courtroom 302

Book Review : Courtroom 302 : A Year Behind the Scenes

in an American Criminal Courthouse by Steve Bogira

Injustice permeates the justice system . That notion and perception that are often derived from movies , fictional novels or even the news have become so common and well accepted that society had taken for granted its repercussive impact to the very essence of civil governance and which have often been reduced for its entertainment value . Courtroom 302 is a book that demonstrated that blatant injustice within the justice system neither by thorough investigation or extensive research

br but by a purely descriptive narration of the unspoken realities in the court cases , proceedings and daily operations of one of the busiest courtrooms in Chicago , the Cook County Criminal Courthouse

The sheer volume of cases that the court handles on a daily basis already undermines the possibility of achieving justice . Much like a business in which the mass production of commodities standardizes the operating procedures , the main function of the courthouse in dispensing justice is to dispose of cases in the quickest and cheapest possible manner . A guilty plea especially for a poor defendant is the highly recommended strategy to save everybody the time , effort and money for a jury trial especially considering the scarce resources of the justice system . `Let 's go , let 's get this over with and move on to the next thing (Bogira , 2005 ) The court operates to make a mass production of justice

In describing the different cases during the course of...