To Kill a Mockingbird movie tells the childhood experiences of six-year-old Scout Finch during the Great Depression in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. The movie recounts a period for Finch when her father an attorney, defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Scout and her brother witness the horrors of racism that plague their society and still have roots within our criminal justice system. Watching the movie To Kill a Mockingbird gave me a synopsis to show race and how it affects our criminal justice system. In the paragraphs below I will give a summary of the movie To Kill a Mockingbird and how race in the movie affected the upholding of the law.
Scout and Jem Finch are the siblings in the movie. Their dad, Atticus, is the neighborhood legal advisor and as a solitary parent attempts to bring up his youngsters with respect and regard for their independence. The setting takes place in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the depression. Atticus one day takes on a case that influences the whole film. Tom Robinson, is a black man blamed for beating and assaulting a white lady, Mayella Ewell. Most of the community believes Tom did what he was accused of. The community treats Atticus in an exceptionally negative manner for really shielding him and attempting to make him proud. Atticus beseeches Scout and Jem not to get aggravated over the town's biased behavior.
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As the trial gets underway Scout and Jem begin to understand that Tom Robinson couldn’t have beaten and assaulted Mayella Ewell, as his left hand is injured. Atticus is able to demonstrate this fact and display Tom Robinson's innocence. Still, the jury decides to convict Tom Robinson and find him guilty. Scout and Jem start to understand that numerous individuals around the local area are biased against blacks. It isn't any longer that Tom is shot and executed for attempting to escape while in jail. Jem particularly takes the entire issue hard, and it sets aside a long effort to deal with the jury's choice and Tom's demise.
After the preliminary has faded away Bob Ewell, Mayella's dad starts compromising Atticus for humiliating him in court and resolves that he'll get him back somehow. Atticus is persuaded that he's everything talk, and makes it look like such. Time slithers past, lastly, Bob Ewell regards his pledge and assaults the youngsters on Halloween night with a blade. He breaks Jem's arm and nearly slaughters Scout, however Boo Radley, surprisingly, acts the hero and spares them. The sheriff, Heck Tate, quiets the entire thing over so Boo Radley won't be hauled into the spotlight, and Scout is excited to at last get the chance to meet the man they have for such a long time fantasizing about. As she strolls him back home, she understands that this time he was watching them from his entryway patio windows, and only for a brief period she can remain from his point of view.
In this film, you really get to see the impact race has on the criminal justice system. Tom Robinson is a black man blamed for assaulting Mayella Ewell, a white lady. In this subplot, the racially preferential nature of Maycomb is plainly depicted through such occurrences as the way that Atticus is blamed by the town for safeguarding Tom's case and furthermore through the lynch crowd scene outside the prison. It is in the Tom Robinson trial that the best case of how race affects the criminal justice system on account of bias is seen. In spite of the fact that Atticus really figures out how to demonstrate the innocence of Tom Robinson, the white jury still won't pronounce Tom Robinson innocent. This brings about the most explicit declaration of the way that the criminal justice system can be affected by racial bias or even hate. Tom Robinson was a man who did no damage to other people yet becomes the victim of a white supremacist society.
Tom Robinson isn’t the only person to experience disparity because of being Black. In 1989 in Central Park, New York City, Five adolescents were prosecuted for assaulting joggers and other charges. The severe attack of the 28-year-old white lady, who had been out for a run the prior night, prompted across-the-board open objection and the snappy capture and ensuing conviction of five black and Latino teenagers. In 2002 all men were exonerated of the conviction based on the fact they were wrongly convicted because of malicious prosecution and racial discrimination. Just like Tom Robinson, the Central park 5 were wrongly convicted because of their race. This is just another example of how race constantly influences the criminal justice system and how people at times have been treated unfairly because of their race while in the system.
The race has not only influenced the courts but also has played a role in mass incarceration. Mass incarceration today stays as a legacy of past abuse and continues confining open entryways in our nation's most unprotected networks. The United States has the world's most bewildering detainment rate; 2.3 million Americans are in prison today. Filled by the war on drugs, 70 percent of American prisoners are non-white. The typical American has a 1 out of 20 plausibilities of being confined at some point or another in his life, yet that rate is much higher for Latino men and African American men. Strikingly, 1 out of 9 black men under age 25 lives under some kind of controlled opportunity: in prison, in jail, on post-preliminary supervision, or on parole.
African Americans are just 13% of the American population however compromise a huge share of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated. African Americans comprise 47% of the 1,900 total exemptions recorded in the National Registry of Exonerations. Tom Robinson and the Central Park 5 isn’t alone in the lack of fairness in the way they have been treated due to race.
In conclusion, race and crime for some time have correlated with each other. These two topics have particularly correlated with the way people are treated in the criminal justice system. To Kill a Mockingbird movie depicts this disparity vividly in the unfair treatment of Tom Robinson. The movie is more than just a show of human depravity because of racial bias. The movie is actually a good movie. The movie depicts a family that comes together despite hurdles society places in front of them. To Kill a Mockingbird teaches lessons but also reminds us of a past society that we as Nation still struggle with today.
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