Criminal Justice Analysis

Legal scholar Packer stated four guidelines that prove that society has a justice system. One, the United States must be mindful of policy and protocol of making laws (Legislature makes the laws, and the local enforcement evaluates the situation and provides a solution). Two, these two should never cross each other; both must stay separate of each other. Three, there must always be a limit on the state’s power. This prevents overcharging and stacking the deck against certain people or groups of people. Four, it must always treat an individual as a free, moral person. Based on these guidelines, it is obvious that the United States’ criminal justice system is extremely flawed. In 1976, Guenther stated that the American criminal justice system …show more content…
He raised the “crime in the streets” issue and in 1968, Richard Nixon preached the same ideal with the “law and order” premise. With the politicization of crime and popular punitivism, Americans wanted to be “tougher on crime”. They were fearful of the large crime rate that was presented to them. Little did they know; their knowledge of crime was based off faulty data. In fact, polls during that time measured crime concerns at that time were modest. This was a form of deviancy amplification. There was a perception of blacks and crime that was false, but once the idea was out there, there was no contesting it. The media had skewed their perception of crime rates, causing panic. People started to perceive black people as “dangerous” and lesser than them. The controversial civil rights movement during the 1960’s also raised conflict between the whites and blacks. Once it was placed in the minds of Americans that whites were better than blacks, there was no limit to how badly or unfairly they could be treated. Partly, the bias criminal justice system was created from the politicization of crime. Once politicians figured out that they could benefit from the criminalization of black people and popular punitivism, they used that to gain political power, regardless of the consequences for …show more content…
This can be inferred from the incredible amounts of overcriminalization in the system. Society presented an idea of being “tougher on crime”. They wanted to create a system that threatened others from committing crimes so they made the punishment for petty crimes worse. People were made a general deterrent, and “example” to be tough against one person so others would feel threatened. A few examples that permit overcriminalization are minimum sentences and maximum