U.S. CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

HSIN-CHIEH LIN

BLACK STUDIES 100

JANUARY 13, 1997

   

       In order to keep a safe society, it is important to establish a nation with good education to teach people judging from right or wrong , excellent police force to keep our street safe, and most of all, a good criminal justice system to carry out the justice. United States is a place with little crimes, a nation with nice houses, beautiful beaches, and expensive shops without property just like what I seen in the American movies in my opinion before I arrived here. The very moment I stood in my dream street, Hollywood boulevard, I was shocked at the scenario. I then realized that this is a place no different from other countries The United States has many problems too, especially in crimes and its criminal justice system.

    The major feature of the U.S. criminal justice system is the jury system which is found nowhere else in the world except here in the America. The jury system originally was designed such that a decision of whether a person is guilty or innocent will not fall only into one individual's hand but a group of people. This feature gives the U.S. criminal justice system a lot of strength in a way that in order for 10 people to agree on a person being guilty or not, the court must supply sufficient amount of evidence so that no one will be punished by mistake. Moreover, since the jury selection is done so secretly and strict that it is not possible to judge any one in court in the favor of any side, it is the decision of the jurors who were selected from regular citizens to find any guilty or innocent. However, the major weakness of the jury system is that will the defendant get the fair trial if jurors are being prejudice. As I observe several years in the United States, racism do still exist in the United States unlike what I though before coming here. It is impossible to get a fair trial for African Americans who is being trial in a white neighbor and vice versa. This weakness of this U.S. criminal justice system has cause many problems that the jury system must be reformed. A rule should always be modified and updated along with the change of the time and society, and jury system is one of the rules that needs change.

    Another major weakness in the criminal justice system of the United States I observed is the slow speed of the process. Before coming to the United States, I never know it would take about ten years for a death sentence to carry out. If any person is given death sentence and fail to appeal, he should be executed right away without hesitation, instead of wasting tax payer's money on feeding and keeping them alive. Trials are also taking too much time too; for an example, the famous O.J. Simpson trial which took more than 1 year to get a conclusion. The longer a trial takes, the more tax money is wasted. Over 10 million dollars spent on the O.J. trial has been estimated While making sure any one won't be punished if he is innocent, the U.S. criminal justice system should be change in such a way that it will speed up the process.

    Another major problem with the U.S. criminal justice system is that the punishments are not strict enough to stop or decrease the crimes. I saw the other day in the news that a drunk driver who killed a kid was only sentenced to 1 year in prison with a fine of five thousand dollars. I was shocked at how a precious life is only worth five thousand dollars and how many drunk drivers are still out there. A rapist would get out of prison easily in just a few years; for example, Mike Tyson. I was also surprised when I saw that ninety percent of the rapists are those who committed the same crimes before. If all these rapists are sentenced to life in prison, there will be ninety percent less of women who will get rape out there. What is the use of law and a criminal justice system if people keep repeating the crimes after punishment. When I was back in the Singapore which is also called garden city, I was deeply impressed with the clean and the low rate of crimes of the nation. The country is so clean that you rarely find trash on the floor, and you rarely see murder on the news for the whole year. I later found out that the law of Singapore is so strict that nobody dares to break easily; for examples, dumping trash will cause a minimum fine of five hundred U.S. dollars and death is the only punishment for importing drugs like cocaine and killing anyone. These laws has work well that Singapore is one of the safest and cleanest countries in the world now.  Thus,  a reform in this area of the system is necessary and inevitable in order to improve American society which is unsafe and fill with crimes.

    No criminal justice system is perfect and designed to last forever.  As the crime rate in the cities in this nation is rising at a steady rate, it proves that the original criminal justice system is already out of the date and requires change. The government should first evaluate the jury system carefully ,and then reform it. Second, the justice branch should speed up all the process in order to meet the needs and on the other hand save tax payer's money. Last but not least, we should tighten the existing law in order to keep the serious criminals locked away from the society, and prevent people from committing crimes. Nevertheless, for  the U.S. criminal system which has been established for a while, a major modification and reform is needed eagerly in order to improve the society and protect the innocents.