America’s Criminal Injustice System
In Georgia, 17-year-old Genarlow Wilson had oral sex with a 15-year-old, then lost 10 years of his life.
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Wilson was an honor-roll student, track star, football player, and homecoming king. He had no previous criminal history.
But after participating in consensual oral sex with another minor only two years younger than him, Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation. |
Then, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison without parole.
He also got stuck with a lifetime registration as a sexual offender.
Wilson has already served almost two years in Lee State Prison in Leesburg, Georgia. The judge recently denied an appeal.
One Thousand New Inmates Per Week
Wilson’s case is one reason that the U.S. adds 1000 people to its prisons and jails each week. With over 2 million prisoners behind bars, the U.S. prison population is the largest in the world. Add to that the number of people on probation or parole, and the number climbs to 7 million.
That’s one out of every 32 U.S. adults.
According to Paul Craig Roberts, one of the problems is that America’s Injustice System Is Criminal:
The criminal justice (sic) system today consists of a process whereby a defendant is coerced into admitting to a crime in order to escape more severe punishment for maintaining his innocence. Many of the crimes for which people are imprisoned never occurred. They are made up crimes created by the process of negotiation to close a case.
This takes most of the work out of the system and, thereby, suits police, prosecutors, and judges to a tee. Police do not have to be careful about evidence, because they know that no more than one case out of twenty will ever be tested in the courtroom.
Prosecutors do not have to make decisions about which cases to prosecute or risk losing cases. By coercing pleas, prosecutors can prosecute every case and boast of extremely high conviction rates.
Read More: prison, crime, jail, law, court, politics, justice
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March 7th, 2007 at 12:38 am
[…] Now that the U.S. has over 2 million prisoners behind bars — the largest prison population in the world — the prison industry is big corporate business. Shares of CCA stock are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (CXW), and with 1000 people added to U.S. prisons and jails each week, the future of CCA is looking bright. […]