Distribution of Justice in America - Essay Example

Distribution of Justice in America Justice is distributed or maldistributed in American society well beyond merely that which occurs in the formal legal system, whether in a criminal or civil process. In America, resources, power, wealth and the entire life prospects are very unevenly distributed. Law is, therefore, considered as one of the mechanisms for distributing justice evenly, but, no. It is the one that causes maldistribution of justice. For example, the law keeps all other classes of people disadvantaged by referring to one social class as the ruling class. This paper, therefore, aims to describe the other structures and institutions in the American systems that help in the distribution of justice. The first structure is the America’s Bill of Rights. Bill of Rights in America has been widely used to maldistribute justice. For example, in America, corporations sought to protect themselves more often than the people whom the Bill of Rights was intentionally provided to protect under the Fourteenth Amendment. According to this Amendment created in 1886, corporations were referred to as artificial persons in law. This meant that they were recognized by law as legal entities and enjoyed the same rights outlined in the Bill of Rights as some other persons. This led to the loss of legal structures that allowed people to have control over corporate behaviors (Hartman, 2004). The maldistribution of justice is revealed in unequal accountability, privacy, influence, taxes and access to natural resources and the American’s commons. The inequalities and many other things are the consequences of corporations winning the rights that are given and reserved only to human beings. The legal protection, therefore, given to corporations is a way of avoiding responsibility that comes with the rights. The consequence of the distribution and maldistribution of justice under the Bill of Rights to the corporation is the rise of the global corporate empires with vast powers (Collins and Yeskel, 2005). This causes a threat to the democracy of America and the entire well-being of every citizen of America. American corporations and globalization are echoed as the best hope for democracy and prosperity in America. Though, this is hindered by the huge size of global firms and markets, lack of accountability and single-minded profit making and seeking. This, therefore, fails to distribute justice fairly because of, domination of corporations with a deteriorating economy and financially deep instability. This, therefore, creates a dangerous planetary environment. Distribution and maldistribution of justice in America also occurs through the racial justice, affirmative action (Lawrence, 1998). In the long awaited Fisher decision, the Supreme Court allowed the use of race preferences in college admissions as part of the program of affirmative action. In the early years, United States understood and practiced educational affirmative action in a more rectifactory way and justice oriented. Those who benefited from this were only members of the benefiting group. Due to this, the 1978 Bakke decision, this was ruled unconstitutional. Though, achieving racial diversity is supposed to be the first compelling interest of the State, this is constrained through the decision held. This, therefore, means that justice is maldistributed since in some colleges in America, only a certain race can be admitted and successfully complete their education. In the same colleges, maldistribution of justice does not only happen in admission, but also in hiring context. Another institution in the United States that does not help in the distribution of justice is the Judiciary. The judiciary should use the essential constitutional principles to restore lost civil rights and set things right in order to distribute justice fairly and equally (Copelon, 1990). This is no longer the case with the modern United States’ judiciary. An example is the case of gays and lesbians. For a long time, these two groups have been invisible because of the decision of the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986). This case sets a precedent for a long time as it stated that, the act of homosexuality or sodomy was not recognized and protected as one of the fundamental right as a result of the millennia of moral. However, this decision was a watershed by the Romer decision that upheld the rights of gays and lesbians. The holding of this case ensured that justice is also distributed to gays and lesbians. Though can be noted that it is maldistributed because these categories of people should not enjoy so much freedom in decaying the morals of the society. Democracy in a nation should work towards achieving distribution of justice. If a country lacks democracy, then, there will be maldistribution of justice as a consequence. Some of the signs that America lacks democracy are; the shredding of civil liberties, imperialism, the decline of the social state and the Bush doctrine that prevents war in the world for selfish gains, for example, gaining new resources, market and exploitable cheap labor (Parenti, 2007). Politics is the heartbeat of politics in the United States. Therefore, political