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Distrust In The American Legal System

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Distrust In The American Legal System
The American legal system has never experience the magnitude of attention it currently receives. With the prevalence of social media and increased news coverage, the American population has a greater awareness of the decisions made on the most controversial issues in the legal system. As public outcry continues regarding the decisions and failures of the system, there must be a response. The public opinion signifies that the citizens are desperate for a fair and trustworthy legal system. American citizens want the legal system to be a symbol of the justice America stands for as well as a means to help continue the vision that the founders of the United States desired.
The grim truth is that Americans are starting to distrust the legal system. …show more content…
In the same year the Harvard Institute of Politics surveyed more than 3,000 people and discovered that 79% of African American youth and 62% of Hispanic youth had little to no trust in their local police department, and two-thirds of young African Americans and 43% of young white Americans believed that the judicial system did not fairly judge people. Why is there a growing distrust in the American legal system? In the grand scheme, the United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate of which African Americans, though they make up 12% of the U.S, encompass 40% of the prison population. This indicates that not only does the American legal system not focus enough on rehabilitation, but it also disproportionally incarcerates African Americans. Such a lack of uniformity is problematic because a legal system designed to develop and maintain society by returning more productive individuals to society should do so in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. The passage of the …show more content…
The goal of the legal system is to facilitate social cohesion and to create peace by administering justice. The legal system is vital because it is the basis on which citizens judge how progressive their society is becoming. As the legal system improves, trust will grow, America’s character will be refined, and America will continue to be a symbol of justice and
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