Due Process - how we are entitled it in America.

Americans have always been able to have a speedy trial by a cross section of their peers. This right was given to us by our forefathers that wrote the Bill of Rights as the 6th amendment. Over the years, even though this “right” is guaranteed to the American people; many of us do not see this process take place. What is taking place now is called plea bargaining. What plea bargaining is, is a lesser sentence, if you do not go to court and just plead guilty for the crime. What has happened is many people have been locked up in criminal prisons now and are innocent. You may ask how this could happen. Some one is accused of a crime, he's taken to his hearing and his public defender says, " You can't win this case; you should take this plea bargain and just take prison time. Many time after the defendant says that the people believe them and they are carted off to jail without further a due. We as Americans should rise up and say we do not want this system of crime control in our country any longer.

Ronald Regan

America always used to have a fair "for the people" type of court system. There were things to protect the rights of the accused, which are still in place for today but are sometimes overlooked. This was until Ronald Regan came into office and instilled on October 27, 1986 the crime bill, which is the bill that we have now been using to fight crime in America today. What this bill did was make first off make mandatory minimums for certain crimes. What this did was make lesser offences of crime punished harder, like using or selling drugs, than say a crime that might have hurt somebody. This bill has been criticized since before he signed the bill, as an enforcement policy that would not be helping the criminals. What happens is that we are just locking these people up, when we should be helping them with rehab or something else that might help their addiction. Also it would help alleviate how many people we have in our jails today by actually helping the criminal not just locking them up.