The topic as a whole for Criminal Justice is amazing. So many behind the scenes with it. There is so much to take in and learn. The first thing that I want to discuss about that I learn was the Bill of Rights. I’ve heard people claim their rights but I always wonder to myself if they are really the rights that we have. I know though that “the first 10 amendments to the Constitution have become known as the Bill of Rights” (Hendrix, ch.4 page 89) but I now have a better understanding of individual rights. Now for law enforcement, the courts, and the correctional system, I have learned is that the use of discretion and making sure that the guidelines of the Bill of Rights are kept are the most important to the systems. My honest opinion of these three systems were that they did not work properly. I was under the impression that law enforcement was brutally awful, the courts were where people fell through cracks and corrections were loaded with unfair correctional officers. These ideas were put into my mind due to the media blowing stories out of proportion and TV shows/movies that portrayed bad cops, lawyers and correctional officers. So my perception before this class was based on truth because I knew no better but again that was until this class. My perceptions have changed where enforcement, the courts and the corrections systems are the law and understanding them at a different level/perspective.
Before this class I was pretty set in stone with things being black or white. No gray in the mix. In my mind if you take a life then you shouldn’t have your own. That’s how it was perceived to me in things I watched or heard since I was younger. Over the past 7 weeks in this course I was able to understand how the criminal justice system works for the victims and for the accused. With me being able to understand that came the gray area in my mind to where I see what the