Issues in the American Criminal Justice System: Bias, Mass Incarceration, and Overworked
Public Defense Systems
Grace Goblirsch
English 8-2
May 3, 2024
Goblirsch 1
In 2010, Kalief Browder, a sixteen-year-old from New York, was arrested for allegedly
stealing a backpack. He was sent to one of the worst jails in New York, and when his family
couldn’t pay the bail, he stayed there. Kalief stayed in this awful prison for almost three years
before receiving a trial, and was eventually released because the prosecution did not have
sufficient evidence to try him. After his release, he committed suicide because of the terror he
was forced to live through in prison (Svoboda). This is just one of many horror stories from the
American criminal justice system. The issues in this system are caused in part by the extreme
overworking of public defenders and bias, both conscious and unconscious, in the court system.
These two things lead to unfair trials and mass incarceration, which harms both our country and
the individuals who make the United States their home.
One of the largest problems in the United States criminal justice system is mass
incarceration. Too often, people in the United States are arrested for even the slightest
infraction, and these misdemeanors make up about 59% of charged convictions (50-State
Summary). Because of these charges, no matter how small, 4.5 million Americans can’t vote,
qualify for loans, earn food stamps, or other public benefits because of their criminal records
(Criminal Justice Reform)(Lee, Levintova, Brownell). Jail time also leads to more problems,
such as mental health issues and poverty, which are also reasons people get arrested. If a
person gets arrested for mental health issues once, they will most likely be released with even
worse mental health issues, and get arrested again. It is a vicious cycle that can claim people’s
lives once they get stuck in it, and it needs to be fixed (Open Wide Our Hearts).
Another large problem in the American justice system is wealth inequalities. Wealth
inequalities mainly affect court trials and life after jail. Every United States citizen has the right to
a lawyer, even if they can’t afford one, but the public defense system is not prepared to handle
the mass numbers of people who need a defender each year. Wealth affects court trials
Goblirsch 2
because public defenders are miserably overworked and can’t spend enough time on their
clients. This leads to them getting sentenced more often, or just pleading guilty to a lesser
sentence (Lee, Levintova, Brownell). While people serve their sentence, they are not working,
which leads to even worse poverty once they are let out of jail. Additionally, it is much harder to
get a job with a criminal record, which leads to more hardship and despair after incarceration
(Quandt, Jones). Jail time also often leads to poor mental health, which increases the already
difficult process to find a job, and once again, increases poverty. It is not fair to any of the
people who stand before the justice system inadequately equipped to defend themselves just
because of the amount of money they have, and precautions need to be taken so that this
doesn’t happen anymore.
One of the main reasons wealth impacts court trials so heavily is the public defense
system. Public defenders are given impossible caseloads and very little time to work on them,
leaving them unprepared to defend their clients. In New Orleans, the average public defender
only has seven minutes to spend on each case, which is barely enough time to introduce
yourself, much less find out the client's story and how to properly defend them. This can lead to
what is referred to as “meet ‘em and plead ‘em”, formally called the plea bargain, which is a
process where the attorney meets a client for the very first time on their court date, then
encourages them to plead guilty to a lesser sentence. The public defenders use this strategy
because they don’t have enough time to properly defend their client, so they encourage them to
plead guilty and get a lesser sentence. Because of this, 90-95% of clients plead guilty and are
left with a criminal record (Lee, Levintova, Brownell). This criminal record, as mentioned before,
follows a person for their entire life. If a client were to choose to plead not guilty, the public
defender is often unprepared to properly defend them, and they risk ending up with a longer
sentence. To clarify, public defenders are not the problem. They are given a year and a half’s
worth of work in only a year’s time, and often give up most of their personal lives in order to help
Goblirsch 3
their clients. They also do not get paid very much for the work they do, and yet they still choose
to help improve the lives of others (Lee, Levintova, Brownell). Underfunding adds even more
problems to this system. On average, public defenders are paid only a fraction of the amount
that a private defense attorney earns each year, and only 2.3 billion of the 200 billion dollars
spent on the criminal justice system in the United States is spent on the public defense system
(The State of Public Defense). As 80% of people need a public defender, more money should
be put into the system that is both a constitutional right and is used to help so many people
(Andersson). Public defenders try to help as many people as they can, but the system is failing
them and the people who they represent.
Racial inequalities also affect how a person is treated in the justice system. For instance,
people of color make up 56% of prisoners, but only 28% of the United States population, and
they get arrested five times more than people who are white; however, statistics say that white
people commit just as many crimes and do just as many drugs as people of other racial groups
(Open Wide)(Svoboda). Studies also show that black people are pulled over more in traffic
stops, and are also treated worse once pulled over. The studies show that both black and white
police officers are performing this bias, making the way these officers were taught to do their job
mostly likely the problem (Starr). Black people are also more prone to biased trials because the
majority of judges are white. This makes it harder for judges to relate to the defendant because
they do not look similar, and can lead to biased trials, leading to, once again, more
incarceration. This discrepancy of races adds to the dehumanization of people in the courtroom.
Many judges and juries look at criminals and only see their crimes, which is the main form of
dehumanization. When a judge or jury does not see a person as a person, due to stereotypes or
how they are presented, they don’t feel empathetic and generally provide a
harsher sentence (Almanza). These racial disparities need to be resolved before the American
criminal justice system can be fair to everyone.
