How Many Angel Families Are There in the Us

THE AMERICAN Family

Belonging to a family is one bond almost everyone in the globe shares, but family patterns vary from country to country. In some countries, for example, the grandparents are the family leaders. In other countries, many families live and piece of work together as one on community farms. What are families like in the United States?

The family unit in the Usa is various and changing, but even so central to the identity and well- beingness of virtually all Americans. Hither, the Drane family unit of Massachusetts enjoys playing a soccer game in the thousand of their house. A. Diakopoulos

FAMILY PATTERNS

The United States has many different types of families. While most American families are traditional, comprising a male parent, mother and one or more children, 22 percent of all American families in 1988 were headed by ane parent, commonly a woman. In a few families in the U.s., at that place are no children. These childless couples may believe that they would non make skillful parents; they may desire freedom from the responsibilities of kid- rearing; or, perhaps they are not physically able to take children. Other families in the United States have one developed who is a stepparent. A stepmother or stepfather is a

person who joins a family by marrying a male parent or mother.

Americans tolerate and accept these unlike types of families. In the The states, people have the right to privacy and Americans do not believe in telling other Americans what type of family group they must vest to. They respect each other's choices regarding family groups.

Families are very important to Americans. One sign that this is true is that Americans show great business concern about the family as an establishment. Many Americans believe at that place are as well many divorces. They worry that teenagers are not obeying their parents. They are concerned virtually whether working women can properly intendance for their children. They also

worry that also many families live in poverty. In one nationwide survey, about 80 per centum of the Americans polled sid the American family is in trouble. At the same time, when these people were asked most their own families, they were much more hopeful. Most said they are happy with their dwelling house life.

How tin can Americans exist happy with their individual families just worried about families in full general? Newspaper, motion pictures and television shows in the Us highlight difficulties within families. Family crimes, problems and abuse become news stories. But virtually families do non experience these troubles. Since the primeval days of the U.s., people have been predicting the decline of the family. In 1859, a newspaper in the city of Boston printed these words: "The family in the sometime sense is disappearing from our land." Those words could have been written yesterday. But the truth is that families are stronger than many people retrieve.

Four out of v people in the Usa alive as members of families and they value their families highly. In one poll, 92 percent of the people who were questioned said their family was very important to them.

Families requite united states of america a sense of belonging and a sense of tradition. Families give the states strength and purpose. Our families show u.s. who we are. As one American expert who studies families says, "The things we need almost deeply in our lives�honey, advice, respect and proficient relationships�have their ancestry in the family."

Families serve many functions. They provide a setting in which children can exist born and reared. Families help educate their members. Parents teach their children values� what they retrieve is important. They teach their children daily skills, such as how to ride a bicycle. They likewise teach them common practices and customs, such as respect for elders and celebrating holidays. Some families provide each member a place to earn money. In the United States, all the same, most people earn money outside the abode. The about important job for a family unit is to give emotional support and security.

Families in a fast-paced, urban land such as the United States face many difficulties. American families adjust to the pressures of modernistic society past irresolute. These changes are not necessarily adept or bad. They are simply the way Americans adjust to their globe.

CHANGING AMERICAN Family

When Americans consider families, many of them think of a "traditional family." A traditional family is one in which both parents are living together with their children. The father goes out and works and the mother stays dwelling and rears the children. The biggest alter in families in the United States is that near families today do not fit this prototype. Today, 1 out of three American families is a "traditional family" in this sense.

The most common type of family now is one in which both parents piece of work outside the home. In 1950, only 20 percentage of all American families had both parents working outside the home. Today, it is lx pct. Even women with young children are going back to work. About 51 pct of women with

children younger than one year old at present piece of work exterior the dwelling.

Another big change is the increase in the number of families that are headed by only ane person, usually the mother.

Between 1970 and 1988, the number of single-parent families more than doubled� from 3.8 million to nine.4 million. In 1988, nearly one out of every 4 children under xviii lived with only one parent.

