Is the Criminal Justice System Just?

 Prior to being charged and convicted of a crime, I had a lot of faith in our criminal justice system. I believed our system was just and fair, and I believed criminals deserved whatever they got. Now, I know that my beliefs were naive. 

I know, I know. It sounds almost cliche for me to believe the criminal justice system is not fair. After all, I was convicted by the system. But the reality is, I had very little exposure or experience with law enforcement and the courts until my own conviction. I had the luxury of believing justice was being served. To be fair, I do believe in many cases that justice IS still being served, that law enforcement are "serving and protecting," and that the courts and prison system are doing exactly what they were designed to do. I also still believe crime should be punished. 

But having been so close to the inner workings of law enforcement, the courts, and the prison system for 13+ years now, my eyes are also opened to the many injustices within the system. Law enforcement personnel sometimes plant evidence, lie, abuse defendants, and withhold important exculpatory evidence. 

Prosecutors sometimes build entire cases on lies, but more often they exploit someone's guilt with lies that worsen the offender's punishment. Sometimes they withhold exculpatory evidence or even insist on a conviction standing despite clear and convincing evidence of the person's innocence. 

The courts, too, routinely admit bad or faulty evidence, ignore clear court rules, violate clearly established Constitutional rights, and also uphold convictions of clearly innocent people. Those who are supposed to be a check and balance to law enforcement and prosecutors often collude with them, instead, in a sort of "good ol' boys club." 

Here's one such example: Let's say that someone breaks into an empty home, is caught on camera stealing stuff, and is arrested and charged with breaking and entering. What he was caught stealing was less than $500. Law enforcement, however, know of multiple other break-ins in the surrounding area and believe he is guilty of those as well, though they have no direct evidence (let's say he actually didn't commit them, for our argument). Prosecutors agree to charge him with these break-ins, and they raise the total value stolen to over $10,000. Now, the suspect (because he's only supposed to be a suspect until convicted) has a dozen charges against him, and he faces a sentence more than three times what the single B&E charge would have carried. Let's say he may have faced a 3 years sentence, but now faces a 10 year sentence.

Now, it's possible this suspect had committed those other crimes, but there is no evidence to prove this (remember, he didn't in this scenario). Other people also commit burglaries. Yet, the prosecution will use the threat of triple the time to force the suspect to plead guilty to the crime he was caught on camera committing, while they agree to drop the other charges. He will then be sentenced as if he had committed all of the crimes, let's say in this case to 5 years in prison. He may even be forced to pay restitution on the full $10,000+ value, even though those charges had been dropped, and the charges never proven. 

This simple example is one of the every day sort of things that happen in our criminal justice system. And many people think it's totally okay. Now, the offender is serving a prison sentence for a crime he did commit, plus extra time and paying extra restitution for crimes he did not commit. That is not justice, not the least of which because the person who really did commit the other crimes was never held accountable for them. 

I admit that it's impossible for our system to be perfect, but it ought not allow exploitation of offenders, simply because they are in a powerless position. The system ought to aim for justice, including reforming the person, not exacting revenge and abusing its power. Yet, from start to finish, from law enforcement to corrections officers, the entire system is rife with abuses of power. 

I believe our founding fathers would be aghast at the failure of our criminal justice system. They expected better, and I believe most citizens expect better. If most people are like I was, they probably believe the system is fair and just. Sadly, in many, many cases, that simply is not so. It's just too bad it took me being immersed in the system to believe it was so broken.