Criminal Justice System: My Opinion

Criminal Justice System

I think there’s quite a bit of change that should be made to the criminal justice system. Firstly, I think we should fix the minimum sentencing laws. I think when it comes to deciding and sentencing people for the crimes committed, it’s not entirely fair in my opinion. We have people who get a lot of time sentenced to them for something like having marijuana on them, yet we have people who have committed murder or rape, and get very short sentencing time. I see that this happens a lot and it bugs me because we have people committing way worse crimes and they’re getting extremely short sentencing times. Federal drug laws account for the longest maximum sentences out of any crime a person commits, reaching up to 40 years of life in prison for a large number of drugs. The big issue with this is unfair sentencing for drugs that target lower-class offenders. With harsh sentences and laws stacked up against people of color, drug addicts, and people who can’t afford legal representation, nonviolent drug offenses are common.

Secondly, I believe we should fix the racism in the prison system. In America today, people of color are incarcerated in state and federal prisons across the country at a higher rate than white people. African Americans land in prison at more than five times the rate than white people. Oklahoma holds the highest rate of black incarceration in the nation, holding more than one in every fifteen black males over 18 is in prison. According to statistics and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a black person is 3.37 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana when compared to a white person, despite the rate of use between the two races being approximately the same. Hispanics and Latinos see nearly the same range of racial injustice, with 1.4 times the rate of whites. However, blacks are still more than twice as likely to wind up in prison than Hispanics.

Lastly, my third and final change I think should happen in the criminal justice system is prison overcrowding. Statistics show that our prison system has reached staggering numbers. With 2.3 million Americans incarcerated today and another 5 million released on parole or probation, meaning 1 in every 31 Americans will end up in jail. The main problem with this is that prisons weren’t designed to take care of this many people. Prisons are overcrowded, and the federal government cannot afford them. According to Hillary Clinton’s website, the majority of those incarcerated are nonviolent offenders. Penal Reform International is only a consequence of our criminal justice policies rather than increasing crime. No matter the cause of overcrowding has become an issue, it undermines the prison’s ability to meet basic human needs, let alone allow fund rehabilitation and educational programs for inmates or even fund staff training.

In conclusion, I do think the Criminal Justice System is doing its best to handle everything, but I still think and believe there are many more things they need to fix and improve on like the three examples I listed above. I really do hope in the near future we eventually will improve the Criminal Justice System and make things in it all around more equal and fair.