Criminal Justice System: Slave Origins, Police & Courts - Essay Sample

Introduction

The criminal justice system refers to a body formed to ensure that justice is delivered to all persons equally by punishing and also convicting the lawbreakers who are found guilty according to the rule of law. The criminal justice system entails government bodies and agencies that include the Police, lawyers, the court also the prisons that are essential in correcting the lawbreakers for their wrongdoings.

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Criminal Justice System Traced Back to Slavery

Police

In the slavery periods in the American system, the slaves had to be controlled, and this led to the formation of Slave patrols and even night watches, which was essential in controlling the behaviors of the slaves that they did not escape their workplaces or even plantation farms. It made way to the formation of the modern-day Police, for example, the St. Louis police which was invented to protect the locals from the slaves or even the minorities groups, the Police adapted the formation of slave patrols (Shefveland 537). The slave patrols aided in punishing the slaves who by then were considered as property of the wealthy Americans, and it also maintained the economic order.

Judicial System

The Judicial system can be traced back in time. With the rise of slave numbers, New York, and also other colonies developed laws to control the slaves and also punish the slaves that escaped and also beat up their employees (McCord 55). For example, the Fugitive Slave laws which allowed the jailing and return of the prisoners who escaped their working stations or even plantations.

Slave executions on the African Americans started in the slavery period, where slaved faced death penalties for the crimes they committed (McCord 59). The modern-day judicial system implemented Capital Punishment to punish lawbreakers on accounts of murder, terrorism, drug trafficking, and also mass killings such as genocides.

Patrols

The use of patrol by the new Police is still evidenced today. The patrol system was essential in capturing the slaves. It was created because there was a rise of black American groups that caused violence and havoc because they resisted the oppression of the black people by the whites (Lynn 168). The new Police still use violence and patrol to capture innocent African Americans even though one has not committed any crime. Just like in the olden days, the Police are still racists in that they use force, harassments, and even murder of the African Americans in the present day.

Prison Systems

The prison systems were forced in the slavery period. The whites developed mass imprisonment in order to force the slaves into becoming wage laborers. The prisons were formed to force the black African men to work on agricultural farms of the whites, and this was termed as prison labor. The Slavery prison systems led to the invention of the modern-day prison systems (Lynn 179). The modern-day prison system is under the new rule of the federal government, and it works by punishing the lawbreakers depending on the type of criminal offense one has committed. The persons who have committed felony offenses to face lengthy jail time while those who have committed the misdemeanor offenses face a shorter jail time or even sent to the correctional facilities this is to enhance equity when facing judgment.

An investigation needs to be conducted before one is jailed, to rule out if the crimes committed is correct, or it is just an assumption (McCord 53). Thus, there is a dire need for evidence to link the wrongdoers to the crimes committed. Unlike the slavery period, African Americans were jailed with no wrongdoing.

Works Cited

Lynn, V. "Dialogues of the war on drugs: Towards restorative reentry initiatives." Contemporary Justice Review, vol. 21, no. 2, 2018, pp. 159-184, doi:10.1080/10282580.2018.1455510.

McCord, D. "Sociology, I would like you to meet capital punishment"." Criminal Justice Ethics, vol. 32, no. 1, 2013, pp. 51-66, doi:10.1080/0731129x.2013.777253.

Shefveland, K. M. "American slavery, American state: Rethinking slavery and the creation of British North America." Reviews in American History, vol. 47, no. 4, 2019, pp. 534-543, doi:10.1353/rah.2019.0074.