Myths about the criminal justice system
Introduction
The criminal justice system is a group of agencies that are initiated by the government to control crime and place sentences or penalties on those violating the law. Many citizens in a country place their trust and argue that the criminal justice system is fair, but this is just a myth since much of what is done in the criminal courts can be termed as legal guess work. This myth that the criminal justice system is fair is proven wrong by how the system decides if one is guilty. These decisions are based on; eye witnesses are valuable in deciding a case, fingerprint and forensic results cannot be wrong, the fact that human memories are reliable, the criminal justice system still believe that innocent people confess to crimes they have not committed, they trust the findings of the police on an investigation, when a criminal pleas’ guilty they take it as proof of guilt, they have continuously believed that prosecutors are fair in their decision making and lastly they believe that sentencing a criminal for a long time will prevent crime. Peoples’ belief that the system is fair is just a myth since it bases its decisions on such matters to convict individuals.
It is not right to base a person’s conviction on the mere testimony of a person who saw what was taking place. Eyewitness testimony is very unreliable in many cases, especially where the perpetrator of a crime and the eyewitness come from different races. This information of the eyewitness can be compromised especially in the crime was violent and so many things happened within a short period of time. The capability of the human memory to recall the events that took place on the day or at the time of the crime can be questioned (Petro, & Nancy 16). Basing one’s conviction on an eyewitness is not right. Many times the criminal justice system has sentenced criminals on the basis of a testimony of an eye witness. This is proof that it is not a fair system as the people suggest.
Another proof that to disclaim this belief is shown by the fact that they continue to base their conviction on DNA testing done on finger prints despite the fact that it has been proved that the latent prints left on the field by the perpetrator of a crime mostly are smudged and incomplete, therefore the work of identifying these prints becomes more of art than science and sometimes forensic results are not foolproof in determining if someone is the perpetrator of a crime (Petro, & Nancy 16). This continues to prove the belief that the criminal justice system is fair is just a myth and a belief that people are clinging to.
The fact that the system believes that a person pleading not guilty confess that they did commit the crime when tactics such as interrogations are used to interrogate criminals. An innocent person will confess to a crime he/she has not committed just to get away from this ordeal. Later in the investigation the police will find out the innocent party had just given a false testimony. It is so absurd the criminal justice system can say that a person who confesses to a crime is innocent and that person who does not confess is guilty and should be convicted for the crime. Even an innocent person can refuse to testify as much as a guilty person can (Petro, & Nancy 15). The criminal justice sentencing someone on the basis that they have failed to testify is unfair and against the believe that it is a fair system.
The criminal justice system has always said that the role of the prosecutor is do justice, but not to obtain a conviction for the perpetrator of a crime. The system has laid down rules guiding the prosecutors and the people that work for them on how to behave. It is true many prosecutors are fair and they want justice done, but not all of them tend to be true to their duty. Prosecutors are well known to intimidate the defendants by bring up multiple counts of the crimes they have committed, this in return make defendants plead guilty (Rosenbaum np). The fact that one has pleaded guilty does not make them the perpetrator of a crime, when the prosecutor fails at his duty which is to seek justice for both parties involved, grave consequences can occur such as the conviction of an innocent party. This is another piece of proof showing that the criminal justice system is not fair.
The criminal justice system believe that the police are very objective in their investigation. The police are very secretive on the leads they pursue. The police are the only people with an opportunity to tamper with or destroy evidence, an opportunity to influence the witnesses at the scene of a crime and also they have an opportunity to direct a criminal investigation towards people whom they believe are responsible for the crime. History serves us with countless cases where police have led to conviction of innocent people as evidence that the police should not be a very reliable source in determining the sentence of a case (Petro, &Nancy 13). The fact that the criminal justice system uses information from the police without evaluating whether the information is false or true is full proof that the criminal justice system is not even close to being fair in the decisions they make, therefore saying that the system is fair is just a myth.
The criminal justice system believes that they never wrongfully convict anyone. Prisons are filed with a large number of innocent people. Only a few have been able to be exonerated from these felonies. Also another reason why prisons are full with innocent people is because the system believes that wrongful convictions are corrected on appeal and if there is nothing to be corrected them the convict is guilty of the crime and since, the process of reversing a conviction is expensive, innocent convicted people end up serving jail terms that they did not deserve (Petro, & Nancy 14). This stand as proof that the criminal justice system is not fair as most people see it. It also serves as evidence that the belief that the system is not fair.
The last idea people use to come to the conclusion that the justice system is fair is that long sentences are good for convicts. A study conducted in the USA shows that the country has over 2.2 million in prison. This number is very high compared to other nations such as England and Canada. A comparison survey between USA and Canada shows that in the USA a person who has committed burglary serves 16 months in prison while in Canada an individual who has committed the same crime serves 6-7 months in prison. The United State firmly believe that harshly sentencing offenders incapacitates them and they cannot commit those crimes again since, they will be in prison for a long time. Supporting these people in prison is a huge burden to taxpayers since their money has to be deducted to support those in prison (Natapoff, np). This is concrete proof that the assumption the system is not as fair as people view it
Conclusion
A very large majority of people tend to believe that the system is a fair one but that’s not the case. Looking at the factors they consider when making decisions on cases is evidence that the system is not at all fair. The system has been convicting people for long on the basis of testimonies from eye witnesses without evaluating all the loop holes that can be in that testimony. The system is convicting criminals on the basis of findings from police investigation without considering that the police could have tampered with the evidence. The system has continuously sentenced innocent people who have pleaded guilty due to prosecutors who put pressure on them to plead guilty to crimes they have not committed. The system is proud and believes that they do not wrongfully convict people, this has left so many innocent people in jail. The burden of supporting those in prison has been placed on taxpayers’ since they cannot support themselves. All these serve as concrete proof that peoples’ assumption on the fairness of the criminal justice system is just but a myth.
Work cited
Natapoff, Alexandra. Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal. New York: Basic Books, 2018. Internet resource.
Petro, Jim, and Nancy Petro. False Justice: Eight Myths That Convict the Innocent. , 2015. Print.
Rosenbaum, Thane. The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right. New York: Perennial, 2011. Internet resource.
