The United States And The Criminal Justice System Essay

The United States considers itself to be the best country in the world. This sense of nationalism is present because of the country’s history of opportunities and their emphasis on the power of their people. Safety is a crucial aspect that peopleconsider when choosing where to live. The United States provides their citizenswith national safety throughthe enforcement of their criminal justice system.As a result of their intentions of maintaining a secure living environment, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world by far. While the United States strives to bring safety to others, their system has many concerning issues such as over-sentencing, racial discrimination and recidivism that need to be solved. In order to begin to address the issues that are present in the criminal justice system, it is important to acknowledge how many people fall under the category of being imprisoned in the United States.In 2014, this number was around 2.2 million.Within the past 40 years, the number of people in the nation’s jails has increased by 500 percent.According to The Sentencing Project, the explanation of this significant rise in incarceration lies in sentencing laws like mandatory minimums and cutbacks in parole release, not necessarily a rise in crime rate.Mandatory minimums can be perceived as unjust because they generalize all crimes by creating an equal amount of punishment for different and unequal crimes. 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