Wealthy and Criminal Justice in the United States

Source: www.salon.com

On my previous blog titled Poverty and Criminal Justice in the United States, I have discussed how the poor are the once who suffer the most in the criminal justice system because they cannot afford to pay high court fees and other charges such as getting an expensive lawyer to defend them in a fair trial. It is no secret that our criminal justice is in favor of the wealthy people who can pay their way out of jail or harsh sentencing.

Source: news.nationalpost.com

There is a double standard is our justice system. You are likely to get a light sentence if you are rich in our society. Lets look at the case of Ethan Couch (affluenza teen) who was sentenced to 10 years’ probation after killing four people and paralyzing one person while driving drunk in June. If Ethan Couch had been part of the poor class his punishment would have been jail time. It is no secret that the rich can get away with anything, and the poor who cannot get themselves out of jail have unfair trials.

Lets look at another similar case of millionaire Tech CEO Gurbaksh Chahal, 31, year old who beat his girlfriend 117 times within a period of 30 minutes. Gurbaksh Chahal was charged with 45 felony counts, but later were reduced to misdemeanors and sentenced to just 25 hours of community service. Gurbaksh was able to manipulate the system because of his economical status.  

According to PRA, the poor are given a bad representation when they cannot afford to pay an expensive lawyer. Some defendants who cannot afford to hire an attorney themselves are never assigned a public defender. Many death row prisoners have been represented by incompetent and incompatible lawyers. But different would be the case for someone who would be wealthy and able to pay for a good lawyer to represent them in a fair trial.  

Like I said before “a solution to the problem is to have a legislative reform or to ratify the sixth amendment and have set prices on lawyers to represent every single person equally and fairly. This would eliminate the rich having fair trials because of their money. This way everyone would be treated equally and we would be given a fair trial.” 

Stage Six: Comment on a colleague’s work #1

Source: flintstonechildcare.com

An article published on March 28, 2014, from the blog The Eagle’s Nest named Child Care is a very interesting and important topic to discuss.  The author, Angela DeRiggi writes about how child care in the United States has become extremely expensive and it has put a burden on the below poverty families and including the middle class families. 

DeRiggi is a nanny who takes care of three children for a middle class family and analyses there financial crisis. I agree with her point of view, this middle class family needs to hire her because it is cheaper to have her services than to send the kids to child care and pay those expensive fees. 

DeRiggi also mentions how some families decide to not work and stay at home and take care of their children because it is cheaper. I have friends who have children, who work nights so that during the day they can take care of their children instead of sending them to child care. I know many who need the help of their elder parents to take care of their children because it is cheaper. 

I agree with DeRiggi, the government should provide free child care for the most needed or either child care needs to be cheaper for the low income and the middle class families. In order for our economy to be successful, we need working citizens in our communities who can peacefully leave their children in the hands of “affordable quality child care.”