In Pursuit of Simple, Ordinary Justice: A Critique of the US Criminal Justice System

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Article Critique
The article “In Pursuit of Simple, Ordinary Justice” by Robert F. Muse seeks to
investigate the United States criminal justice system in serving justice to the American people.
The author seeks to provide insights, opinions along with wisdom by examining the role of the
American Criminal Law Review (ACLR) 50 years down the lane. The author provides own
experience in the US criminal justice system and being one of the editors of the article, provides
comprehensive overview of the article regarding the issue of the criminal justice system in the
US. The author starts with the personal experience in the Supreme Court situated in the District
of Columbia (Muse 317). Specifically, the article examines two important themes in the US
criminal justice system that includes the prison system, as well as the role of counsel in then
criminal justice system in the US. These tow themes forms the fundamental aspects that the
author explores all through the article. The article offers insightful statistics on the prison system
and the role of counsel in the US criminal justice system that makes the article very interesting
throughout.
The author asserts that the US prison system comprise the most vile, most deprived, as
well as most racist element of the criminal justice system. The US prison system has been

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criticized in many instances as not delivering justice to the prisoners. This comes at the backdrop
that the US should be a leading democracy in the world when it comes to effective criminal
justice system that promotes justice (Gopnik 1). However, this is not the case on the US prison
system as the system has many flaws with the most monstrous system of injustice. The author
clearly demonstrates this observation through pertinent statistics. The author asserts that in the
US, with around 5 percent of the global populace has about 25% of the prisoners in the world
with the greatest imprisonment rates than any other country globally at a price of around $75
billion annually. In addition, there are around 2.3 million individuals in prisons besides jails in
the US. This demonstrates that the US prison system is wanting because it is expected that
population of the prisoners should be much less than what it is now. The author further makes
an observation that there are over 60 percent of the individuals from racial along with ethnic
minorities and in some states; 80-90 percent of the offenders in prison are mainly African
Americans (Greg 1). Moreover, the author points out that in 2011, in District of Columbia
Supreme Court, 2,514 individuals were convicted in crime cases; about 2,395 (95.3 percent)
were blacks (Muse 319). This shows that the criminal justice system is biased because it cannot
be a coincidence that the majority of the prisoners are from the minority groups. The number of
blacks and other minority groups being convicted of felony and other crimes are higher, which
indicates the criminal justice system is racists in nature (Will 1).
Furthermore, the author claims that there is the growing number of for-profit sector that
benefits from the billions money in the form of proceeds from the prison populace. In then US,
there are many investors that are finding a lucrative business in offering corrective services to the
prison population that is geared to benefit these investors rather than the prison population. The

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author was keen to observe that the investors usually lobby legislators to offer them contracts to
offer services in prisons in the US (Falk 69). This trend shows that the prison system in the US is
in a mess and is controlled by outside forces to benefit from the millions allocated to correction
services. This implies that the criminal justice system has been compromised to benefit investors
rather than helping the convicted persons, which is immoral and unjust practice in the US
criminal justice system (Muse 321).
The second theme that the author addressed is the role the counsel towards reforming the
criminal justice system in the US that has continue to undermine justice to those seeking it. The
article supports his claims through the book that lately published entitled “The Collapse of
American Justice System” book that was written Stuntz J. William. The author of the book
believes that a bad structure may lead to dehumanizing besides unjust outcomes (Stuntz 23). The
author believes that the current Bill of Rights has generated much unfairness because the
counsels dealing with justice process concentrate much on the process rather than justice. Thus,
the criminal justice system as an entire, which include its procedures, as well as rules to make
sure that simple justice prevail may be realized by a single judge or attorney. It is apparent from
the article that the individual lawyers have missed out on prospects for simple justice plus there
is no one to challenge them for, where the outcomes have been grave to the criminal justice
system (Monroe 3). The author articulates his points through the book “Ordinary Injustice” How
America Holds Court” by Amy Batch. Batch believes that injustice prevails when the society of
legal experts becomes so familiarized to a model of lapses, which they may not see their duty in
their roles (Bach 28). Like Stuntz, Amy believes that bad procedures in the criminal justice
system by lawyers or legal experts are causing injustice. It is recommended that the role of the