A person’s socioeconomic status can play a major role in how a crime is investigated. Socioeconomic status is the social standing of an individual or group, which is calculated by the factors of income, education, and occupation. When it comes to the criminal justice system, believe it or not, your status determines whether you go to jail; “most of the people in the criminal justice system are poor, regardless of race,” stated by Angela Davis, a law professor at American University in Washington, D.C. In the documentary, Making a Murderer, it appears Steven Avery was targeted by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s department. They only focused on him and never considered the possibility of there being any other suspects, ultimately leading to his conviction of sexual assault against Penny Beerntsen. Steven, coming from a low, socioeconomic …show more content…
Throughout the entire film, viewers can witness how Steven Avery is being poorly treated because of his socioeconomic status, and the fact that he is different from everyone in the Manitowoc County. Steven was lied on, picked on, and accused of committing a crime he did not commit, all because he was looked down upon and viewed as being less of a person than everyone else in the community. Watching this episode invokes an emotion that is prevalent today with our justice system. Many minorities are falsely accused and falsely imprisoned due to personal vendettas from private citizens or members of the law enforcement. Many are disfranchised due to their socioeconomic status. There are many innocent men and women serving life sentences and on death row for crimes they did not commit. In the year of 2007, Devontae Sanford, who was just 14 years old at the time, was wrongfully convicted of a crime and sentenced 90 years in
The killings of unarmed black men have increased tremendously with different races to blame for. In January 2011, the life of Justin Patterson was snatched from him and his family by Mr. Neesmith, who only served in prison for one year. How do you think the community of Toombs County and Justin's family feel about him only serving one year in a detention center? Many people protested that the racial issues behind his travesty caused an upstir in the world, including the murder of Trayvon Martin that just recently happened in Florida during that time. However, Justin Patterson's murder did not make national news or even in the papers because most people thought he was just another dead man.
In July of 2008, one of the biggest crime cases devastated the United States nation-wide. The death of Caylee Anthony, a two year old baby, became the most popular topic in a brief amount of time. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, became the main suspect after the child supposedly was kidnapped and went missing. To this day, the Casey Anthony case shocks me because justice, in my opinion, wasn’t served. I feel as if the criminal conviction system became somewhat corrupted in this case. The entire nation, including the court system, knew that Casey Anthony was behind this criminal act, but yet she escaped all charges. I chose this case not only because it’s debatable, but also to help state the obvious, this case was handled the wrong way. Clearly the legal system was biased, which worked in Casey Anthony’s favor, freeing a murderer.
Just Mercy’s Bryan Stevenson exposes some of these disparities woven around his presentation of the Walter McMillian case, and the overrepresentation of African-American men in our criminal justice system. His accounts of actors in the criminal justice system such as Judge Robert E. Lee and the D.A. Tom Chapman who refused to open up the case or provide support regardless of the overwhelmingly amount of inconsistencies found in the case. The fact that there were instances where policemen paid people off to testify falsely against McMillian others on death row significantly supports this perpetuation of racism. For many of the people of color featured in Stevenson’s book, the justice system was unfair to them wrongfully or excessively punishing them for crimes both violent and nonviolent compared to their white counterparts. Racism towards those of color has caused a “lack of concern and responsiveness by police, prosecutors, and victims’ services providers” and ultimately leads to the mass incarceration of this population (Stevenson, 2014, p. 141). Moreover the lack of diversity within the jury system and those in power plays into the already existing racism. African-American men are quickly becoming disenfranchised in our country through such racist biases leading to over 1/3 of this population “missing” from the overall American population because they are within the criminal justice
Racial discrimination has been an immense problem in our society for a very long time. The fact that the race of a victim plays a role in his or her sentencing is appalling. Discrimination within our society needs to come to an end. It’s frightening to think that if you are a minority facing a capital punishment case, which you might be found guilty only because of the color of your skin.
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Throughout the entire film, viewers can witness how Steven Avery is being poorly treated because of his socioeconomic status, and the fact that he is different from everyone in the Manitowoc County. Steven was lied on, picked on, and accused of committing a crime he did not commit, all because he was looked down upon and viewed as being less of a person than everyone else in the community. Watching this episode invokes an emotion that is prevalent today with our justice system. Many minorities are falsely accused and falsely imprisoned due to personal vendettas from private citizens or members of the law enforcement. Others are disfranchised due to their socioeconomic status. Ultimately, there are numerous innocent men and women serving life sentences and are on death row for crimes they did not commit. As an illustration, in the year of 2007, Davontae Sanford, who was just 14 years old at the time, was wrongfully convicted of murdering four people and sentenced 90 years in prison. Sandford was an individual a part of the lower social class, coming from a rough part of Detroit, he was a victim of poverty. He stated how he was such a naïve kid and was coerced by detectives and his defense attorney to confess and plead guilty to murders he did not commit. Sanford told how his attorney commented, “you’re a black kid from the ghetto; these white people from the suburbs are gonna come in here and they’re gonna find you guilty.” He was exonerated June of 2016 after the real offender came forward and denied Sanford’s involvement in the murder. What is exposed as this bigger picture is how the criminal justice system is corrupted, being prejudice and stereotyping individuals based on their socioeconomic status is how the system seems to incarcerate people and sad to say,
One of the strengths the movie has been the filming itself. There were barely any cuts in the movie and it was mostly shot in one scene so it made you feel that you were part of the scene. Another strength in the movie was the anonymity that was given to the jurors. This help me realise that these were just the “general public” and that there are many jury’s that are exactly or similar to this. Another strength that the movie showed was that it helped me realise the potential flaw in our justice system. While the accused is still given a right to a fair trial, when you are in a society where prejudice against minorities is considered a norm, it becomes hard looking at things fairly not because you don’t want to but because most of the society is already doing it. For example, in the movie most of the jurors were quick to accuse the boy guilty without deliberation. Another strength is how this movie showed how influential we are to each other. For example, the group dynamic of economic status was big because while the people on the higher economic status looked at the boy with more prejudice, one of the jurors who was
Juror #10, a garage owner, segregates and divides the world stereotypically into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ ‘Us’ being people living around the rich or middle-class areas, and ‘them’ being people of a different race, or possessing a contrasting skin color, born and raised in the slums (poorer parts of town). It is because of this that he has a bias against the young man on trial, for the young man was born in the slums and was victim to domestic violence since the age of 5. Also, the boy is of a Hispanic descent and is of a different race than this juror, making him fall under the juror’s discriminatory description of a criminal. This is proven on when juror #10 rants: “They don’t need any real big reason to kill someone, either. You know, they get drunk, and bang, someone’s lying in the gutter… most of them, it’s like they have no feelings (59).
