Justice: Is It Really Bieng Served Essay, Research Paper
Justice: Is it Really Being Served ?
Crime is a very serious issue in today?s society that is
talked about through many different methods, media, television
programs, etc.. Clarence Darrow?s speech, ?Address to the
Prisoners in the Cook County Jail? displays a very strong feeling
on whether or not ?criminals? in jail our really at fault for
their crimes or if it?s the fault of those people on the
?outside?, those not in jail. Once being a lawyer himself and
defending criminals like Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, both
notorious murders, Darrow has a strong insight on hard core
criminals and the legal system. He utilizes his experience and
knowledge along with the appeals of pathos, logos and ethos, to
gain the respect and opinions of his audience.
Darrow?s main purpose in this speech is to state his
feelings of disregard for the justice system. He feels as though
jails do not serve a true purpose and that people are not in jail
because they deserve to be but rather because of unavoidable
circumstance. Those who obtain money hold the power and those who
are poverty stricken will be punished, no matter who was at fault
or who did the crime.
This piece was a speech to prisoners in a Chicago jail and
therefore, it seems as if his targeted audience must have been
the criminals themselves. However, he must have also been
targeting the politician?s and legal personnel for the tone of
his sentences and the beliefs he stated would do no justice for
those already in prison and must have been intended to influence
those people on the ?outside?.
Darrow strikes the pathetic or the emotional appeal
instantly in his first paragraph: ? I do not believe that people
are in jail because they deserve to be. They are in jail simply
because they cannot avoid it on account of circumstances which
are entirely beyond their control and for which they are in no
way responsible? (862). This statement alone could create an
uproar in any prison. Darrow uses great diction in this quote,
using it as, a persuasive tool, to slip past the scrutiny of
readers and sway them toward particular responses. With a
statement as powerful as that one how can a person not begin to
ponder on why these people are in jail and if the prisoners are
really at fault for their crimes.
Through the use of tone Darrow triggers the mind into
believing that the people that are on the outside are the ones
that create the havoc and those on the inside, the prisoners, are
mere victims of their ruthlessness. ?If it were not for the fact
that people on the outside are so grasping and heartless in their
dealings with the people on the inside, there would be no such
institution as jails? (863). The words seem to creep into your
mind making one feel as though he is correct in what he is
saying. It is as if one can hear the power and persuasiveness in
his voice speaking to the prisoners allowing one to have no
choice but to believe him.
Darrow targets the emotional appeal in his closing
paragraph, ? The only way to abolish crime and criminals is to
abolish the big ones and the little ones together. Give men a
chance to live. Abolish the right of private ownership of land,
abolish monopoly, make the world partners in production, partners
in the good things in life? (872). With his style of using harsh
and abrupt sentences Darrow produces the feeling that if we would
create an equality amongst us all that people would not
experience hardship, there would be no crime, hate and
competition. The length of Darrow?s sentences seem to bring about
different attitudes and feelings. His shorter sentences seem
blunt or terse, where his longer sentences, that delay closure,
posses more of a dramatic effect.
In addition to stimulating ones emotions, Darrow appeals to
the logical reasoning side of the audience:
Whenever the standard Oil Company raises the price of
oil, I know that a certain number of girls who are
seamstresses, and who work night after night long hours
for somebody else, will be compelled to go out on the
streets and ply another trade, and I know that Mr.
Rockerfeller and his associates are responsible and not
the poor girls in the jail cell? (866).
He leads us to believe that it is the fault of the rich and not
that of the poor. If the rich would not be so money hungry and
greedy they would not raise the prices of oil and create these
girls to not be able to afford it. In another aspect Darrow
acquires us by placing the blame on the government. ?In England
and Ireland and Scotland less than five percent own all the land
there is, and the people are bound to stay there on any terms
that landlords give. They must live the best they can, so they
develop all these various professions- burglary, picking pockets
and the like? (869). We must visualize that it is not the fault
of the people but rather the fault of the landlords. For they
give the rules and they are the ones who do not set forth
adequate salaries to the people. ?So long as men are allowed to
monopolize all the earth and compel others to live on such terms
as these men see fit to make, then you are bound to get into
jail? (872). In a simple sense, as long as we create a world
where we allow men to rule over us we will never succeed in
eliminating the crimes and injustice that take place.
?The more that is taken from the poor by the rich, who have
the chance to take it, the more the people there are who are
compelled to resort to these means of livelihood? (867). Once
again Darrow manages to state that it is the people on the
outside of these jail cells and there queries that place the poor
on the inside. ?They do not accomplish what they pretend to
accomplish. If you would wipe them out there would be no more
criminals then now. They terrorize nobody. They are a blot upon
civilization, and a jail is an evidence of the lack of charity of
the people on the outside who make the jails and fill them with
victims of their greed? (872). Another powerful statement that
accuses those with the wealth for the misfortunes of those of the
poor leading the poor to be criminals. Again stated earlier, in
Darrows eyes if this world could only possess true equality all
crime would be abolished and all jails and prisoners could be
disregarded. He uses a good choice of words that seem to grab at
the reader allowing the reader to sympathize and feel the pain of
the poverty stricken, and the prisoners. Through drastic tone and
pitch Darrow uses, his quotes are influential and go straight to
the readers heart and mind.
The ethos of Darrow is quite a touchy subject. Although he
was a lawyer for several years he obtains no solid evidence, only
well worded statements and descriptions that place thoughts and
visions into ones head. His words possess great power and one
could be easily influenced by them. It is now in the readers hand
to formulate their own opinion and decide whether or not their is
truth in Darrow?s accusations. The reader must rely solely on the
fact that Darrow is in the legal profession and has inside
information on what truly transpires.
Darrow?s theories can be summed up almost as easily as they
were first introduced. He feels that the only way to get rid of
crimes and criminals is to abandon it all. The only way that this
world will rid of the misdeed that goes on is to create a pure
world with absolute equality.