I read a case in my Criminal Punishment class in which there was a young man-16yrs, white, no previous record, 1st time offender, not from a good background, charged as an adult- who was convicted of dealing drugs and was given the maximum sentence in a high capacity prison. The judge didn't take any of the facts stated above into consideration. He was killed on the 4th day during his first week there from a sexual attack. This happened in PA.
Before taking this class, I was quite one-sided to criminal issues, "If you did the crime, you do the time". However, I learned that this thinking doesn't fit with every situation and breaking the law isn't so cut and dry.
I don't know if this case has some underlying racial discrimination issues, but I think that this is an issue in which judges need to take into consideration what will happen to those "criminals" who break the law. Whether that person be black/white.
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