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
It can be thought of as the class or social standing of an individual or a group (American Psychological Association). Class inequalities in incarceration are represented by those who have a very low educational background (Western and Pettit 2010). Many studies show a significant increase in educational inequality in incarceration due to the fact that almost all of the growth in the risk of incarceration between 1983 and 1999 was confined to men without a college education (Western, Kleykamp, and Rosenfeld 2004). Prisoners of the state average a tenth grade education and around seventy percent do not have a high school diploma (Western and Pettit 2010). Offenders overwhelmingly come from the least educated margin of society (Western and Pettit 2010). Most of the incarceration rate growth stems from young men with very low levels of education (Western and Pettit 2010). In 2008, the incarceration rate of young African American men without a high school degree had risen to thirty-seven percent (Western and Pettit 2010). This rate is even more alarming when compared to the average rate of the general population being 0.76 of 1 percent (Western and Pettit 2010). The incarceration rate among young white dropouts has grown significantly as well with around one in eight incarcerated in 2008 (Western and Pettit 2010). This notable growth in
Humanity instructs us that we must behave with tolerance and respect towards all. Just Mercy exemplifies how that is not the case for many Americans. Critical Race Theory is a theory which focuses on the experiences of people who are minorities. It argues that people who are minorities in the United States are oppressed and, because of the state of being oppressed, creates fundamental disadvantages (Lecture 4.7). A study conducted for the case McCleskey v. Kemp revealed that when a black defendant killed a white victim, it increased the likelihood the black defendant would receive the death penalty (Stevenson, 2014). Looking at this fact through the lens of a critical race theorist, it illustrates how unconscious racism is ignored by our legal system. The actuality that, statistically, people of color have a higher chance of getting sentenced to death than white people is a blatant example of inequality. In Chapter 8, Stevenson discusses the case of multiple juveniles who were incarcerated and sentenced to death in prison. These juveniles who were sent to adult prisons, where juveniles are five times more likely to be the victims of sexual assault, show an innate inequality towards minors (Stevenson, 2014). Ian Manuel, George Stinney, and Antonio Nunez were all only fourteen-years-old when they were condemned to die in prison. Although they did commit crimes, the purpose of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate young offenders. Trying juveniles in adult court represents a prejudice against age, which Stevenson sought to fight by working on appeals for Manuel and Nunez (Stevenson, 2014). His humanity shines through once again, as he combats the justice system to give the adolescents another chance at life, rather than having them die in prison. The way prisoners with mental and/or physical disabilities are treated while incarcerated is also extremely
The article titled “Growing up in Prison” by Elizabeth Calvin was published in the Los Angeles Times on January 13 2014. It discusses the case of Eden Gonzalez who was sentenced to life imprisonment at the age of sixteen. Gonzales sentence was punitive owing to the lack of parole for the entire sentence. This is because the inmate tried to steal a car in the company of two adults, but a murder occurred in the course of the crime. It is notable that Gonzales was sentenced to a life imprisonment despite the fact that he did not kill. In an online article by Ashley Hayes, the author discusses the case of Ethan Couch who was driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.24. The judge ruled for Couch to serve ten-year probation despite the fact that Couch killed. This paper argues that even though the law promotes a fair society, a person’s economic status can influence their jail sentence. Is also opposes life imprisonment without parole for children.
In “Mistakes, Misunderstandings, and Misalignments” Jules L. Coleman argues, “there is an inconsistency in how the standard of care is set versus how damages are awarded [in the criminal justice system]” (). Meaning, the law does not abide by the same verdict when punishing as when protecting. When penalizing, the law usually targets the financially unfortunate in this case Hector. Conversely, when protecting, the criminal justice system seeks to defend the affluent, Emily. This creates a double standard in which fear is instilled in the poor while a sense of security is granted to the
The criminal justice system is defined as the system of law that is used for apprehending, prosecuting, defending, and even sentencing people who are guilty of criminal offenses. In many cases, race, class, gender, and even sexuality can impact due process and fairness within the criminal justice system. Sometimes if people don’t think they have a choice to receive justice, they may want to take law into their own hands. Whereas Others will try to get a lawyer so they can take it to court and follow the judicial systems laws to try convict the criminal. In certain situations as a defendant, your race, class, and gender can make a negative impact on the criminal justice response to the crimes. In the movies “Thelma and Louise,” “The Accused,”
Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.