Cyclical Trends of Police Brutality in Black America: Critiques & Analysis - Essay Sample

Abstract

In the second – and most important – section of this report, the author provides their evidence-backed viewpoint on the cyclical trends in police brutality among the black community of America. A critic is around the police stereotypical approach to justice in the black neighborhoods is accompanied by an equivalent critic on the black justice advocates´ methods to justice agitation. Finally, the author analyses what is expressed in literature as a cumulative disadvantage in the Criminal Justice against the minority communities. It is concluded that the current symptomatic and reactionary (case-by-case) approach to social justice in the criminal justice system must be rethought in case the black activists are to gain a systemic amend of the systemic inequalities and discrimination in the justice system.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Introduction

The American criminal justice system comprises a combination of interlinked agencies that collectively aim to prevent crime, rehabilitate convicts, and support the victims morally (Pickett, Mancini, Mears, & Gertz, 2014). As one of the most complex justice systems globally, this US justice system often becomes open to intense criticisms and sometimes misunderstanding among the members of the general public. While some pieces of evidence suggest ethical failings in the justice system, criminal scholars must dispel public misinterpretations of the various crime policies. The scholarship conversation around the criminal justice system in America continues to dominate criminology inquiries. A simple search of the “American criminal justice system” keyword on jstor publication website returns over 118,000 journal articles and 23,000 book chapters. “Black discrimination in American criminal justice” keyword, furthermore, returns over 20,000 results. These results point to the extensive scholarship around these topics.

One of the most controversial topics around the US criminal justice system involves it´s perceived discrimination against the black and Latino minorities. With the question of police brutality back on media limelight since the recent death of George Floyd at the hands of a correctional officer, the criminal justice domain must be revisited with objective criticism on both ends. A bold headline opinion story on the Washington Post in 2018 bluntly read; “There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof” (Balko, 2018). Such a compelling headline story and the publicized deaths and unlawful traffic stops of various black Americans continue to center the criminal justice conversation in America around the narrative of minority discrimination in law enforcement.

In this special criminal justice report, the author attempts to extensively discuss the root cause and progress of the monstrosity that continues to put the justice department on a tight spot. With the recent public unrest and riots caused by the perceived police brutality against the black community, the scholarship around criminal justice in America continues to analyze the delicate interrelationship between the police and the Black community of America. The author attempts to explore the factors that instigated the now-normalized Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in America. Ethical matters around the criminal justice system need a holistic and pre-emptive analysis and redefinition.

The report thereby begins by studying the Criminal justice system comprehensively. Once the strengths and general weaknesses of the system are analyzed, the next section embarks on the discussion around the media-frenzied BLM movement that is quickly rising into a global justice phenomenon – thanks to hyperactive social media communities. The links between media consumption of criminal justice hot-topics and the directionality of an ethically-inclined justice system is also analyzed in the report.

The US Criminal Justice System

Brief History and Background of the Criminal Justice System

Fairness and sharing have always dominated social interactions in the human race. Since the ancient Chinese ages, some forces within society have still charged themselves with the monitoring and control of deviance and behavioral resistance among citizens of human settlements. The balance between individual rights and community interests continues to exist on a delicate pendulum that continues to shift depending on various societal factors, including humanism, economic shifts, social restructuring, and cosmopolitan ideals (Buckholtz & Marois, 2012; Hooft, 2011). Understanding the implications of justice differ significantly among individuals depending on the lens through which they view society. The differing positions held by either the public order advocates or the individual rights advocates continue to create societal tension concerning the exact status of justice in society.

Through the course of embracing justice and fairness, society continues to define concepts such as social justice as a means of checking the societal integrity and equity factors. While such systems engage in civil and cultural engagements of various demographics, the criminal justice system participates in the incarceration and correction of criminals.

Justice systems were initially definitively observed in ancient china through the prefecture system (Buckholtz & Marois, 2012). While this system was mostly progressive and future-thinking, it appeared to be easily subject to positional abuse by the prefects. The prefects and court officers of the era turned corrupt and developed societal networks that protected the very criminals they were to incarcerate. However, the ancient Chinese correctional system provided a foundation for the modern-day justice systems.

