Essay about Bryan Stevenson

📌Category: Law
📌Words: 711
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 14 January 2022

“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” (Bryan Stevenson). Stevenson advocates that as humans, we are so much more complex than our actions, and urges that our identity is the most important thing of all. Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer and a social justice activist that advocates against the prejudices of minorities in the criminal justice system. He successfully helped the United States Supreme Court ban sentencing children that are under the age of eighteen to death or life imprisonment without parole. Today, the United States criminal justice system has the highest mass incarceration rate in the world, which Stevenson speaks upon. In his TED Talk, Bryan Stevenson argues that there is injustice in the criminal justice system through the discrimination of race, class, and identity. 

First, Stevenson asserts that there is racial discrimination in the criminal justice system that debilitates the minority and marginalized people. For example, Stevenson explains how “in 1972, there were 300,000 people in jails and prisons. Today, there are 2.3 million” and “one out of three black men between the ages of 18 and 30 is in jail, prison, on probation or parole” (Stevenson 3). This illustrates how the United States has become the leader of mass incarceration, increasing their numbers throughout the years targeting those of color. With a third of young black men being put through the booming criminal justice system, Stevenson points out how disadvantaged these men are just because of their skin color. This demonstrates how blatant the discrimination against black people has become by picking out those that fit their racial description of a criminal. There has been dangerous consequences to this inequality such as in the state of Alabama where you are “permanently disenfranchised if you have a crinimal conviction,” “34 percent of the black male population has permanently lost the right to vote” (Stevenson 3). This advances the claim that black people are purposefully discriminated against. By being motivated by the potential of taking away their political power, the corrupt criminal justice system preys upon the minority that would allow more power in the hands of the majority. Another example is that “you’re 11 times more likely to get the death penality if the victim is white than if the victim is black,” and  “22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white” (Stevenson 4). Stevenson makes clear that this prejudice towards race hinders people of color, especially blacks, because it unfairly disadvantages them due to the racial stereotypes deemed by society. This demonstrates how the color of your skin is seen as a valid judge of guilt in the criminal justice system, revealing how corrupt it truly is. 

Second, Stevenson explains that the poor and those living in poverty are disfavored by the criminal justice system due to prejudice and discrimination. For instance, Stevenson agrues that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth,” instead, “in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice” (Stevenson 5). He explains his personal experience of being a lawyer where “a client who was 14 years old, a young, poor black kid” was “certified as an adult” by the judge (Stevenson 6). He compares how this kid was tried to how a “privileged, white 75-year-old corporate executive” would have been. This juxtaposition of two very different ends of the spectrum illustrates how the kid is unfairly treated due to his background and class status. By allowing this classism to exist in the criminal justice system, it displays how supressed lower income communities have become. This targets those who are not as well off and can not buy their innocence, and immediately disadvantages them in getting the proper fairness that they are supposed to be entitled to. Another example is that “in poor communities there is despair, there is this hopelessness, that is being shaped by these outcomes [of mass incarceration]” and that “in urban communities, 50 to 60 percent of all young men of color are in jail or prison or on probation or parole” (Stevenson 3). Stevenson reveals how those in urban, lower income communities, a majority of the men of color have been put through the justice system. This disproportionate statistic demonstrates how our current system’s “justice” favors those of higher class and well off communities and extremitizes the crimes of those who are not. The prejudice that associates poverty to criminals largely plays a part in determining if one is guilty or innocent, since our countries “system of justice treats you much better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent” (Stevenson 3).

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