USA Criminal Justice System - Essay Sample

Introduction

The respective frameworks in the world become effective virtually by the act of justice. The act of justice plays a significant role in enhancing the law of a particular place through the criminal justice system. Criminal justice system creates a visionary manifesto that enhances the application of justice to the people who commit crimes. In most regions, the criminal justice system entails institutions and government institutions such as the courts, police, prisons, prosecution and defense lawyers to administer punishment to the lawbreakers. The United States of America incorporates a network of criminal justice systems at the state-federal and special jurisdictional degree, for instance, territorial and military courts. Generally, the criminal justice system in America prevails on matters such as death penalty, juvenile offenders, drug addicts' and mental illness. The death penalty is a legal measure applied to capital offenses such as treason and espionage. U.S.A has encountered different death penalties titled for capital offenses.

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Case Study on Death Penalty in U.S.A

The death penalty in the United States is administered on offenders who commit capital offenses such as espionage, treason, murder during kidnap and murder during an aircraft hijacking. It is applied in 30 states, the military and the federal government in the United States. The death penalty is however abolished in some parts of the States of America. According to Ridgeway and Casella, four states have abolished the death penalty in the past five years, while other states have lawfully set a moratorium on executions. As such, support for the death penalty is at its lowest point in the United States. According to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund's latest "Death Row U.S.A" records concluded that 3, 049 people were expecting a death penalty in the United States. Further, the Sentencing Project recorded 50, 000 people serving sentences of life without the chance of parole and over 159, 000 serving life sentences (Ridgeway and Casella). Some offenders serve sentences with long minimums that are close to doing life without parole. This is evident in William Blake offense incident from the Marshall Project. William Blake is a capital offender based in New York who was charged with murder, failed escape attempt and to abuse drugs. At his tribunal, the judge who presided over his case sentenced William Blake to life imprisonment because the death penalty does not apply in New York.

Raveling issues is the outcome of life without parole hardly receives its place as closely a one-for-one alternative to the death penalty. In New York State, for instance, life without parole did not exist before the state's brief reinstitution of capital punishment from 1995 to 2004. Throughout this time, there were never more than six men on New York's death row, and no executions took place. In these contemporary times, approximately 250 people are doing life without parole in New York, and more than 1 in 6 of the state's offenders is serving a life sentence (Jacob, James, and Larrauri).

Connecticut State in the United States incorporated a more harsh punishment than a simple life without parole after abolishing capital punishment in 2012. Subsequently, new legislation mandated the people found guilty of "murder with special circumstance" would be castigated to spend their sentence in prison without parole in solitary confinement (Metzner and Fellner 316). This course was supposedly underpinned as a way to achieve enough support for the repeal bill.

However the need that life without parole sentences is served in solitary confinement is tabulated into legislation only in Connecticut, it appears in operation throughout the United States (Metzner and Fellner 316). A record has confirmed that offenders have been placed in permanent or unknown solitary confinement by prison officials, without the advantage of any sort. As such, most people on the nation's death rows, people who live in states that have incorporated moratorium being one of them, hence are unlikely to encounter execution.

Discussion

The problem identified in criminal justice system in United States is death penalty. William Blake reflects the death penalty as a better punishment than life imprisonment. This is in regard to his worse subjection to pain through living in extreme isolation in a 7x9 cell, having his meals through a slot in a solid steel door and allowed to be out only for an hour (Metzner and Fellner 316). As such, William Blake has a minimum so long that he might as well be doing life without parole.

Parole in this instance is important, especially for life imprisonment offenders because it assists the offenders to adjust to the out of prison life. According to the United States Court, parole is also significant in the control of the population in prisons (O' hear 2). It costs $ 79.16 a day to accommodate an inmate in federal prison but only $ 9.17 a day to manage them in a community position.

In many states in America, the extension and the existence of life without parole sentences can directly to the scuffle to finish a death penalty (Jacob, James, and Larrauri). In this light capital punishment opponents normally prefer life without parole to the death penalty and in the process be title-holders of the capital punishment which is unknown in most regions of developing countries.

