When it comes to having justice being served equally amongst individuals, they must be all treated as a similar case and with same results instead of treating each person differently based on how they may argue their case. Nathanson believes that Haag’s argument on treating individuals differently is a discriminatory effect in the justice system. Nathanson believes it is arbitrary to decide whom specifically deserves the capital punishment and whom deserves a lesser of a sentence which then makes a distinction between who deserves what…
On page 123, Prejean visits the new prison warden, Franklin C. Blackburn, to clear up rumors that have spread about her supposed “emotional relationship” with prisoner Patrick Sonnier prior to his execution. She then begins to discuss Christianity with the warden, and how her religious beliefs play into her ideals regarding the death penalty. Prejean employs eutrepismus and lists three things in which she is unwilling to accept regarding God and the death penalty. Her listing provides readers with her opinions in a clear and systematic way. First, appeals to pathos are incorporated through referencing God’s name, which sparks the attention of any reader who adheres to the Christian faith.…
This quote talks about that criminal justice targeting racial…
First, justice emerges in a different way for individuals of various ethnic groups. Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes Malcolm X in Between the World and Me when he says, “If you’re…
Ernest van den Haag, “The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense of Capital Punishment” (Analyzing Moral Issues, 234-238 in the 6th Ed.) Ernest van den Haag idea for government role was “securing rights and duties by specifying them through laws and enforcing the laws.” Haag argues that capital punishment is morally permissible on the arguments of retribution rather than deterrence it can be clearly reflected in his work. Ernest also addresses the idea of justice, and deterrence. Ernest van den Haag main point was, if the government should not only have the right to punish but to also enforce more extreme laws.…
"To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice." Desmond Tutu said this and I could not agree more. I think that capital punishment is morality wrong, and that Walter Berns’ “The Morality of Capital Punishment” article in Exploring Ethics fails on many grounds. Berns uses anger and a politically correct government to advocate the use of capital punishment. I am going to try and prove that Burns is wrong, and that by killing we are only fueling the fire and a continuous cycle.…
Certain factors should not impact the decision of who is going to be sentenced to jail or not. Bias in the courtroom should no be happening. Race is impacting a lot of the things that happen when it comes to trials. If african americans are receiving sentences that are higher than whites (Burch) , is there even such a thing as a fair trial? Everyone should know that things such as race, should never determine if someone should be sentenced to prison.…
Referring to an article from the Law & Society Review (2001) “using data from Maryland, we find that African Americans have 20% longer sentences than whites, on average, holding constant age, gender, and recommended sentence length from the guidelines… Furthermore, judges tended to give longer sentences (relative to those recommended by the guidelines) to people in the part of the guidelines grid with longer recommended sentences (who are disproportionately African American) than they gave to people in the part of the grid with lower recommended sentences” (Bushway, S.D., Piehl, A., 2001). African Americans are incarcerated at 5.6 times the rate in which whites are incarcerated in the United States, a country which has the highest percentage of citizens behind bars (Atwell, M., 2012). While African Americans tend to receive harsher punishments and longer sentences than their white counterparts, this disparity in punishment can fall under warranted and unwarranted reasoning. For example, factors such as criminal history, and crime severity would be regarded as warranted reasoning for harsher punishment, whereas factors such as race, gender, and other factors that have nothing to do with legal…
However, the system’s envisioned idea of racial neutrality has not been—and cannot, at this point in time be—achieved. There are four key aspects of the inequalities experienced between black and white people: 1) most race-neutral policies have disparate effects on black people, 2) practitioners of the criminal justice system are often unintentionally influenced by racial biases, 3) certain segments of the system are underfunded, and 4) some policies intensify socioeconomic inequalities (Ghandnoosh 3-4). As previously discussed in this essay, there already exist broader, societal disparities between white and black citizens, and these pre-existing discrepancies help contribute to the inequalities found within the justice system. For instance, black people are already significantly more likely than white people to be in poverty, so underfunded programs within the system won’t benefit black people as often as they’ll benefit white people. Additionally, policies that require heavy fines, parole, or other restrictive punishments will disproportionately affect black people.…
For instance, white individuals are less likely to obtain harsh treatment if they were to be arrested and found guilty of a crime in…
Van Den Haag argues in defense of the death penalty (Van Den Haag 325). His first defense is against claims that the penalty is not distributed equally (Van Den Haag 326). To answer this objection, he says that the maldistribution of justice does not make the punishment itself immoral. The death penalty itself is just while its distribution is not always fair. He then claims that even those who show statistics to prove racist faults in the distribution of capital punishment fail to present an argument that would warrant abolishing the penalty, since justice is…
These are acknowledgement of the cumulative nature of racial disparities, encouragement of communication across the key players in all steps of the system, knowing what works at one step of the system may not always work in another, and working together towards a systemic change. The issue of racial disparity builds at each stage of the criminal justice system from arrest through prosecution and sentencing rather than the actions of one particular level of the system. In order to tackle the unwarranted disparity there are strategies that are needed in order to tackle the problem at each individual level of the system and this will need to be done in a coordinated and strategic way. Without a systemic approach to the problem gains in one level may be offset by reversals of another level. Each decision point and area of the system requires their own unique strategies depending upon the degrees of disparity and the specific population in which is affected by the actions of that level.…
The key features of the argument on supporting the death penalty developed by Ernest Van Den Haag first focuses on matters of mal-distribution and determining if an individual really deserves it, second the miscarriages of justice, third if the death penalty is a better deterrence than other punishments, fourth the incidental issues that the death penalty promotes, and fifth justice, excess, and degradation. The first argument that Ernest Van Den Haag argues is on the matter of mal-distribution, and determining whether an individual really deserves capital punishment. He expresses his view that mal-distribution being compared between those individuals who are guilty or innocent is undeserved. The acts of capital punishment upon an individual who knowingly commits a crime and is considered guilty in that sense deserves the punishment. However, on the other hand he considers that when mal-distribution is then put upon an innocent life that did not commit the crime but is considered guilty is seen as than unjust.…
For example, President Obama states “1 in 17 white men and 1 in 3 black men will end up in prison. It results in an unfair system; every study has shown that our institutions are biased.” For minorities the justice system today is not innocent until proven guilty, it’s guilty until proven innocent. Many color children suffer biases in comparison to their white peers. For example, President Obama states “An African American youth is more likely to be suspended from school, than a white youth engaging in the same activity.”…
I have shown that due to the fact of skin color, one is more likely to be pulled over and serve a longer sentence than that of a non-Hispanic White man. I have shown there is inequality structured within the structure. I have broken it down into three separate races describing what they are most convicted for, how long they are sentenced, and how long they serve their sentence. Racial inequality does exist. This inequality stems from the time of slavery when diversity was not accepted.…