Criminal Justice Ethics for the Nation - Essay Example

Order: 260744 My Own Personal System of Criminal Justice Ethics for Our Nation and Its International Relations Introduction Purpose of the Essay: This essay seeks to identify areas of governance in which the US government has steadily strayed from the principles of ethics, liberty, equality, and equity underlying the criminal justice system, as enshrined in the Constitution. It can be said, for instance, that the day Congress granted the administration's request to allow torture to be used against prisoners of war, the foundation of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was laid, even though torture was not exactly unknown or avoided during the Vietnam War. That and other cognate issues covered by criminal justice are subjected to scrutiny in this essay. Questions: Has the US deviated from the ethical criminal justice system that framers of its Constitution envisioned If it has, what impact has the deviation had on society Does the world now believe that the US can do whatever it wants round the world and get away with it A Repudiated Vision I want to evolve for our nation and its international relations my own personal system of criminal justice ethics because of mounting evidence that in recent years the ethical wellsprings of the US criminal law have got increasingly frozen. Indeed, a criminal law system that is not ballasted with ethical principles is itself criminal; more so in a country the framers of whose Constitution were convinced--- and showed their conviction in the document--- that the lofty principles of freedom and egalitarianism informing liberal democratic thinking in the then nascent nation must last forever. This assertion, however, raises a host of questions. For instance, if American soldiers operating in other countries had been conscious of the ethics of duty, they would have realized that they could discharge their duties without prejudice to ethical norms which they clearly violated through merciless treatment even of those not pronounced guilty of all the crimes laid at their doors; and if they had been aware of the ethics of use, they would have exhibited restraint in the use of force where it was not called for. Outrages abound However, from the My Lai outrage at the height of the Vietnam war in the 1970s to the Guantanamo Bay horrors more recently, American law-enforcement authorities have behaved as though they are a law unto themselves and, therefore, not subject to the laws of the land; worse, the government has often tried to get round the judiciary to help the offenders get away with their crimes. Heroes and Villains Little wonder, therefore, that our true national heroes are the likes of Hugh Thompson who, at the height of the My Lai massacre, had saved the lives of children by holding guns to the heads of his compatriot soldiers committing cold-blooded murder, and later admitted as much. But this individual act of heroism was more than neutralized by the brutality with which an uprising by inmates of Attica Correctional Facility in western New York was put down, the racial bias exhibited at the Pelican Bay prison, and the killing of Dilawar, a taxi driver, in Afghanistan as shown in the documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side", and the FBI's complicity in the plot to have Joseph Salvati sentenced to imprisonment for 32 years on a false charge of murder to protect Mafia murderers in Boston who really were its own informants. Saving Grace The saving grace came as recently as on June 15, 2008, when the Supreme Court dismissed as specious the argument of the Bush administration that in wartime it should be deemed to have the right to exercise of what really were extra-judicial powers, circumventing the constitutionally established judiciary. Racial Prejudice Nowhere perhaps is the distortion of the criminal justice system to suit executive convenience as flagrant as in the treatment of Blacks within the country. "Racial profiling, excessive force, police brutality, and blatant disregard for civil liberties have magnified the flaws in this democratic society." (Reese et al; 2001). African Americans (Blacks) make up 12.8% of the population but 49% of those imprisoned. Young Black men are six times more likely to be imprisoned by adult courts as white youths for equally serious crime. Basic Contradictions "There are some fundamental contradictions in US principles of liberal democracy and its practice of discrimination and social injustice." (Reese et al; 2001). The Preamble of the Constitution says the purpose of the nation is to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for common defense, promote general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity". The Bill of Rights gave rights to the accused. 14th Amendment The cornerstone of the post-Civil War system of justice is the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. It states that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the law". James Madison said "justice is the end of government. It has ever been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained or until liberty be lost in the pursuit". Indeed, it was Madison's Federalist Paper Number 10 that presaged US struggles to preserve both liberty and order. "In the decade 1990-2000, through laws such as California Proposition 21, a criminal justice system unfair and unjust to minorities was constructed." (Reese et al; 2001) During the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested. While in prison he exposed the contradictions in the US system of justice in the famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail. Conclusion It may be harsh to say that at least some sections of the US population live not under the umbrella of the Constitution but under the parasol of judicial protection. But the fact remains that, with time, minorities, such as Blacks, seem to have become convinced that the judiciary is their only safeguard against government excesses. Even in such cases of racial discrimination as infuriate whites, the disadvantaged sections seem to believe that law-enforcing agencies "kill us for sport". The ethical criminal justice system of my conception would, therefore, most certainly have prevented American soldiers from torturing in Iraq and Afghanistan even civilians who, under US law, should have been deemed to be innocent until proven guilty. Indeed, this system would have created in American soldiers such a heightened sense of ethics as to have filled them with revulsion at the very thought of resorting to torture, and would thus have prevented Abu Ghraib from occurring. Above all, it would have brought home to them that torture dehumanizes those who perpetrate it as much as its victims, and violates human dignity. References: Freeman, D.A. Michael; "The Problem of Secularism in Human Rights Theory"; Human Rights Quarterly 26:2 (2004); 375-400. http://muse. Jhu.edu/login/uri=journals/human_rights-quarterly/vO26/26/ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/25/60minutes/ main 325595/sht Reese R. Renford, Dr., and Pomona Cal Poly; "Criminal Justice and Social Injustice: African American Men in US"; Journal of Ethics and Justice; September 2001 Robertson, J. E. "Why the Supreme Court Ruled Against White House Guantanamo Assertions"; www.casavaria. Com/cafesentido/2008/6/15/356/judicial analysis www.prisons.org/documents/CPF 20.pdf. Prison Focus; No.20. Summer 2004 www.talkinghistory.org/attica. http://us.yhs.search.yahoo.com/avg/search= Taxi-to-the-Dark-Side; www.whydemocracy.net/film/4 . Read More