discussion

Read the transript and then answer the question below using at least two sources. 

Transcript –  Dr. Charles Wellford video

Even though we have problems in our court system with regard to the way in which poor people can utilize the full strength of our court system, I think in our courts, in our prosecution, and in our defense systems we have achieved almost as much as we can in terms of the level of fairness and justice that we desire from our court system. Many states have instituted sentencing guidelines systems to try to address disparity in sentencing. All jurisdictions have paid attention to this issue of are we sentencing blacks or poor or Hispanics to longer sentences than whites and not poor. And so we’ve made progress there. I think we’ve made progress in improving our plea bargaining system. As students will know, 90 percent of our criminal cases are disposed with a plea bargain. And when you tell people that in other countries, they just are amazed that we don’t have more trials and they suspect that by not having more trials we’re probably getting people who plead guilty who aren’t really guilty. Our experience and our research says that’s not the case, that individuals plead guilty because (1) they understand that there’s evidence to prove their guilt. They may not understand that they’re guilty or admit that, but they know there’s enough evidence to prove their guilt and they’re looking to get some benefit in the sentence that’s given as a result of pleading guilty. The improvement has been 15 years ago all of our guilty pleas were simply negotiated between the prosecutor and the defense attorney. Today increasingly we’ve brought the victim when there are knowable victims into this process of plea bargaining. So it is the court, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the defendant, and the victim who are agreeing to the terms of the plea agreement and I think that’s a significant improvement to have victim participation in these activities. So I think the courts tend to get it right in terms of who’s guilty and what appropriate sentences are. There are problems there that we’re still working on. But our research as criminologists has greatly benefited the courts and helped them improve this. After the courts, I’d say the police are probably next in doing an effective job. They’re increasingly effective. I think they have a long way to go to improve their contribution to the deterrents of the system. But what police have learned is that by using the tools of criminological science, they can do better crime analysis and target their policing efforts on real crime problems and by solving those problems they can reduce crime. So I think the police, even though they have a long way to go, have a model that they’re following. I think the least effective part of our system continues to be the correctional system. I think the correctional system for too long saw as its primary objective to keep a safe, clean, secure institution and lost sight of or maybe simply gave into the popular wisdom that prisons could not do much in the way of rehabilitation. I hope that’s changing. I think it’s changing. But I believe in the correctional area we have far too many people in prison and we’re doing far little to assure that when they’re released they can return to society and will not be criminals than we should be. So my scorecard has corrections at the bottom, police in the middle, and the courts, prosecution, defense at the top in terms of achieving their assigned goals within our justice system.