Week 6 Discussion -CRJU8350- Victoria Ogbuehi

Respond by Day 5: Identify other events during this period that your colleagues may have not considered. Explain the impact of these events. 5 sentences and question

There
is no doubt about the fact that the American criminal justice system
was heavily impacted differently after the civil war. I will discuss two
of those glaring issues that transformed the criminal justice system
vis-a-vis the courts and the prisons. These two factors are the
emancipation of black slaves, and population explosion. One of the
reasons that lead to the war was the plan of the southern states to
continue with “slave trade” a move that was resisted by the then
President of the United States – Abraham Lincoln. With war against
slavery been won in 1864, blacks who were originally considered slaves
with no rights to get involved in any formal form of litigation over
flooded the American courts even to the Supreme Court seeking legal
redress for all the atrocities meted out to them in that era.

Black
litigants not only brought civil cases against white southerners in the
highest level of southern courts throughout the period of 1865 to 1920,
they often won these cases. The nature of the legal system and the
varied actions of its participants played an important part in African
Americans’ access to southern courts, while also shaping and limiting
the kinds of cases litigated by African Americans (BlackPast.org, No
Date). In other words, the courts in America gained a new outlook of
being accessible to all regardless of race or color.

For the
Prison on the other hand, before the 18th century, the notion was that
prisons were places dedicated to the punishment of offenders never
existed. Offenders were only held in the prisons temporary until a
decision is reached on what type of punishment is commensurate with
their acts. According to Talal Al-Khatib (2015), Political prisoners and
debtors were the only ones who saw any kind of extended stay. Today,
the United States is renowned as the highest jailer in the world and
this has been excused with increasing population and low mortality
rates. This population growth put a major strain on the prison system,
lacking in both infrastructure and decency. Resource constraints led to
overcrowding, which in term led to ineffective and often cruel prison
policy, a cycle that would repeat itself throughout U.S. history
(Al-Khatib, 2015).

References

Al-Khatib,
T. (2015). Doing Time: A History of US Prisons. Retrieved from
https://www.seeker.com/doing-time-a-history-of-us-…

BlackPast.org.
(No Date). From Slave to Litigant: African Americans in Court in the
Post-Civil War South. Retrieved from
http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/slave-litiga…