JUS 620 Is Justice Truly Blind-A. Baricuatro
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Is Justice Truly Blind Essay
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Is Justice Truly Blind Essay
Annamarie E. Baricuatro
Grand Canyon University
JUS 620: Exploration of Law and Public Policy
Professor Slaughter
December 6
th
, 2023
Is Justice Truly Blind Essay
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Is Justice Truly Blind Essay
In recent years the topic of racial injustice has become not only a major subject but a significant problem in the United States justice system. The justice system for the United States was implemented to target injustice and create and design a potential solution of what is deemed right and wrong amongst society. However, over the past few years, the United States justice system has slowly turned into an unjust, unfair, and even disorganized system to combat crime. The United States was founded on equality, but over the past several decades citizens have been debating and bickering about either gender or racial inequality. Many people have said that justice can be blind, however, throughout the paper it will both discuss and question whether justice is truly blind by examining how the political aspect impacts both inequality and crime control. A comprehensive discussion regarding how minorities perceive inequality and unprotected by the United States justice system. In the United States due process and political operations tend to bring more conservative and liberal views. "But their priority and concern are along the line of how the justice system should work rather than what causes crime, the effects the crime has on society, and what should be done about the crime” (Worrall, 2019). Many minority groups have a huge disadvantage economically which can have an impact on the perspective of both crime and minorities. Both due process and liberals tend to focus on the protection of the people's liberties and rights, however, for minorities this can have a positive influence since they tend not to believe that their rights are protected compared to a white individual. Due process protects a person's rights, and they would be treated equally regardless of their skin color or ethnicity. According to Worral (2019), as a democratic country, the rights of the people are valued highly, and the rest of the nation begins to get involved when those rights are beginning to be
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violated. Many believers or supporters of due process tend to believe that a person is innocent until they are proven guilty by a court of law. The most important is set on an individual's guilt by law rather than the person who committed the crime and that person is charged with the crime
(Worrall, 2019). "Crime prevention in general is not a uniform or homogeneous area of conceptual development and policy orientation. Rather ingrained in the very process of designing crime prevention strategies are certain core assumptions and political choices" (White, 1996). The main
priority of crime control is eliminating crime while due process focuses on how individuals or people are treated by members of the United States criminal justice system (Worral, 2019). One significant difference between these two ideas is that the due process put an extraordinary amount of faith and trust in the government's court system as well as crime control putting forth a significant amount of trust and faith in the system regarding law enforcement. However, according to Worral (2019), it is the court's responsibility to find a person guilty, while the purpose of crime control is to give judgment to members of law enforcement and provide a form of trust that they will handle a criminal or offender properly. It has been seen that the crime control method tends to give minority groups a disadvantage since they are impacted negatively by the economy. This tends to put most if not all of the trust in law enforcement so that if a police officer has any potentially biased or racist beliefs then that minority group will more than likely be treated unfairly and unequally as well as possibly be charged with an offense that they did not commit. However, if a person appears in court they may only be offered a public defender especially if they can not afford an attorney because they are at a disadvantage economically simply because of the officer they had contact with. Situations like this put the United States criminal justice system in an already unfair situation.
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Both the conservative and the liberal points of view are the opposite of each other. It is the liberal's belief in protecting the United States citizen's rights whereas the conservatives believe in harsher punishment as well as better crime control policies. Worrall (2019) stated that unlike both crime control and due process point of view, which discusses and explains the causes
of crime, as well as the consequences of crime, and what should be done regarding criminal activity. People have numerous points of view and opinions about how the criminal justice system
should be handled and operated as well as how criminals should be handled regarding the punishment that they could potentially receive. However, some individuals believe that the highest priority should be prevention so that it would prevent and discourage criminals from committing more crimes. Regarding other people's beliefs, they tend to believe that both incarceration and obtaining justice are the highest focus and priority, while other individuals may
believe that rehabilitation is the highest priority. The meaning of deterrence is that it should help prevent or discourage individuals from committing further criminal activity which would show harsher sanctions and sentences to help prevent future criminal behavior. This would mean that these criminals would be receiving a fair,
equal, and just punishment, or repercussions for the actions they have committed. By incapacitating an offender, it would completely take the offender and remove them from the community or society. This is a way to protect people in the community who do follow the laws by simply removing criminals from society. Worrall (2019) stated that rehabilitation is specifically created and designed to change or reprogram an offender’s behavior. One significant topic in the United States that has also become a significant problem is racial profiling among minorities. A lot of people tend to use racial profiling used by members of
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law enforcement especially when they conduct a search or traffic stop on an individual. However, other people view racial profiling as a much broader topic and even delve into the behavior of members of law enforcement causing injury or distress to minority groups. It has also shown that profiling not only follows ethnicity and race, but also follows gender, age, and even an individual's class in society (Weis, 2017). "Despite the broad scope of profiling in law enforcement, race is still at the center of criminal selectivity. Law enforcement still conducts operations in poor communities of color, and there is no check on tier discretion" (Weis, 2017). At times discrimination can happen inadvertently, however, there are other times when it is done intentionally even within the criminal justice system. One thing that is given to a judge in
the criminal justice system by a probation officer is a pre-sentencing report. In many cases, judges can use these pre-sentencing reports as a guide or an estimate when deciding the offender's fate and sentencing. Almost always these pre-sentencing reports tend to include the offender's criminal record if they have one, family history, education, employment history, as well as several other factors if it applies to the offender. However, considering these factors could also lead a judge to make a harsher sentence for the offender (Walker et al., 2018). It has been found that minority groups are far too often treated unfairly by the justice system and are often prosecuted based on members of law enforcement using racial profiling. Minorities are also not protected by the criminal justice system as well. Minorities also view many members of law enforcement and the criminal justice system as biased and racist, which can cause them to act and even think far differently than they usually do when handling a situation involving a minority. However, in both law enforcement and the criminal justice system
some members are not racists or biased they are just trying to do their job and help make a
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difference and keep the community and themselves safe from criminals and their illegal activities. Overall, regarding justice, it should be blind. However, due to several factors, it is not always truly blind. The United States was founded on one primary goal and that goal is that justice should be blind. If justice is truly blind then unfair sentences, racial profiling, and even discrimination would never have the chance to occur within the United States criminal justice system. The criminal justice system was designed by the people, but it will always need to be improved and have constant changes as people are always changing and evolving. However, since the criminal justice system was created and designed by humans it will always have both imperfections and issues since no one was created to be perfect. The sole priority of the criminal justice system is to be impartial and fair but with current events related to Black Lives Matter for
example, it has made numerous mistakes and problems that need to be fixed. The Black Lives Matter movement has started a process to help change problems and imperfections that currently arising in the justice system. But since we are human beings well all have our own opinions regarding gender and even race, which has caused us to be imperfect like that of the United States criminal justice system. However, there are always changes that need to be made to help better not only the people of the United States but the country as well.
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References
Walker, S., Spohn, C. C., & DeLone, M. (2018). The Color of Justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime
in America
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White, R. (1996). Situating crime prevention: Models, methods and political perspectives.
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Worrall, J. L. (2019). Crime control in America: What works?
Pearson.