Some families wait even less similar the typical traditional family. They may consist of a couple of one race who have adopted children of another race, or from another state. In many states, single people may also adopt children. Some people take in foster children�children whose parents cannot take intendance of them.

Another change is that families in the United states of america are getting smaller. In the mid- 1700s, there were half-dozen people in the average household. Today the boilerplate household contains between two and iii people. A household is defined as any place where at least one person is living.

1 recent change is that the number of marriages is ascent. The number of babies born also has been climbing steadily for the past 10 years. Many experts come across these trends every bit a sign that Americans are returning to the values of marriage and family.

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY

To empathise why these changes are happening, let the states await at the history of the family in the The states.

When the United States was established, more than 200 years agone, it was a big, sparsely settled country. Earlier, this state had been a colony of Britain. For many years the immigrants who settled in the United States were virtually all of European origin, just later on people came to the United States from all over the world. Life was hard for these early families. The boilerplate marriage in colonial America lasted merely x years considering many people died immature. Few people lived to be older than 60. A widow or widower often remarried many times. Even with today'due south high rate of divorce, many marriages concluding longer now than marriages did in the 1700s.

Subsequently, Americans began settling the American West. They were looking for land to subcontract and for a better life. They left behind their homes, their relatives and their friends. When these settlers said good-bye to the people they loved, ordinarily information technology was forever. These beginning settlers of the Midwest and the not bad Plains of the northwestern Usa were isolated; often their nearest neighbor was many miles abroad. Family unit members had to work together and to depend on each other to survive.

The family formed an of import economic grouping. All of its members helped to bring food and coin into the abode. They worked on a farm, planting and harvesting, or they worked making goods to sell at a market. Few people got married every bit a effect of love or affection alone. Most people married because they needed a family in order to brand a living. When people married, frequently they looked for the husband or married woman who could bring the most fabric goods into the marriage. In colonial America, men who did non marry were

heavily taxed. Almost 99 percent of the population married.

Many changes came to families when the United States shifted from being mainly a farming nation to being an industrial nation. This happened in the tardily 1800s. In 1820, fewer than 8 percent of Americans lived in cities. By 1900, nigh 40 percent of all people lived in cities. People began earning their money outside the home in factories. Instead of getting married on the basis of economical need, people could marry primarily for beloved.

As men and women became less dependent on their families for a livelihood, the number of divorces began to increase. Between 1900 and 1920, the divorce rate doubled; in 1900, in that location were four divorces for every i,000 married couples. This tendency alarmed people, just divorce was non new. The get-go divorce in the United states of america occurred in 1639 and involved a man who had married twc women. Nevertheless, divorce was difficult. A wife was her husband's property. If a husband abused his wife, she had few alternatives and sometimes a wife, or even a husband, would run away from a bad spousal relationship.

The decade of the 1950s is thought to take been the virtually family-oriented menstruation in American history. People praised and glorified families. Hundreds of thousand of immature couples married. They married at the youngest ages in the history of the United states. In the 1950s, past the time men and women reached 21 years quondam, more than two-thirds of them were married. Today fewer than half of all 27-year- olds are married.

The 1950s was also a "babe boom" time, with very loftier birth rates. In one twelvemonth lonely more than 4.3 one thousand thousand babies were born. The average female parent had more than three children; today the average mother has i or two children.

Today, some people look at the American family of the 1950s every bit a model or as a goal for the family unit. Many experts, withal, run into the 1950s as an exceptional period. They say that the marriage and family patterns of Americans today are closer to those prevalent during the remainder of American history than was the pattern of the 1950s

Slowly some of the values accepted during the 1950s began to modify. During the 1960s and the 1970s, some women found that they wanted more from life than rearing children, and caring for household matters. Women began to see that they had choices. They could have a chore or a family, or both. More than women began taking jobs. According to the magazine, U.S. News and Globe Report, the number of families in which both husbands and wives worked grew by four 1000000 during the 1970s.

The flow of the late 1970s and early on 1980s has as well been chosen the decade of the "me generation." This is a time in which people have explored new ways of living. In the 1970s many couples began living together without being married. These couples questioned why they needed a wedlock license.

