Twelve Angry Men

What do we know about the criminal justice system? The criminal justice system is a series of organizations that are involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and jailing those involved in crimes; along with the system, regular citizens are summoned for jury duty in order to contemplate whether the defendant is guilty or not. It appears to be a rather secure, fair, and trustworthy system; one that should work relatively well, right? Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is an ultra-costly and ultra-punitive; the system is neither protecting victims nor rehabilitating lawbreakers. For example, trial by jury; there is usually a small amount of people in the jury who actually considered that another being’s life is on the line. In trial by jury, the court is literally trusting the life of another being in the hands of twelve strangers who need to argue with each other like kids until they conclude a verdict. In the play, Twelve Angry Men, a group of men are summoned for jury duty and almost all of the men would rather conclude a verdict immediately and leave; except for one, Juror #8. He managed to detain the group by requesting for a discussion of the murder trial before voting “guilty” or “not guilty.” Not once did Juror #8 allow the others to influence him unless they had a valid explanation.
Often times within a jury, participants may be tempted to reach a quick verdict in order to get over with it and go home. So, their conclusions are usually flawed, hasty generalizations with no proper judgement behind them. In the play, all the jurors, besides Juror #8, claimed that a “unique” knife was identified as a murder weapon and the boy, or supposed murderer, was seen with it although he had said he lost it. ...

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...l increase dramatically. Also, in particularly due to the media, we often forget this rule “innocent until proven guilty.” With the way society deals with criminal injustice today, our media often rules a verdict before the justice system has. Whether through ignorance or not, many people pick up the morning paper or read off of the internet and allow their minds to soak up the information being fed to them, without stopping to question what they are being told. When they read about a person being held trial for murder, their thoughts are of how they will be punished, not if they should be punished. Other factors such as racism, discrimination, and being bias come into play as well. There is often too many questions left unasked and too many questions left unanswered. The American justice system is unreliable and unjust and far too many innocent beings are punished.