Justice Is It Really Bieng Served Essays - Gaming, Clarence Darrow

Justice: Is It Really Bieng Served 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