Discussion Thread: ETHICS AND THE CRIMINAL
LEGAL SYSTEM<\/p>\n
Explaining that today’s system is NOT a criminal\u00a0justice\u00a0system,
but, rather, a criminal\u00a0legal\u00a0system, author
Alec Karakatsanis notes https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/11\/09\/criminal-justice-mass-incarceration-book\/<\/p>\n
“Anyone who observes court in the
U.S. or works in the system understands that there is simply no way to process
two million human beings from their families, homes, jobs, communities and into
cages without coming up with shortcuts at every single step in the process.
It\u2019s just a really significant bureaucratic achievement to transfer that many
people and their bodies and their lives into government-run cages. And to do
that, the system basically has to ignore the main constitutional rights that
are provided for in the Bill of Rights, because those documents were not
written with a world of mass incarceration in mind. In fact, they were written
precisely to avoid mass human caging.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Karakatsanis and many others note that, although the U.S.
constitution extends extraordinary protections meant to prevent abuse, find
truth, and create justice, these core purposes are non-existent in today’s
criminal legal system. Pointing to an abundance of shocking statistics–the
fact that\u00a0approximately 3\/4 of the people currently in jail have not
been convicted of a crime,\u00a0(Links to an external site.), the reality that\u00a0less than 5% of criminal
cases\u00a0go to trial because\u00a0more than 95% of cases end with a plea bargain\u00a0(Links to an external site.)–critics note that the constitutional basis of our criminal
court system has been abandoned.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/pie2020.html<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/think\/opinion\/prisons-are-packed-because-prosecutors-are-coercing-plea-deals-yes-ncna1034201<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n
When considering vast gulf between the constitutional design and
the daily reality in\u00a0today’s \u00a0system, then, it is important to
interrogate the\u00a0ethical underpinnings of the U.S. criminal court system in
the provision of liberty and justice–\u00a0does
our system work as it should? How should the system work? What, ultimately, is
the most ethical outcome when it comes to difficult subjects like crime, safety,
and determining guilt and innocence?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It is important that all those who engage in making\u00a0the
U.S. criminal justice system function on a day-to-day basis consider these
questions in order to critically understand the system that they actively make
possible.\u00a0While answering\u00a0these questions may be uncomfortable, doing
so is an ethical responsibility for educated individuals who work in a field in
which they play some role –no matter how small–in making the U.S. justice
system function. This week, we will examine the ethical underpinnings of the
existing criminal legal system. look at the attachments for more information. <\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Discussion Thread: ETHICS AND THE CRIMINAL LEGAL SYSTEM Explaining that today’s system is NOT a criminal\u00a0justice\u00a0system, but, rather, a criminal\u00a0legal\u00a0system, author Alec Karakatsanis notes https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/11\/09\/criminal-justice-mass-incarceration-book\/ “Anyone who observes court in the U.S. or works in the system understands that there is simply no way to process two million human beings from their families, homes, jobs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-23601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}