For about x years, the number of single couples living together grew rapidly. Nascency control likewise became more widel) accepted. Couples were able to cull when they wanted to offset a family.

Other changes too occurred. I change was an increase in divorces. In 1970, at that place

were 47 divorces for every 1,000 married couples. By 1980, this number had grown to 114 divorces for every 1,000 married couples.

In the mid-1980s, more traditional union and family practices returned. Today, married couples are the fastest growing type of household in the United States. Women and men are rediscovering the joys of home and family life. Even leaders who speak out strongly for women'south rights are modifying their views regading the relative importance of the family.

Looking at the history of families in the United States helps to explain how the American family is irresolute. But what do these changes mean? Are they skilful or bad? In gild to understand, let us await at what is backside these numbers.

DIVORCE

About one-half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. These numbers are very loftier, as they are in many other industrialized countries. A divorce happens when a married man and a married woman legally terminate their marriage. The number of divorces grew steadily in the United States for many years. Now, all the same, the number has stopped growing. During the past few years the number of divorces has been decreasing.

Couples in the The states may still be getting divorced at a fairly high rate, but this does non mean that they exercise not believe in matrimony. It but ways that they are giving up being married to a item individual. Most people in the United Sates who get divorced ally again. About 80 percent of all men who become divorced remarry. About 75 percentage of all women who get divorced remarry.

United States divorce laws allow men and women to terminate bad marriages; getting a divorce is now rather easy in the Us. And while a 1924 study of families in i town in the American Midwest found few happy couples, in 1977, researchers who went back to the aforementioned boondocks found that more 90 pct of the married couples in that town said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their marriages.

WORKIMG MOTHERS

Today sixty pct of all American women piece of work exterior their homes. This is a large change for the United States. Only 40 years ago, 75 pct of all Americans disapproved of wives who worked for wages when their husbands could back up them financially. Today nigh people have that many women piece of work outside the home.

At that place are two reasons why mothers and wives work. One reason is that at that place are many opportunities for women. A woman in the United States tin can piece of work at many jobs, including an engineer, a physician, a teacher, a regime official, a mechanic or a transmission laborer. The other reason women work is to earn money to support their families. The majority of women say they work because it is an economic necessity.

About 80 percent of women who work back up their children without the help of a man. These women frequently have financial

difficulties. 1 in three families in the U.s.a. headed by a woman lives in poverty. Many divorced Americans are required past law to help their former spouses support their children, but not all fulfill this responsibility.

A wife's working may add together a strain to the family. When both parents piece of work, they sometimes have less time to spend with their children and with each other.

In other ways, however, many Americans believe that the family has been helped by women working. In a recent survey, for example, the majority of men and women said that they prefer a marriage in which the husband and wife share responsibilities for home jobs, such every bit kid rearing and housework.

Many teenagers feel that working parents are a benefit. On the other hand, when parents have younger children, who require more time and care, people'south views are more mixed almost whether having a working mother is proficient for the children.

What happens to children whose parents work? More than than half of these children are cared for in daycare centers or by babysitters. The rest are cared for past a relative, such as a grandparent. Some companies are trying to help working parents by offering flexible work hours. This allows ane parent to be at home with the children while the other parent is at work. Computers may besides help families by assuasive parents to piece of work at their home with a dwelling computer.

Wedlock AND CHILDREN

Unlike their parents, many single adult Americans today are waiting longer to get married. Some women and men are delaying marriage and family because they want to finish school or first their careers; others want to become more established in their chosen profession. Nearly of these people somewhen volition marry. One survey showed that just 15 percent of all single adults in the U.s. want to stay single. Some women become more interested in getting married and starting a family every bit they enter their 30s.

One positive result may come from men and women marrying after. People who get married at subsequently ages have fewer divorces. Forth with the conclusion to await to marry, couples are also waiting longer before they have children, sometimes in order to exist more than firmly established economically. Rearing a child in the Usa is plush.