In California, for instance, where the present-day trial to terminate death penalty by referendum was closely conquered in 2012, the voters are influenced not directly to end the capital punishment, but to "replace" it with life without parole. Consequently, the ACLU of Northern California created merit of the comparison between the two punishments: "The truth of the matter is that people subjected to life without parole have been castigated to face their deaths in prisons. They die in prison of natural causes, similarly to the number of people sentenced to death" Further, the ACLU employs a strict communication channel, one which a person may not expect from any beneficent organization. As such, life without parole sentences has the privilege of being particular and brisk due to the no certain consideration on trial.

O'hear (5) also notes that life without parole sentences is "severe," due to the passing of a lifetime in horrible and overcrowded prisons in California. This is certainly true given the unconstitutional negligence to offer proper health care to California's prisoners.

A relevant proof to the life without parole in California is Kenneth E. Hartman. He is serving life without parole in California. As such, he has strongly objected the referendum to substitute the death penalty with life without parole. As a result of this, Hartman runs a campaign called the Other Death Penalty Project from the prison. This is to ensure that life without parole concerts to a death penalty without any of the legal defense granted to the people denounced to the traditional form of execution.

Solution/Plan Improvement of the Death Penalty in the United States

The death penalty is a capital punishment in the criminal justice system of the United States that can undergo some improvements. In instances such as William Blake and Kenneth's, death penalty comes in hand as a resource because the struggles they are subjected to are equivalent to early death. The death penalty should be a matter of the past especially to the states that still practice it. From the 50 states of the United States, 30 states still legalize capital punishment. It should be abolished since it is not humane and cannot be undone, it is costly to the government especially when purchasing the drugs used in lethal injection and other expenses in regard to the execution, it can cause depression and it can result into punishing wrong people.

Similarly, life imprisonment without parole should not be considered in United States criminal justice systems. Despite the fact that lawbreakers receive their punishment as a result of their offense, they should receive humane treatment. Incidences such as that of William Blake serving life sentences without parole under harsh conditions such as having meals on slots, being isolated and getting to see outside only for an hour should not be applied in the United States.

Serving a lifetime sentence without parole entitles the prisoners to grow sick and old without proper care. Some people are also subjected to hardships such as living in extreme isolation and offered meals on a metallic slot like in the case of William Blake.

Research has affirmed that solitary for prisoners generates brain alteration and produces psychiatric symptoms that lead to depression and active psychosis. In this light, some prisoners slowly deteriorate from their humanity and sanity. Further, in another study in New York, researchers concluded that offenders in solitary confinement are more likely to commit suicide than those in the general population. They can commit suicide through biting through their veins in their arms and bleeding to death or jumping head-first off their bun

Consequently, the death penalty and life imprisonment without parole will advocate for the deterioration of the economy of the United States. This is in the sense that, for example in the death penalty, the government will spend much money to buy lethal injection for execution, high rates of death suicides and insanity will also be reduced.

Lawbreakers, especially those who commit murder, treason, espionage, and other capital offenses should be granted at least life imprisonment with parole or to be in the general population of prisoners and not be isolated. This will create a correctional platform for most lawbreakers in such a way that the prisoner will experience a new way of doing things which is more ethical and proper, for instance getting a job and earning money from that other than stealing from someone or robbing a bank. Additionally, parole will enhance the reduction of prisoners in the cells. This will reduce the cost of government spending on the prisoners on their basic needs in prison.

Cases of insanity and suicides will be reduced in the sense that life sentence with parole will send some prisoners home and the remaining prisoners will be few to be catered for well. There will be enough space for them and they will not be exposed to solitary which is the main cause of suicide and the alteration of brain chemistry which causes insanity and mental complications of prisoners.

Generally, the court and the prisons as part of the criminal justice system in the United States should consider the prisoners despite the fact that they committed a crime. The death penalty should be abolished in all parts of the states because it does more harm than good to the culprits and their relations. Criminals or offenders deserve a decent punishment that will facilitate instant correctional attitudes in them. For capital offenders, life imprisonment with parole can underpin a better platform for them to have different experience other than just the prison experience. This can create a better platform for offenders to transform and reform.

Conclusion

In conclusion, no offense should go unpunished especially the capital offenses and when the criminal is proved guilty. In this light, every criminal should face trial in court and when found guilty, he/she should be given a punishment. However, the offenders should not be exposed to inhuman activities in the prison in the name of punishment. The criminal justice system, particularly the courts and prisons play a pivotal role in enhancing justice in the United States. As such, it should take part in building and reforming the offenders. T...