Bias of the Justice System

Greta Haskell

After watching “The Central Park Five”, “West of Memphis” and “A Thin Blue Line” I have come to a conclusion; the court system has a huge bias against young males especially African Americans. In all of the documentaries young men are convicted for crimes they didn't commit simply because the police are too lazy and ignorant to find out what really happened. The justice system only hears what they want to hear and if they have to manipulate and lie to get what they want, they will.

While watching these documentaries one thing in particular stuck out, the police seemed selfish. No matter what anyone else wanted, they just wanted to hear what they thought was right and get it over with. If someone brought up a different option suggesting that they were wrong or they had the wrong person, they would get angry and find a way to make their decision correct.

The justice system’s bias is what caused so many wrongs and injustices. If it's called the system of justice why is so much going wrong? Something else that I thought of reminded me of some of the things we did in class. Most of the people such as the police, the judges, and the jury were white upper middle class males. As we saw in class we usually have a bias towards people like ourselves. If the people they were trying to put in jail were different than them, they would find a way to have a bias against them just because they were different.

In the Central Park Five is when the bias stood out to me the most, most if not all of the people involved in the case were white except for the young men who were being charged with the murder. The police arrested them simply because they wanted to get someone and those boys were the easiest to arrest. It really shows that the police were too lazy to try and find who really did it just because they wanted to lock someone up.

While watching these documentaries I really got angry and I guess I discovered a new bias of my own. I feel that people should have their rights and police and other workers should do their absolute best job to see if the person is guilty or not. Imagine being locked in jail for five or even more years of your life that you can never get back for something that you had no part in. That has to be the worst thing I can imagine and I would wish it on nobody. I kind of thought of going into the justice system when I got older, but that would be a heavy load to bear so I decided against it.

Bias is a subconscious decision that can't be controlled but it can be so serious that it can change someones life forever. This really shows that peoples bias can sometimes be even more important than fact. There are a few exceptions but overall people stick with what they believe and subconsciously want to believe. People are not always fair but sometimes it's hard to change because we can't really do anything about it.