Article Analysis about Criminal Justice in America - Assignment Example

Therefore, inmates suffer in jail prior to pleading guilty making it the fastest way of getting them out, which creates a great problem your our justice system. Chapter 7 and 8 of Criminal Justice in America talk about courts and adjudication and pretrial procedures, respectively. Adjudication refers to the legal process through which a judge or arbiter analyzes argumentation and evidence including legal reasoning presented by opposing groups or litigants to come to a ruling that decides obligations and rights between the parties concerned (Cole et al. 123). Pretrial procedures, on the other hand, refer to the pattern or steps followed to solve civil cases.

Similar to the news article, these chapters argue that while a lot of citizens imagine that real action, in criminal courts, takes place during trials, they are wrong. 90% of criminal cases are done away with once the accused pleads guilty instead of taking them through the entire pretrial procedure (Cole et al. 124). Nearly 10 to 20% of all felony defendants do not get a pretrial release since the judge finds them too risky to be released or since they cannot make full bail. Conventionally, bail has comprised of cash or other assets that a defendant deposits to the court so as to be freed from remand.

The property or cash serves as an assurance that the accused will come to the trial. However, in my opinion, bail discriminates against poor people. This is because when a judge sets cash bail very high, it causes the pretrial detention of a lot of low‐risk defendants who do not have the money to either retain a bonds agent or just post bonds. Another problem if that bail brings up is that it is completely discretionary. Factors considered in bail setting comprise of the defendants earlier criminal record, the significance of the crime, as well as the strength of the government's case.