Media and Criminal Justice System - Essay Example

Criminal Justice System Criminal Justice System Media and Criminal Justice System Media plays a major role in the criminal justice system, sometimes it benefits the system and in several cases it has even affected the system in a negative manner. Media plays a role of being a sword that can hurt or benefit either the defendant or the victim or it can benefit both at the same time or impact negatively. Victim’s counselor should understand the weaknesses and the strengths of the media in order to help the victims understand the importance of using media in the criminal trial and they should even guide them while they interact with media about their case. Victims have been able to gain a lot of sympathy when they discuss their case in public through the means of media. The details provided by victims in a particular case helps other individuals realize about the emotional and physical issues that victims experience due to an incident or crime. Families of the victims can obtain ample amount of assistance from the public by interacting with media. Victims are even able to spread their point of view on larger scale by using media. Victims can gain support for their case from the public if they go public through media, media pressure can help increase the speed at which trial proceedings take place and in various cases media has aided the victim in obtaining the desired justice. In various cases, media has backfired and has emotionally disturbed the victims and their families. Media tries to obtain information from families and the victims even if they are not willing to share this information; this increases the pressure that the victim and his/her family members are already experiencing due to the crime and trial proceedings. Pains in Prison Prison life is not an easy life, prisons are basically made to correct human behavior, but the current conditions of US prisons is very bad and instead of correcting human behavior, prison life further ruins prisoner’s behavior. In US prisons individuals experience loss of freedom of life, they are restricted in jails that are even smaller than the bathroom size of an individuals house. Prisoners are dictated terms according to which they have to live, these terms are not only dictated by the law enforcing agencies or the law enforcing agents, these terms are even dictated by the inmate (Samaha, 1988, p.100). If prisoners fail to comply with the guidelines of the inmates who are more powerful, then prisoners have to face various consequences such as sexual harassment and assault. In equal distribution of resources is even a part and parcel of prison life, those prisoners who are not strong enough in muscle power or who do not have enough friends within the prison, they are restricted from getting access to resources that are of high quality and are restricted to use resources that are of meager quality. Security is huge risks within US prison, certain times those people are sentenced who have never committed a crime or who have committed a crime that is quite not serious in nature; these individuals are those who are not connected to the criminal world. These people are treated very badly by the inmates and several times they face beating and bullying at the hands of stronger inmates. War on Drugs War on Drugs is a movement that the United States have pursued since 1914 till today in order to decrease the amount of illegal drug within and outside the nation, they are pursuing this campaign with the aid of the US military forces and other nations who have joined hands with the US for this cause. The main purpose of the initiative is to counter manufacture, supply and usage of illegal drugs that are psychoactive in nature, to achieve this purpose the US has created various policies. During President Nixon’s tenure this fight against drugs was recognized as War against Drug Abuse and during His trip to Texas he used the term War on Drug to refer to this initiative under taken by the US. During the period of 2009the director of the organization of ONCPD (Office of National Drug Control policy) recognized that the term used for this initiative was hurting the initiative and the term will no longer be used. According to the definition proposed by ONCPD, addiction to drug is a disease which can be countered by decreasing the amount of drug trafficking inside US, but if this activity is not controlled, it will become hard to counter. According to a reported created by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the efforts made by the US and its allies to counter the issue of drugs had failed. Improving Prison Conditions The conditions of the prisons of the US can be altered through several means and alterations. Firstly the management of prisons needs to be corrected, the officers who are on duty in prisons has to ensure that those inmates who are more powerful do not treat less powerful inmates like dogs. They need to change their surveillance activities and continuously survey the activities taking place and need to intervene in any fights that take place within the prisons of US. This can be done by creating portions within the prisons of US, these portions can be divided into level of prisoners, and those prisoners who have committed a crime for the first time should be kept away from those who are repeat criminals. Another strategy that the criminal justice system can implement is creating different prisons for different prisoners. The powerful prisoners should be kept in different [prisons and the less powerful ones should be given a separate place. Due to this less fighting within inmates will appear as the powerful ones would fear each other and keep their heads down. While those who are not much powerful will peacefully continue with their lives. Lastly the system needs to manage its resources; the system is giving jail time and prison period to those individuals who are not a really huge threat to the society. If these people are allowed to live within the society, then there will be more resources available and fewer prisoners. References Samaha, J. (1988). Criminal justice. St. Paul: West Pub. Co. Read More