institutions should be at the forefront of distribution of justice. Class, power and wealth dominate America and the real democracy notion is just but an illusion. The beauty of America exists and is known only to the privileged few. Public awareness and collective actions should help to defuse maldistribution of justice through politics in self-defense, make the country work for everyone’s benefit but not a small section of individuals. In the interplay of politics, the government always serves only a few privileged at the expense of the exploited or the neglected many. America’s politics brings out the society as a divided thing. It is divided into the workers and owners and the workers are paid much less than the impact they bring in the society. Corporations as part of the political drivers, accumulate much capital and wealth through exploiting labor, yet, the working people are the society’s real producers. Politicization of victims is also another way of maldistribution of justice through the politicization of victims’ movements. This, therefore, causes the rise in crime and violence in the United States (Elias, 1993). Victims are manipulated in America for official objectives. As a result, they are subjected to extensive changes in the Legislations addressing their services, rights, needs and welfare. However, these changes do not help the victims of crime but help curb offenders and the public rights in the favor of increasing police power. To help distribute justice evenly, the victims should not be subjected to politics in whichever way so that the offenders can get the right punishment for whatever crime they did. Justice would have been done this way to suit both parties. Maldistribution of justice also occurs through ignoring the structural or organizational violence and majoring on interpersonal violence (Chasin, 2004). This is a consequence of the elite’s decision. The victims of these decisions are the poor. As the media is busy keeping people familiar of interpersonal violence, it practically ignores organizational or structural violence that occurs daily and goes unnoticed. Structural violence occurs because of occupational illness due to working routines of the American society. There exists a strong connection between violence and economy, gender equalities and ethnic. Violence takes place when the elite seek profit and militarism; therefore, justice is only to them but not to their employees. The criminal justice system in the United States is biased against the poor and only favors only the ‘haves’. This is another structure that causes the maldistribution of justice and totally causes imbalance in the United States (Reiman, 2009). The criminal justice system of the States does not give equal opportunities to both the poor and the rich, from the time the crime is committed through the entire process of arrest, trial and finally, sentencing. There is a general refusal to rectify the crime causes such as, lack of education, discrimination and poverty. Simply because, they relate to the poor only, but not the rich who call the shots in the America’s politics, these things are not put into consideration by the government. Even when it is vivid that the actions of the rich are the main cause of crime among the poor, the government keeps quiet about it and ensures that justice is delayed and as well as denied until their tenure is over. These actions include; poor workplaces, pollution, promotion of unnecessary surgery, poor prescription of drugs, and many others. Though, these actions should be treated as a crime, in many cases, they are not treated so, and if by any chance they are, they get fair treatment in the courts, hence, maldistribution justice. Right from the rise of Karl Marx, it proves difficult to balance justice and ensure that both the poor and the rich gain equally from the government. Theoretically, justice can easily be obtained and practiced, but, practically, it has become a big challenge since the classes of ‘haves’ and ‘haves not’ must exist in any society, we cannot all be equal. Though, law, in various ways observed above, makes the gap even wider, whereas we should aim at bridging the gap so that it can be narrow and narrower through effective and the right legislative systems. This is simply because, the ‘haves not’ are the main drivers of the economy and stabilizers of the society. References Chasin. Inequality of Violence in the United States; Casualty of Capitalism. New York. Prometheus. 2004. Collins and Yeskel. Inequality and Poverty; The beginning of the End of the American Dream. New York. New Press.2005. Copelon. A Crime Not Fit To be Named: Sex, Lies and the Constitution. New York. Oxford Publishers. 1990. Elias. Victim Still: The Political Manipulation of Crime Victim. New York. SAGE. 1993. Hartman. The Rise of Corporate Dominance and The Theft of Human Rights. New York. Rodale. 2004. Lawrence. Race and Affirmative Action; A critical Race Perspective in the Politics of Law. New York. Oxford. 1998 Parenti. Democracy for The Few; The Supremely Political Court. Boston. St. Martin’s Press. 1995. Reiman. The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison; Ideology, Class and Criminal Justice. New York. Pearson. 2009. Read More