations. Recording interrogations can prevent police from putting pressure on suspects to get a confession. Interrogations should also be limited to one hour especially for teenagers because false confession is often done, when the interrogations last for hours. Police in United Kingdom, Poland and Canada are not allowed to force suspects or lie to get them to confess. This law should also apply over here in the United States even though the Supreme Court states that lies do not violate constitutional rights. All laboratories should have their examiners certified which will results in DNA test being
The reforms that have been mentioned in this article do seem to make sense when dealing with your everyday criminal in order to be fair in their treatment. When it comes to military courts however I do not feel they should apply because of the specialized training they receive as they may be able to endure longer interrogation sessions or harsher treatment without breaking down and confessing. I am a firm believer in the videotaped interrogations because as the article states it is a neutral eye and can show exactly what happened. There is no doubt that some police departments take advantage of the long sessions or coaching in order to achieve their goals of obtaining a confession. In order to be fair and keep the justice system blind so that only facts are previewed some reforms are going to be needed to make this happen.
For example, when the victims want to remember something, or someone, strongly and with high confidence, the witness can still be wrong. The eyewitness is given all the photos of the suspects laid out to identify the person they remember committing the crime. Also the eyewitness is asked to identify each photo whether is the culprit or not. Prosecutors should look over the cases before relying on eyewitness. Prosecutors should not depend on eyewitness testimony because that will lead to wrongful convictions. The wrongful convictions span the criminal justice system from investigation and arrest to prosecution and trail(Ferrero). False conviction makes the justice system stronger and arresting innocent is wrong. And picking out person similar to the murder. Not catching the real suspect might cause the public risky. Public safety be in risk."Wrongful conviction is gravest violation of personal liberty and also poses severe public safety risks, as the real perpetrator could remain on the street," an innocence Project news release said. The real suspect might kill many people or if the eyewitness might be in risk. If the victim is still life might be kill again. Lying about someone is not good thing might have miserable life in their future.
Depending on what study is read, the incidence of false confession is less than 35 per year, up to 600 per year. That is a significant variance in range, but no matter how it is evaluated or what numbers are calculated, the fact remains that false confessions are a reality. Why would an innocent person confess to a crime that she did not commit? Are personal factors, such as age, education, and mental state, the primary reason for a suspect to confess? Are law enforcement officers and their interrogation techniques to blame for eliciting false confessions? Regardless of the stimuli that lead to false confessions, society and the justice system need to find a solution to prevent the subsequent aftermath.
Another factor associated with wrongful convictions is eyewitness misidentification. The Innocence Project identifies eyewitness misidentification as the single most important factor leading to wrongful convictions. Eyewitness misidentification is often an error due to witnesses being under high pressure, witnesses focusing on the weapon more than the offender, and police procedures when receiving an identification statement from a victim. A study
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
The justice system depends on eyewitness evidence to convict offenders. Eyewitness is a difficult task to achieve in the justice system. According to Wise, Dauphinais, & Safer (2007), in 2002 one million offenders were convicted as felons in America. Out of those one million offenders, 5000 of them were innocent in 2002 (Dauphinais, 2007). The Ohio Criminal Justice survey states that 1 out of 200 felony criminal cases is a wrongful conviction (Dauphinais et al., 2007). According to Dauphinais et al., (2007), Dripps said that eyewitness error is a huge factor in cases of wrong convictions. A study conducted in 1987 indicated that in roughly 80,000 criminal cases, eyewitness error was the only sole evidence against the defendant
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
In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution.
Many inequalities exist within the justice system that need to be brought to light and addressed. Statistics show that African American men are arrested more often than females and people of other races. There are some measures that can and need to be taken to reduce the racial disparity in the justice system.
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...
They say justice is blind. Or at least they used to. The true role of the judicial system is true justice, and in some cases the system has failed in the past. We do learn, though, and thanks to the latest scientific breakthroughs we now have genomic testing and DNA fingerprinting as widely accepted methods of looking at a crime scene. What was left up to conjecture before can now be verified with great confidence.
Eyewitness evidence is critical for solving a crime, and can often be the main source of evidence in determining who the perpetrator is. However, it is estimated that every year, approximately 4,500 wrongful convictions have happened in the United States alone, based on inaccurate or mistaken eyewitness testimonies. Studies have consistently shown that the leading cause for wrongful convictions is invalid eyewitness testimonies, as this has been a major source of convicting innocent people, who have been later proven innocent by forensic DNA.
This has always been recognized by the U.S. legal system. The rising number of exonerations, however, and growing awareness that such injustices occur every day in American courts, raises profound doubts about the accuracy and fairness of the criminal justice system. This understanding is supported by considerable recent research. This surge in awareness and budding research has motivated a growing number of innocence projects, which work to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners, to also propose justice policy reforms designed to reduce the number of wrongful convictions or to alleviate their effects. This research paper explains why wrongful conviction has become a prominent issue, the scope of the problem, its causes, and reform
Similar to Canada, the United Kingdom also has wrongful conviction cases. Several high profile wrongful exonerations highlighted in the media have prompted the public to question just how safe and reliable the criminal justice system is (Naughton, 2006). As a result, new laws and legislation have been brought in over the last 20 years to try and prevent further wrongful convictions. In contrast to the main factor behind wrongful convictions in Canada, in the United Kingdom police perjury and non-disclosure of relevant evidence at the original trial are seen as the main contributors to miscarriages of justice (Weathered, 2013). In particular, it was found that there were many instances of police corruption
Each day, an estimated 200 people are accused of criminal activity in the United States alone. In the course of a year, that adds up to roughly 75,000 individuals who have no choice but to take their chances against America’s judicial system. Although the greater majority of that mass could very well be guilty of the alleged crimes, it is important to recognize that thousands of innocent individuals are wrongly accused. The reality of these false accusations is harsh; each year, an unfortunate number of people are imprisoned for crimes that they never committed. In the most inequitable of these cases, innocence becomes subject to incarceration for a crime that never even occurred in the first place. Unless a brain can recall a memory each day with clarity, it relies on confidence as a signal of accuracy to fill in the remaining pieces to create a false testimony.