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Caaging Of America By Adam Gopnik Analysis

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In Adam Gopnik 's piece “Caging of America,” he discusses one of the United States biggest moral conflicts: prison. Gopniks central thesis states that prison itself is a cruel and unjust punishment. He states that the life of a prisoner is as bad as it gets- they wake up in a cell and only go outside for an hour to exercise. They live out their sentences in a solid and confined box, where their only interaction is with themselves. Gopnik implies that the general populace is hypocritical to the fact that prison is a cruelty in itself. The citizens of the the United States preach moral equality and the wrongdoings of their government, yet they fail to realize the horrors that occur when trapped in a cell the size of your bathroom. The article makes great points against the criminal- justice system and their cruel punishment towards prisoners, but the author has failed to persuade me because although their current state in the system might be wrong, it doesn 't take from the fact that they are convicted felons who need to do their time, even if …show more content…

One of Gopniks main point states that the Bill of Rights emphasizes process and procedure rather than principle. What this means is that a criminal can abuse his rights for his own protection. For example Gopnik quotes Stuntz by saying that a criminal can get off a charge simply because the officer who made the arrest didn 't have a proper warrant. This proves the basis of the Bill of Rights following the one track minded belief that process and procedure is the only way to properly operate a system. Both Stuntz and Gopnik believe that the Bill of Rights could be the cause of the unstable justice system that plagues our communities today. Personally I don 't believe this is the problem because there will always be loopholes in every system. How can we run a system without a basis or foundation to lead us. The process and procedure can be beneficial to all if done correctly; all systems have flaws, but must learn to cope with

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