The Hurricane
The movie Hurricane is a classic example of law and how particular persons in the society are handled in the name of justice. As a whole, the movie was intriguing and interesting. Whether or not it depicted the true story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter is and will remain to be unknown, except by the few persons who know the truth. Carter, as a black man in the 1960's, was portrayed to have been discriminated against solely on the color of his skin. He was sent to a boy's home for juvenile delinquents at the young age of eleven and it was from that point that his life and its potential was torn from him. He would become imprisoned in the system for the majority of his vital life. This case received intense recognition because of who he was, a boxing champion. However, there are occurrences similar to this one everyday, still in the year 2001. Racism and discrimination still seeps through many facets of our society, in particular the law and the justice system. Theories an!d models regarding the law, justice and our society can still be used today to demonstrate instances and occurrences that still exist. Donald Black's theory, the behavior of law seems to have been created to generally explain the case of Rubin Carter. He
nst a white man, and was to pay for that according to the Lieutenant and his partners. He was in a position of accused, but had no hope of explaining his defense. Black calls this type of social control penal, where the first solution by the higher-ranking party is punishment. The restitution would be harsh, much harsher than if the victim was black, or the offender white. In a penal style of social control, there is a winner and a loser. In America, in the 1960's, if you were black, you were almost guaranteed to be the loser. For Carter, there was no hope of counseling, mediation or therapy. There was only a punishment in order, and it was going to be severe. ould he be prosecuted? Imprisoned? I think not, it would have been called an accident with which he had no part of. What if it was a black man who had antagonized the children that day and Carter stabbed him? Would he have been sent to a boy's home for the most important ten years of his life? Considering both of them would be black, and therefore lower in stratification, they would have less law and it would be less likely that the police would have even gotten involved. "...During the past century, where blacks generally were of lower rank than whites, a black offending a black was punished less severely than a white offending a white." (Black, 17) talks about law and justice as varying directly with social stratification. Even though Rubin Carter was a boxing champion, first and foremost, he was a black man in the 1960's. Carter may have had more money than many of the white men his age, but he was still a black man and was at the bottom of the vertical chain of stratification. Racism, t
Some common words found in the essay are:
Rubin Carter, Hurricane Carter, , Donald Black's, downward law, rubin carter, carter black, boy's home, law justice, sent boy's home, bottom vertical, upward deviance, black's theory, age eleven, laws stratified,
Approximate Word count = 1131
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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