Texas Criminal Justice System Pros And Cons

Imagine being overcrowded, filled with disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, and more. How would you survive? Would you try to escape? At Andersonville Prison in Georgia, they are treating the Northerners like animals, not humans. No one deserves to be treated like that.

69% of African Americans were convicted. 84% of state attorneys were white and 74% of judges were also white. The Cook County jail is the largest jail in the nation, housing around ten thousand inmates. “The vast majority, 67.3 percent, of those admitted to the jail are young African American males between the ages of twenty-one and thirty from Chicago’s South Side and West Side— creating a perversely convenient arrangement whereby the jail is closest to its target population.” (Van Cleve. 19).

Prominent people, the rich and famous, do not deserve red carpet or VIP treatment by prosecutors? Families of the rich and famous, or prominent people receive special treatment by the Justice system because of their social status, a system that is supposed to be giving equal justice to everyone regardless of social status. According to Karmen (2016), “certain victims were more likely to be given first class or VIP treatment, while others tend to be neglected, abused, and treated as second-class complainants by the same agencies and officials” (p. 240). In brief, social status decides how law enforcement handles a case.

People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.

The South being the main culprit of that statistic, making up 82%. Yes, it is a system that has been ingrained into the history of mankind, but American citizens have the luxury to know they are safe once a felon is convicted. If that is the main stem of the opposing argument, then it should be deemed unnecessary that we as a country still have the barbarism to kill another person for

Ideally, being able to elect judges seems like a fair concept. Both parties present a field candidate and the voters decide which to choose; however, this system is flawed. Not only is it difficult for the people to obtain any real information about their candidates, there is also the issue of “…Texas justice being sold to the highest bidder.” As a result, many cases have been influenced because of these generous contributions to the candidates. Rather than electing judicial officials, Texas should adopt a system of having a governor, or the Senate, appoint its judges, then every few years, voters sustain the right to retain those judges if they so desire.

According to Department of corrections and rehabilitation there is approximately 2.3 million adult offenders currently detained and which consist of 316,229 prisoners which are overseen by correctional officers on an ongoing basis costing on an average of $49 per prisoner, additionally their current budget is approximately $11 billion, which is distributed between 33 state prisons, 40 camps, as well as 12 community correctional facilities. Furthermore, the male population is 93%, 7% are females, Hispanics represent 39%, 29% are African American, and 26% are Caucasian, moreover, there are 24,000 inmates currently serving life sentences and 680 on death row, as well as the 124,000 parolees of which there is a 51% return ratio for parole violations, thus resulting in prison over-crowding.

It is important to know the reasons to have a better understanding of capital punishment in Texas. Three of the reasons include a weak public defender system, desires of district attorneys and judges, and the governors limited power to grant clemency. Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 Texas has executed 531 inmates. That is 419 more executions than Oklahoma, the second leading state.

When I hear the words judicial system I think of people age 18 or older and committed a heinous crime. However, in the U.S. that is not the case. The U.S. is known for having the highest rate of children imprisonment. The system force children to become what the system identify them as which is another statistic. In my opinion, the judicial system is slavery just in a different form because the U.S. is making money off of them, stripping them of their humanity, and giving them no type of hope for the future.

The Texas criminal justice system has always had a reputation for being ruthless when convicting felons and we have seemed to have kept up that reputation. Many Texans believe in the phrase, “do the crime, do the time,” and will often send perpetrators to prison for minute offenses. At first that may have seemed like the best solution with what to do with these defendants, however, too many are being convicted too quickly and are now overcrowding Texas prisons. Many of those who see the problem with the overcrowding are calling for

The prison population rate in the U.S. is 716 per 100,000 people. Unless someone has spent time researching this rate for different countries, the statistic probably doesn’t make much sense. Of the 222 countries and territories listed in the Tenth Edition of the ICPS World Prison Population List, 54% had rates below 150 per 100,000, and the world’s average was 144 per 100,000

This year has been a difficult year for the criminal justice system of Texas. From the multiple police brutality incidents to people dying police custody that shouldn’t. With the one of the highest percentage of its citizens incarcerated, we can start to see why people feel like the Texas Criminal Justice system has failed them. The plea bargain is just one example that the people feel like the justice system has failed them. I personally feel that even with all of Texas Criminal Justice system’s faults, I feel like Texans can come together to make the necessary changes to make better adapted to the newer generations morals.

Many that live deserve death, some that die deserve life"-J.R.R Tolkein Capital Punishment is the legally authorized killing of someone as punishment for a crime. Life without parole is a cruel and unusual punishment. The criminals dont get to go home to their families or children if they have any. Killing them would make matters worse. Families would have to come to their relatives execution.

1. Aggravating and mitigating factors weigh on what a person’s sentence will be. Aggravators and mitigators are only factored in after the person has been found guilty. For a prosecutor to be able to try and get the death penalty for a person, the criminal must have committed a crime that involved at least one aggravating factor. Aggravating factors include: rape, arson, child molesting, criminal gang activity, and many more.

Each death penalty case in Texas costs taxpayers about $2.3 million. That is approximately three times the cost of imprisoning somebody in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. That is crazy! The government could actually do something good rather than something flawed and hypocritical. Taxpayers complain about paying taxes.