Flaws of The British Criminal Justice System Essay examples -- Criminal

The Criminal Justice System, a system the British government set up to deal with the treatment of law-breakers, has three main goals to achieve social order, these are, (1) enforcing criminal law, (2) maintaining law and order in the society, and (3) helping victims. This may seem to be a well thought of system, but like any other organisation, there are flaws, and one of the major flaws is discrimination, and the bias that stems from discrimination. Discrimination on the basis of class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity operates at the level of attitude, on the street, in the home, at the workplace or at social venues. In regards to the Criminal Justice System, race and gender are always accounted for in court proceedings. As Smith in 1997 said, â€Å"the apparent ‘fairness’ of the criminal justice system does not mean that the outcomes will necessarily be unbiased†. Tonry in 1997 found that even though certain ethnic groups are far more often caught in the net of criminal justice than others, they have elevated rates of official offending which differ from one country to another. The major ethnic group in Britain and Wales being black people whose families originated from the Caribbean in the 1940’s. (cited in the Oxford Handbook). Black people find themselves subject to rules made for them by white people, it is also the same for other groups living in the same culture, e.g. it seems to be men th at make the rules for the women in society, even though this seems to be changing in the United States. Foreign-born people often have their rules made for them by the Protestant Anglo-Saxon minority. The middle-class seem to make all the rules which must be obeyed by the vast majority - in the schools, the courts, etc. Th... ... discrimination from the judges and magistrates who remembered the time of segregation and other similar matters, this would build up and provide a racial outlook therefore showing discrimination. Being a part of an ethnic group is seen as being a member and an important source of personal identity, it is seen to be an attack on the group as a whole when one member has been targeted. This is why there are many practical problems when trying to improve decision making procedures. The criminal justice system should take into account there are not enough minority groups in the workforce, especially the police, or the courts, so therefore try to improve the standards when dealing with offenders. Even though racism and discrimination is part and parcel of living in a society, a person’s identity as a human should be more important than the colour of the skin.