Justice: Systems, Institutions, and Your Place in It

What is Justice?

• Ideas from class:
  • Equal punishment for equal crimes
  • Proportionality of punishment
  • Due process
  • Legal Karma (concept)
  • Right and Wrong
  • Understanding reasoning
  • Victim getting justice

Justice System: Teacher's Definition

• Justice is not always fairness
• Competing goals: punishment, protection, and rehabilitation
  • Justice system: Protects against cruel and unusual punishment
• Is justice proportional?
  • Proportional to the crime and addressing the victim (some sort of closure)
  • EX: When you steal 100 and you have to pay 50 back, whereas murder; you kill someone we kill you back. Proportionality is not always granted
• What is the purpose of the justice system?: Keep the people safe, to hold people accountable with discipline
• Is plea bargaining justice?

The 3 Branches of Law

• Law enforcement; enforces the laws, apprehend suspects
• Courts; (most powerful part of our system)
  • interpret laws
  • ensure fair trials
  • protect the rights of the accused and the victims
  • interprets guilt or innocence
  • decides whether or not the case continues, what charges, or if the case is dismissed
• Corrections; carry out punishment, punish and rehabilitate

Cost and Issues

• 2017: 305\text{ billion} annually
• Americans spend 938\text{ per person}
• The cost of incarceration varies
  • VERY expensive.
  • More money is spent on prisons than funding for K-12
• Scarce economic resources, overcrowding

Levels of the System

• Local → municipal police, county jails EX. Noise ordinance
• State → state courts, highway patrol, prisons EX.
• Federal → FBI, federal courts, federal prisons EX. If you punch a postal worker. Since they work for the federal government
• System is not a straight line: Process

Process

• Process: crime → arrest → trial → sentence → corrections
• Most cases never go to trial; only about 5{-}10\% go to trial, most get plea bargained
• Discretion shapes every stage of this process

Road Map

• Road map: See visuals/diagrams