Sunday, October 22, 2017
The Imbalance of Funds in the Justice System
After viewing the documentary on plea deals in the criminal justice system, I started to think about what it would take for the accused to be given the right to a truly fair trial. Around 95% of criminal charges end in some sort of plea deal, and not all of these people are actually guilty. With all of these guilty pleas, the jails are constantly overflowing with people. About $7.5 billion went into the funding of federal prisons and a lot of this money is unnecessary. If we put more money into the public defense of these poor individuals, we could get real justice, and not this lame excuse that we call the justice system now.
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While this may seem like a very logical conclusion, the cost to have a system where everyone whom knows they are innocent can have a case to try would be insane. The reason why 95% of the people claim guilt is because they know that with their current public defendant, they would never win the case, and would rather go with something less severe, such as probation. Putting someone behind bars for example 6 months would be MUCH less expensive than the cost of paying jurors, a judge, a prosecutor, a plaintiff's and defendant's attourney, and people who testify. While I agree that in a perfect world, everyone would get a chance to a fair trial, its is a dream that unfortunately, in my eyes will never come true.
ReplyDeleteYes this is true, wishful thinking on my part. It just seems like the idea of justice has been lost and this skewed idea has taken over.
DeleteI agree that the jails are definitely overflowing and that something should be done. That is a great point about how much unnecessary money goes into the prisons and where it could actually go. The only issue I can see with putting that money towards getting more people cases and times in court is that it would move the overflow of people from prison, into the courthouse. This would cause a large wait for people to get a hearing and an ever growing queue.
ReplyDeleteJails continue to overflow and lots of our money is going to fund them. It seems like there needs to be a better solution then sending everyone to prison. Yes, many people to need to be locked up for the crimes they commit, but others are being punished for things they didn't even do.
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