Now don’t get me wrong. I respect (most) police officers. They have very dangerous jobs that require long hours and putting their lives in danger. Not to mention they don't get paid as much as they should. I respect police officers, but from my personal experience with them, they are hard to trust because they play a part in a corrupt justice system.

First off let’s start with police brutality. Police brutality has always been apart of our society whether we like or not. Thinking back to the civil rights period of our country, police brutality was shown to the public on a televised scale. This shocked the nation, but we didn;d really do anything about the police brutality, though we did make great strides for other aspects of civil rights. My point is, that brutality has always been there, before the civil rights movement.

Basically, since slavery ended black people had to be “watched” because of whatever racist reasons people came up with. We still have that mentality. The only reason we are talking about police brutality so heavily now is that it’s easily accessible to the public through media outlets. This mindset of “watching” minorties has not gone away in the last 150 years. The system has always been corrupt, now it's just publicly corrupt.

The system is also racist. Obviously. Just look at the numbers. According to the NAACP website, Blacks and Hispanics make up 56% of the prison population and 32% of the general population. Most of these inmates are in prison due to non-violent drug charges. These are the people that are the American version of “untouchables.” A label that follows them for the rest of their lives because they got caught with a few grams of weed because again we have to “watch” these minority communities.

Yet at music festivals all over the country, there are avid marijuana users. Why are those not busted? Why are there official marijuana classes being held at universities, yet these people are still serving insanely extensive sentences?

The justice system has problems that are hundreds of years deep. A way that we can help bring the justice system into the 21st century is by having lawyers and representatives that understand what its like to be seen as a threat in this country. Lawyers and representatives who have been racially profiled by the police can help provide solutions for an updated criminal justice system.