Some couples today are deciding not to have children at all. In 1955, merely one percent of all women expected to have no children. Today more than five percent say they want to remain childless. The ability of a couple to choose whether they will take children means that more children who are born in the United States are very much wanted and loved.

GENERATION GAP

If children in the U.s.a. are wanted and loved, why do they fight with their parents? At least this is one view of families that American television shows present. The other type of family shown on American tv is ane in which everyone is great friends with everyone else. These families seem to have no bug.

In existent life, well-nigh families in the U.s. autumn somewhere in the heart. Talk about a "generation gap" has been exaggerated. The generation gap is a gap between the views of the younger generation of teenagers and the views of their parents.

Many parents in the United States want their children to be artistic and question what is around them. In a democratic society, American children are taught not to obey blindly what is told to them. When children get teenagers, they question the values of their parents. This is a part of growing up that helps teenagers stabilize their own values. In i national survey, 80 percent of the parents answering the survey said their children shared their beliefs and values. Some other study showed that near teenagers rely on their parents more for guidance and advice than on their friends.

When American parents and teenagers do argue, usually information technology is nearly simple things. Ane survey found that the most mutual reason parents and teenagers debate is because of the teenager's attitude towards another family fellow member. Some other common reason for arguments is that parents desire their children to help more around the house. The tertiary most mutual basis for arguments between parents and teenagers is the quality of the teenager's schoolwork.

Arguments which involve drug or alcohol use occur in a much smaller grouping of families. About parents (92 percent) said they were happy with the way their children are growing up.

UPROOTEDNESS

How do problems arise in American families? I view is that American families do not take plenty stability and that people motility besides much to have customs roots. Of course, many American families remain for generations in the same boondocks or even in the same house. At the same time, the Usa is a mobile, adaptable state. People are willing to work hard in lodge to advance in their jobs. Good workers are offered new opportunities in their jobs, sometimes in a different city. Families must make the decision. Do they desire to take the new job in a new boondocks? Or do they want to give up the opportunity?

The thousands of American families who practise decide to move each year may confront a difficult time adjusting to a new life. They leave behind a community that they know. They leave behind schools that they trust and friends and family unit members whom they love. They leave behind a church building or religious group. They leave behind a web of supports that helps proceed a family stiff.

In a new town, children and parents tin become lonely. This loneliness strains a family. For example, the surface area of the Usa where people move the nearly often, the Southwest, too is the surface area with the greatest number of divorces.

People in the The states know how hard moving tin be, so they attempt to lessen the strain for these families. Many neighborhoods form groups to make newcomers experience at home. Teachers in schools also take meetings to welcome new students. These teachers might pair a new student with a "buddy"�another

student to aid the new student.

Some children and parents mature from coming together new people and living in a new identify. These experiences can bring families closer together.

Americans are actually moving less ofttimes than they did xx years ago. In 1960, about 20 percent of the population moved. In 1987, virtually 18 percent of the population moved. These people moved shorter distances, too. Almost ninety percent of the people who moved in 1987 stayed within the aforementioned land. In families in which both parents are working, a family may determine not to move because one parent would have to give up his or her good job.

FAMILY VIOLENCE

Not all families learn to piece of work out their problems. Sometimes family problems can explode into violence. 20 percent of all murders in the United States involve people who are related. Often people learn violence from their mothers or fathers. These people echo the cruel pattern by abusing their children or beating their wives. There are likewise cases of wives abusing their husbands. Violence in the family is a serious problem in the United States, as it is in many countries.

People are looking for answers. One solution is to arrest people who abuse members of their family. Traditionally, constabulary in the United States hesitate to interfere with family issues. However, the shame of an otherwise law-constant human being arrested for pain his wife has been shown to exist effective in stopping him. Many cities and towns in the United States also offer "safety homes" in which an abused person can find shelter. Aid is also available for parents who abuse their children. By working together in groups, parents can larn how to break the pattern of hurting their children.

