CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.ORG

The Criminal Justice System...

...has only one legitimate function, to protect society from criminal behavior.
Vengeance and punishment are antithetical to that purpose.
Justice should be a shield not a sword.

The United States Criminal Justice System needs to be reexamined. The indications are clear that it is not working well. It fails to adequately protect society from crime. It fails to reduce crime or to deter criminals. It returns criminals to society more hardened in a life of crime and less able to cope with their anti-social impulses. It fails to treat all of the accused with equal justice. It is discriminatory and racist. Punishment is not evenhanded. The poor and indigent do not receive equal justice. The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. It is ineffective and it is unevenly applied. Unaccountable prosecutors abuse their powers. Prosecutors and judges are too often motivated by a personal political agenda rather than the protection of society. The jury system is fickle and unreliable. The evidence is overwhelming that the system is broken. We need to rethink the basic goals of what society wants to achieve and re-evaluate the concepts upon which the criminal justice system operates. We need greater public awareness and discussion of the issues involved.

Any discussion of crime and punishment issues must start with a review of some basic facts in order to ground the discussion in the real world. The popular perception of these issues is largely based upon movie and television fiction and news media coverage of some actual cases and is consequently grossly distorted. Those real crime stories which do receive publicity are necessarily atypical. The media selects stories, both fiction and fact, based upon their insular criteria of what is dramatic, unusual and bizarre. There is no balanced coverage to place those stories in proper perspective. The ordinary, typical crime stories receive no publicity at all.

The overwhelming pressure of the media coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial distorted the proceedings of that trial into a mockery of justice. The judge lost control of the court room, both the prosecution and the defense played to the television audience and the prosecution presented a tediously long and convoluted case. The prosecution's presentation of the forensic laboratory evidence was poorly done and all of the physical evidence was tainted by the perjured testimony of the racist lead detective. This is not the way to conduct a fair trial in an enlightened society.

Statistically, 50 percent of all violent crimes are not reported to the police. The Criminal Justice Statistics of the Department of Justice reports that 64% of all Larcenies go unreported. It is 54% of Aggravated Assaults, 48% of Rapes and 42% of Robberies. The overall proportion of all index crimes not reported is approximately 50%. Surprisingly, over 80 percent of all of those violent crimes which are reported remain unsolved. The FBI Uniform Crime Reports shows a 19% clearance rate of index crimes. Index crimes are murder, rape, robbery, burglary, theft, larceny, aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft. Of the 19 percent of reported crimes that are solved, 95 percent of those are resolved without a trial. The criminal confesses or negotiates a plea bargain and is sentenced by the prosecutor out of court (with the pro forma approval of the court). So those cases which do go to trial because the defendant pleads innocent actually represent less than one half of one-thousandths of one percent of all violent crimes. Most of those trials, over 95 percent, are dull, undramatic and do not warrant any publicity. The result of this is that the attitudes of the general public towards the punishment of criminals are based upon news reports of only two and one half ten-thousandths of one percent of all violent crimes. That is less than one in every four thousand cases.

Public attitudes towards the criminal justice system are not only uninformed but highly irrational and subjective. They are based upon emotional predispositions and unreliable, anecdotal stories. There is a great need for a public awareness of the true criminal justice system and how it actually operates in the real world. In order for productive public discussions of the issues the public must become informed about the realities of the typical cases among the other 3,999 cases.

In an effort to stimulate public discussion this site will offer information on the basic issues of crime and punishment and some specific examples of the type of cases which do not receive media attention. Each of those specific cases examined here highlight certain aspects of our system of criminal justice with which the general public is unfamiliar. And this site will discuss the fundamental motivation of vengeance behind the present system of criminal justice.

True Stories of Wrongful Conviction:  Latherial Boyd >