Goblirsch 4
One of the main places bias occurs is the jury. Even though there is a process called
voir dire to try and remove biased jurors, the average person holds multiple forms of bias
throughout their days. There are at least twelve common forms of bias that play into a juror’s
decision. One type of bias, called confirmation bias, occurs when a juror wants to confirm a
belief that they already uphold (Impact of Juror Bias). This is a common form of discrimination
that is increased when defendants show up to court in chains or bright orange jumpsuits,
confirming that they are a bad person to the jury. This leads to fundamental attribution errors,
which is the tendency to believe stereotypes without knowing the whole story. Another form of
bias that is based on stereotypes is the halo effect. Something or someone having a halo effect
means that they have a good reputation, so no one can see them doing anything wrong,
therefore making them not guilty even when they might have been guilty (Impact of Juror Bias).
For example, if one were to be a huge fan of an athlete, they would be reluctant to say anything
bad about them or condemn them in any way. This creates a halo effect. Availability and
anchoring bias occur when jurors put stress on pieces of information that are either presented
first, or that they can easily remember (Impact of Juror Bias). This can put stress upon
insignificant bits of evidence and lead a juror to make a biased verdict. A biased verdict can also
be based on something as simple as someone’s mood through optimism and pessimism bias. If
a person is in a good mood, they are more likely to declare someone not guilty, while if they are
having a bad day, they might feel less empathetic and possibly say that someone is guilty, even
when the evidence provided may not lead to that conclusion (Impact of Juror Bias). Herd
mentality tends to come into play when someone does not want to be seen as the “odd one out”
and conclude with a different verdict than their other jurors. This creates a small amount of
variation in the jury, even when the twelve jurors have different opinions on the case. A final
form of common bias is
upkeeping the status quo. Sometimes, a juror or jury does not want to provide a verdict that may
change things in the impacted field (Impact of Juror Bias). For example, if someone was a juror
Goblirsch 5
on a case that has an extreme amount of publicity or could change some things in the world,
they might want to keep things how they are and go with the path of least resistance. These
biases apply to almost everyone, just in different ways. The idea of a jury is that everyone has
different opinions, so with twelve people, the jury should be balanced. While this works in
theory, in order to have an unbiased jury you must have two opposite biases that cancel each
other out. For example, if one person were to believe that white people deserved less jail time
than all other racial groups, there would have to be another person who believed that white
people deserve more jail time than all other racial groups to create a fair jury (Curley, Munro,
Dror). This very rarely happens because our society tends to hold similar types of the previous
forms of unconscious bias, as well as similar biases they consciously hold. Even though there is
a system to try and weed out biases in the jury, it does not work well enough to create an
unbiased trial.
In conclusion, the American criminal justice system is riddled with issues that defy the
constitutional rights to a fair and speedy trial, an impartial jury, and legal aid for everyone, as
well as the American ideal of innocent until proven guilty. These broken rights lead to mass
incarceration because of the large number of people sentenced due to bias in the system.
Measures should be taken to make sure that people never fall victim to the gaps in the system
again, and that everyone is perceived as equal in the justice system’s eyes.
Goblirsch 6
Works Cited
“50-State Summary and Non-Conviction Gap Statistics.” Paperprisons.org, 2024,
paperprisons.org/statistics.html.
Almanza, Emily. “Courtrooms Are Dehumanizing and Toxic but Judges Can Change
Their Space. | Partners for Justice.” Www.partnersforjustice.org, 2024,
www.partnersforjustice.org/blog-stories/courtrooms-are-dehumanizing-and-
toxic#:~:text=Dehumanizing%20and%20Toxic.-. Accessed 2 May 2024.
Andersson, Emma. “If You Care about Freedom, You Should Be Asking Why We Don’t
Fund Our Public Defender Systems | ACLU.” American Civil Liberties Union, 8 Mar.
2022, www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/if-you-care-about-freedom-you-should-be-
asking-why-we-dont-fund-our-public-defender-systems#:~:text=Take%20actionShop-.
Accessed 2 May 2024.
“Criminal Justice Reform .” Equal Justice Initiative, 2020, eji.org/criminal-justice-reform/.
Curley, Lee J., et al. “Cognitive and Human Factors in Legal Layperson Decision
Making: Sources of Bias in Juror Decision Making.” National Library of Medicine, vol. 62,
no. 3, 17 Feb. 2022, pp. 206–15, https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221080655.
Lee, Jaeah, et al. “Charts: Why You’re in Deep Trouble If You Can’t Afford a Lawyer.”
Mother Jones, 6 May 2013, www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/public-defenders-
gideon-supreme-court-charts/.
“Open Wide Our Hearts: Racism and the Criminal Justice System.” Catholic Mobilizing
Network (CMN), 7 Dec. 2018, catholicsmobilizing.org/resource/open-wide-our-hearts-
racism-and-criminal-justice-system. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.
Goblirsch 7
Quandt, Katie Rose, and Alexi Jones. “Research Roundup: Incarceration Can Cause
Lasting Damage to Mental Health.” Prison Policy Initiative, 13 May 2021,
www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/05/13/mentalhealthimpacts/.
Starr, Douglas. “The Bias Detective.” Science, vol. 367, no. 6485, 26 Mar. 2020, pp.
1418–21, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.367.6485.1418.
Svoboda, Lisa. “Inequities in the Justice System.” Highland Catholic School. Apr. 2024,
St. Paul MN. Class lectures.
“The Impact of Juror Biases | Cognitive Biases | Jury Analyst.” Jury Analyst, 18 Mar.
2021, juryanalyst.com/blog/the-impact-of-juror-biases/.
“The State of Public Defense.” Vera Institute of Justice, 2017, www.vera.org/state-of-
justice-reform/2017/the-state-of-public-defense#:~:text=Facts%20and%20Figures.
Accessed 28 Apr. 2024.
