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Research Paper on Criminal Justice

Page 1 of 7

John Sandifer

Dr. McCants

AP English

16 January 2016

Outline: Criminal Justice Issues

Objective: To inform readers about Criminal Justice and issues of the power abuse and trust associated within the system, but to also show the positive outcome of the system.

“Criminal Justice is the interdisciplinary academic study of the police, criminal courts, correctional institutions, and juvenile justice agencies,” (Bernard page 1). The criminal justice system begins as soon as a person encounters a law enforcement officer and ends as soon as the person goes through his/her court hearing. Today the criminal justice systems are being demoralized by law enforcement officers who abuse their power, or by citizens who are siding with defendants than the arresting officer no matter the evidence. The purpose of this paper is to inform readers about criminal justice and the issues of power abuse and trust issues associated with it.

         Our criminal justice system has existed so far back to when the first colonist came to America. Before there were any written laws established in this new land, the early colonist would use punishments based on biblical terms to sentence people for their crimes. Many of these defendants were accused mostly of cursing, using the Lords name in vain, and not going to Church on the Sabbath. The consequences of these crimes were used hopefully make the defendant realize what he/she done and to hopefully repent their sins. The certain rights and protections that people receive in criminal justice situations today, were established in U.S. Constitution in 1787. The legal rights that the people enjoy today are found in the Bill of Rights or the first ten amendments within the Constitution. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendment’s spell out the basic rights and protections of people accused of crimes and what type of criminal justice actions can take place legally. The overall concept of these amendments are, no searches and seizures shall happen unless based on a warrant and probable cause, no person shall answer to a serious crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, no person shall be convicted of double jeopardy, no person shall witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, accused persons shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of the state, to confront the witnesses against him and the right to obtain a witness in his favor, common law suits exceeding twenty dollars shall be assessed by a trial by jury, excessive bail and fines shall not be imposed, and no cruel and unusual punishments shall be inflicted.

The modern day criminal justice system is directly based on the basic principles stated in the U.S. Constitution, but it has since then been added to and refined to help keep peace throughout the country. At one time in history the supreme court threw out the death penalty for people convicted of murder, they did this based on the eighth amendment stating no cruel and unjust punishments shall be inflicted. The country soon found out that since the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty, that many more serious crimes such as murders increased dramatically. In order to reduce the crime rate the Supreme court reintroduced the death penalty banning some tactics seen as cruel and unjust and introducing more human tactics, the Supreme Court also gave the states the right to choose which tactics they would use.

law enforcement officers are being heavily targeted for their unjust tactics, one in which stands out, and that is Racial Profiling. “Racial Profiling is a law enforcement and security agency practice that encourages officers to stop, search, and investigate people based on race, ethnicity, nationality or religion,” (Quezzair Dilascio page 1). “More than 40 percent of African Americans said that they believe police had stopped them because of their race, and only four percent of whites think that their state police officers have treated them unfairly,” (Quezziar Dilascio page 2).

In the past year 2015 there was a great increase in officer involved shootings, most of these shootings involved white law enforcement officers and black suspects, among the most notable shooting were the ones of Michael Brown and Walter Scott. On April 4 in North Charleston South Carolina a North Charleston police officer and a suspect named Walter Scott were in a scuffle after a traffic stop, during the scuffle Scott reached for Officer Michael T. Slager’s Taser after failing to obtain it Scott began to flee on foot, while doing so Slager took out his pistol and fired eight shots killing Scott. With police officers using lethal force in New York, Cleveland, South Carolina and Ferguson they are beginning to gain some attention on whether or not they’re abusing their law enforcement power to shoot unarmed people.

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