America's Criminal System of Injustice

From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System
A Special Project Report from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Juvenile Justice Research Class—Spring 2008 The University of Texas

The U S is one of the only countries in the world that sentences children under 18 to die in prison; in other words, life without parole (LWOP). Judges are required to impose LWOP for certain crimes, regardless of age, in some states. Children as young as seven can receive a mandatory sentence of LWOP in Florida and Pennsylvania.

As of November 2009, 194 countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including every member of the United Nations except Somalia and the United States. Somalia's cabinet ministers have announced plans to ratify the treaty.

The US is one of the only countries in the world that still uses solitary confinement; a method of punishment long ago determined to be cruel and unusual punishment by most of the world as long ago as 1913. Today, we have 80,000 people in solitary confinement, thousands of them children.

The United States is one of the only developed countries in the world that still uses the death penalty, which combines solitary confinement with execution for sometimes as long as 30-years. Death row inmates wait, isolated, in cells of just a few square feet, on an average of 13-years. The sentence is, in fact, two punishments in one, as "life" becomes nothing but a long, torturous, and lonely countdown to execution.

"The delay itself subjects death row inmates to decades of especially severe dehumanizing conditions of confinement," -- Justice John-Paul Stevens regarding his view of lengthy pre-execution waits in December of 2009.

These practices set the United States apart from nearly all nations in both the developed and the developing world.

Meanwhile, Jamie Dimon - who spent over $6.2 million on lobbying last year in order to ensure the banksters can continue to commit legalized crime - in his annual letter to shareholders this month, wrote,

"...that punitive efforts [against banks and bankers] only hurts ordinary shareholders, and that the vilification of industries denigrates much of what made this country successful. [...]When we reduce the debate over responsibility and regulation to simplistic and inaccurate notions, such as Main Street vs. Wall Street, big business vs. small business or big banks vs. small banks, we are indiscriminately blaming the good and the bad ? This is simply another form of ignorance and prejudice."

There's something fundamentally wrong with a justice system that allows those who are already empowered, to not only avoid punishment for egregious "crimes" against humanity, but in addition, to profit and gain even more advantage.

"This person understands how to control risk within a massive organization, manage political relationships across the political spectrum, and generate the right kind of public relations. When all is said and done, this banker runs a big bank and – here’s the danger – makes it even bigger. Jamie Dimon is by far the most dangerous American banker of this or any other recent generation." -- Simon Johnson