Biased Fight Against Crime in Millers Essay, The Rush to Punish :: Criminal Justice

Biased Fight Against Crime in Millers Essay, The Rush to avengeIn the essay The Rush to Punish, Jerome Miller discusses how the nations fight against crime has been aimed at the poor and minorities. He argues that far too many tribe ar in prison or have criminal records in this country. Millers main claim is one of policy, which expresses that the nations current criminal justice system needs to vary. He writes, Im very pessimistic about where things are heading (566). This essay discusses issues of racism, stereotypes, individual city systems, and family importance in order to appeal to its intended audience of taxpayers, integritymakers, law enforcement officials, and criminals. General audience members, a fraction of society, may be oblivious to their impact on the system. The warrant suggested by Miller is that society must change its biases and routines in order for the criminal justice system to change.This article is written in question-answer format and has been taken fr om an interview. This makes the authors opinion very clear and works well to show argument. Miller appears to be sarcastic is some of his answers. This may confuse the reader, therefore distorting his purpose a little.The first support claim the author makes is that the volume of people in prison are minorities. He uses statistics to prove that the percentages of blacks and Hispanics obtaining criminal records are dramatically increasing. A large portion of minority males has a raging label. Miller states, Now when we talk about building more prisons, when we talk about longer sentences, when we talk about cracking down on trigger-happy offenders, everyone have intercourses that were talking about men of color (566). This clearly shows that something must be changed about the number of minorities involved with crime and backs up the main claim nicely.The succor support claim used by the author is that society has to change how it handles offenders. Average offenders are labele d as serious, violent, and savagelike, but people do not take the time to find out the details of the criminals pasts and the reasoning behind their acts. Miller writes, Those are the kinds of things we not only do not want to know but from which we run in fear - because if we were to hear them, wed all feel a little bit guilty. Its much easier to start talking about people in genetic terms (567). The author uses this support very wisely.