Criminal justice system needs to be revised! I am saying this as a complete novice in the professional side of criminal justice system but living in this society, I am not entirely a layperson.
I believe it is fashioned in a way where it is creating professional criminals rather than stopping crime. Read this report of how two 15 year old boys tried to mug an 85 year old woman and when she resisted, they attacked and killed her. They were sentenced to 6 years in prison for the murder. When they leave the prison, they would have become professional criminals. I believe jails are the universities where people go in to gain advanced degree in crime! Their intention was not to kill the woman, it was to steal from the woman. It is quite clear that they could not have had the same start and privileges like what some of other human beings take for granted. Like a roof over their heads, supporting familial environments, access to education, a support system- state and social. When we cannot provide every citizen with these basic rights, is it fair to judge and sentence them to punishments?
Let me illustrate this with another example of the double standards we have for the haves and havenots where the haves want to have more and more and havenots have not even entered the discourse. Read another report today that said children born in the summer months should be given extra points in GCSE exams and consideration in tests because they are almost a year younger than their class fellows and are hence have less confidence and are less likely to perform better than their older class fellows. And these are children who apparently have access to education, therefore, you would assume, a fairly decent family life if someone takes an effort to send them off everyday. What about those kids? Why can't they get some extra consideration for the kind of life that they are dealt? Why can't there be any room to make them more mainstream rather than pushing them further and further into the peripheries and ultimately put them in cells?
Let me illustrate this with another example of the double standards we have for the haves and havenots where the haves want to have more and more and havenots have not even entered the discourse. Read another report today that said children born in the summer months should be given extra points in GCSE exams and consideration in tests because they are almost a year younger than their class fellows and are hence have less confidence and are less likely to perform better than their older class fellows. And these are children who apparently have access to education, therefore, you would assume, a fairly decent family life if someone takes an effort to send them off everyday. What about those kids? Why can't they get some extra consideration for the kind of life that they are dealt? Why can't there be any room to make them more mainstream rather than pushing them further and further into the peripheries and ultimately put them in cells?
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