When justice initially found the way into pre-modern Europe, it was delivered through barbaric private wars and blood feuds between warring sides (Buckholtz & Marois, 2012). Some civilized early protectors in Europe included Protective guards and the Praetorian Guard units in the Roman Empire. Later, the enforcement roles in the empire were left to clan rulers and state heads. In such early European communities, punishment for crimes ranged from a ´wergild´ (paid settlement with the victim) to corporal punishment and (in extreme cases) exile or execution.

In America, the arrival of colonists in the 17th century brought the common law system to the American criminal justice system (Earwood, 2013). This system separated criminal justice cases into misdemeanors and felonies. The Grand jury system was thereby introduced into the legal system in America. Initially, such a jury involved community members and the victim instigating and ruling on the criminal´s fate. The colonialists who started the establishment of the criminal justice system in America were untrained in criminal law (French, 1993). Their judgments and the overall administration of the justice system was characterized by room for creativity and errors. With their strong inclinations to religion, these colonialists grounded the criminal justice system solidly around Christian moral values. Such strong Christian convictions were strongly evident in the legal codes set by the colonialists. The legal codes categorized the moralistic misdemeanors as part of prosecutable crimes. Crimes were then associated with sin, and individual liberty held highly.

In colonial America, justice was delivered through colonial courts, arrests made by sheriffs and punishments mostly involved actions that aimed at teaching the offenders a lesson (Earwood, 2013). When the sheriffs became insufficient in law enforcement across cities, criminal justice agents assisted in maintaining public order. In these legal systems, the magistrate held most of the authority in courts, and defense attorney roles provided limited to no functionality in the legal process. While aiming at modernity, the justice system developed the role of police and prisons. These components of the justice system would assist in maintaining order in communities and restraining convicted criminals. When the prosecutor positions were created in American courts, the role began to attract immense political interest (French, 1993). These prosecutor positions were elective, and the role holders possessed considerable influence in the justice process.

Since the advent of the criminal system in America, several reforms have worked to streamline the system and respond to the continuously changing individual versus community relationships. From the 1920s, criminal justice began to shift attention from the rehabilitation of offenders to the control of criminal behavior. Reports ranging from The Cleveland Survey of 1920 to subsequent reports for reformation, various commissions have worked towards the modernization of the American civil law. These commissions made proposals that ranged from operational modernity to challenging the scientific legitimacy of different legal notions in criminal justice (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson, & Spohn, 2014).

In the next section of this study, the analyst studies the current criminal justice system while acknowledging the progress and deficiencies identified by various authors.

Theoretical and Legal Foundations of the Criminal Justice (CJ) System

Colloquially, the CJ system is immensely simplified by the general public to maintain its level of ubiquity (Pickett, Mancini, Mears, & Gertz, 2014). However, this inference to the CJ system appears highly simplistic and reductionist. The public often basically look at the justice system as a collection of its components. The police, corrections facilities, and courts are thereby seen as constituting factors that work cumulatively to achieve the correctional, rehabilitative, and detention-based roles on societal deviants.

The philosophical and theoretical foundations of criminal justice (CJ) have often been avoided by introductory criminal justice textbooks (Earwood, 2013). These books, instead, focus on the three arms of the CJ system in isolation. Descriptive texts on CJ systems often analyze separate facets of crime measurement and practice. The three different domains, including the courts, police, and correction facilities, are often disengaged by interested entry-level students in criminology. It is, however, necessary that these students, as well as the general public, portray a holistic and relational view of the justice system.

In the journey towards understanding the CJ system as a philosophical and theoretical area of interest, students must aim to challenge the simplistic portrayal of criminology and the CJ system in the media (Pickett, Mancini, Mears, & Gertz, 2014). While attempting to develop such a nuanced relationship with the justice system, the students and other practitioners thereby need to understand the various constructs that underlie the overall scholarly definition of the justice system. Different theories around criminality are, thus, employed in trying to understand the justice system and the general and special scopes.

Authors that...