Criminal Justice Research Paper

The criminal justice system is designed in a way to prosecute the offenders and keep our society save. Without laws and regulation this world would be a mess because there would not be consequences for our actions. Young people from our communities are stabbed, shot, beaten. We have an obligation to give back to the society. One way of doing this is to raise awareness in our youth. One question we can ask is what causes a young person to take a knife and kill someone they never know? Racism, poor family bonds can be behind those poor, irrational choices. I think mostly they feel unheard, unseen, and when people feel oppressed they do things to be recognized. A punishment is a price an individual has to pay for his or her actions. We as a society …show more content…
One day his mother was mad at him so he decided to stay away from home and that day it happened for him to meet someone who invited him to his place and fed him and provided shelter. Later he decided it was time for him to go back to home. At this point some major life changing events will start to take place. The host who took him home pointed a gun at him and told him, “Son, their ain’t anything in life for free”. He found himself stuck with this man, and thus in order for him to leave he had to do what he was asked. Alonza was asked to go to a gas station, “Fastrip”, and rob the place. Due to his immaturity, he did what the majority might have done. As in movies, he went in the gas station, took his gun out and pointed it at the chest of the guy who was working and asked to empty the cash register. After he was caught, he was charged with armed robbery and assault. It happened that a law was passed prior to the incident making it easy to prosecute juveniles as adults based on a fear of ultra-violence and the fact that being a youth is not an excuse to commit crime, murder, and violence. Because there was a zero-tolerance youth crime law into effect, Alonza put on trial for prosecution and later was pleaded guilty of armed robbery and sentenced to thirteen years in an adult prison. He explained that if he was not scared the day of the incident and was more determined nothing would have gone wrong but things are sometimes out of our control.
At the age of sixteen Alonza found himself to be behind the bars for his actions. Concerning the prison he says, “it was like a zoo with cages which was so small… Sometimes the cage is so small that you cannot even move your elbow – size of a phone