Forty Years in the American Criminal Justice System, Reaction Paper Example

I found Tromanhauser’s article a refreshing critique of the justice system. His experience gives his writing and reflections credibility to the reader. As a man with over forty years of experience with the criminal justice system in America both as a former convict and an academic criminologist, he has grown and changed in his own ideas over the years. Even though I have seen many similar statistics in similar articles it is always astonishing to see how far removed the United States is from the rest of the world in terms of their criminal justice system. The fact that we dole out longer sentences for smaller crimes more often than so many other countries just seems shameful. He goes briefly through a history of the justice systems reforms and it surprises me how, after so many years of failed expensive prison expenditures and reforms, the public can still hold such faith in the system as a solution to crime. I found three of his points particularly interesting. These were his discussions on the nature of criminality, suggestions about re-entry and the current role of criminologists in America.

I was particularly struck by the section in which Tromanhauser described his classroom discussions because I could relate to them so well. When he posed the question, ‘What creates a criminal?,’ I found myself responding in much the same way as his students with the answers of poverty, broken homes, bad role models and drugs and alcohol (p.84). His answer to this was that while many of these things might be contributing factors the core reason criminals exist is because of laws against their behavior (p.85). I had genuinely never thought of criminal behavior in such a straightforward and simple way and it really stuck with me. Our society has been taught to despise criminals as societal pests but he points out how often in the past laws have criminalized normal social behavior- creating criminals and maybe it is the laws we should be re-evaluating rather than the people condemned for breaking them.

Near the end of the article he tells the tragic story of a young man in jail for a small robbery and with an alcohol problem. After some time in prison it seemed that he had overcome many of the obstacles that brought him to crime and made a good case for parole. He had a job lined-up and a place to stay with a devoted wife. When he was released, however, all of these fell through and he once again returned to alcohol and to prison (p.91-92). Tromanhauser identifies three critical factors for re-entry (the absence of which causes so many to re-offend). These are a place to stay, employment and a trusted confidante. He proposes a welfare-supported housing system to help former criminals get on their feet and direct help with finding employment (p.93). Though I sincerely doubt the American public with their negative view of ex-cons and welfare would ever endorse such a scheme, I think it is an inspired proposition by Tromanhauser.

Finally, I was disheartened to read his account of the little influence American criminologists hold in public-policy making. I always hope that politics will rely more on the knowledge amassed within the academic world but he seemed to think that not only were their opinions not sought out but that many criminologists did not see it as their place to intervene in the political world. Being harsh on criminals has always been popular with politicians and the media but the lack of intervention by criminologists creates a knowledge gap of which we ought to be ashamed. Tromanhauser claims that the majority of criminologists disagree with the current functioning of the justice system- wars on drugs, harsh sentencing, etc- but do not see it as their place to intervene, instead keeping close to their professional academic circles (p.83). Their work, instead of being shared in an accessible way with the public, is self-restricted to the ivory tower of academia. In his conclusion Tromanhauser blames an ‘indifferent’ and ‘uneducated’ public for the continuation of the system in its current state (p.94). Though he does not state it explicitly I am sure Terry himself is not a proponent of keeping criminology in the classroom, but I find it difficult to digest his blaming of the public without also putting his own colleagues at fault for not trying harder to rectify it. If the public is uneducated who better to educate them than the criminologists themselves?

Abstract

In this chapter Charles Terry offers his reflections on the American criminal justice system based on his personal experiences. He first writes of some of the major flaws in the system such as lack of reform of prisoners and rampant political patronage yet the painful lack of influence criminologists wield in the political arena to bring about changes in the area in which they are clearly the most knowledgeable. He reflects on his classroom experience in trying to pinpoint with his students the source of criminal behavior. His tone overall is one of intense criticism and even suggesting that the current system is dangerous for America as it stands. The primary problem he concludes is simply a lack of rationality stemming from the traditional promotion of harsh punishment in the United States to which the public still clings.

References

Tromanhauser, E. (2003). Comments and Reflections on Forty Years In the American Criminal Justice System. In J.I. Ross and S.C. Richards, Convict Criminology (81-94). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.