STRONG FAMILIES

In a perfect world, families would take no issues. Parents would know how to rear their children to exist responsible adults. Americans and others throughout the world are trying to learn what makes strong families. Perhaps families can learn how to solve their problems. Researchers at the University of Nebraska have found some answers. Strong, happy families share some patterns whether they are rich or poor, black or white.

Strong, happy families spend time together. After dinner, for example, happy families may take walks together or play games. Strong families also talk well-nigh their problems. They may fifty-fifty argue so that problems can be resolved before they get too big. Members of strong families show each other amore and appreciation. Members of strong families are also committed to i another and they tend to be religious. Finally, when bug ascend, strong families work together to solve them.

The values that Americans cherish, such as democracy and economical and social freedom, are values that Americans want for their families. Americans work difficult to make their families successful. Today, however, families are changing, but they are not disappearing. Americans take that stiff, happy families come up in many sizes and shapes

Suggestions for Farther Reading

Berger, Brigitte and Peter L. Berger. The War Over the Family unit: Capturing the Centre Ground. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1984 (cl983).

Higher of Habitation Economics,

Iowa State University.

Families of the Future:

Continuity and Change.

Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1983.

Gordon, Michael, ed. The American Family in Social-Historical Perspectives. 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin, 1983.

Levitan, Sar A. and Richard South. Belous. What'south Happening to American Families?: The Family and Its Discontents.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

Scott, Donald M. and Bernard Whisky, eds. America's Families: A Documentary History.

New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

. THE Police force AND THE JUDICIARY

"Equal Justice Under Law." These words, which assert that the U.s.a. is a nation governed according to law and that that law protects and directs the actions of all people equally, are carved in marble, loftier overhead, on the front of one of the almost significant buildings in Washington, D.C. The four-story marble edifice, in the style of an aboriginal Greek temple, is the one in which the Supreme Court of the United states of america does its work.

The Supreme Court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices, and the responsibleness and power of these ix people are extraordinary. Supreme Court decisions can affect the lives of all Americans and tin change society significantly. This has happened many times in the course of American history. In the by, Supreme Courtroom

The Usa prides itself on existence a nation of laws. The Supreme Courtroom, which considers cases involving the interpretation of the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, is the country's highest and most powerful court.

James G.W. Atherton, The Washington Post rulings take halted deportment by American presidents, take declared unconstitutional� and therefore void�laws passed by the Congress (the government'due south lawmaking torso), have freed people from prison and have given new protection and freedom to blackness Americans and other minorities.

The Supreme Courtroom is the court of final appeal and it may rule in cases in which someone claims that a lower court ruling on a Federal law is unjust or in which someone claims at that place has been a violation of the United states Constitution, the nation's basic law.

THE Courtroom Arrangement

There are many federal courts in the system which has the Supreme Court every bit its head. In addition, each land inside the United States has established a organization of courts, including a country supreme court, to deal with ceremonious, criminal and appellate proceedings. There are also canton and city courts. Fifty-fifty many of the smallest villages, those in which simply a few hundred people live, accept a local judge, chosen a "justice of the peace," who handles minor legal matters. At that place are separate military courts for members of the military and other specialized courts to handle matters ranging from tax questions to immigration violations.

In the U.s., a person accused of a offense is considered to exist innocent until he or she is proven guilty. The Constitution requires that any accused person must have every opportunity to demonstrate his or her innocence in a speedy and public trial, and to be judged innocent or guilty on the basis of evidence presented to a grouping of unbiased citizens, called a jury. A person who has been judged guilty must nevertheless be treated justly and fairly, equally prescribed by police. A person treated unjustly or cheated by another or by a authorities official must have a identify where he or she can win justice. That identify, to an American, is a court.

ROLE OF THE CONSTITUTION

American business for justice is written into the basic law of the country, the United States Constitution, which establishes the framework for the federal government and guarantees

rights, freedom and justice to all.

The Constitution, written in 1787, established a government of three branches. Ane of these is the judicial branch, and the Supreme Court of the The states is the well-nigh powerful part of it.

The other two branches of the national government are the legislative, which consists of a Congress of elected representatives of the people, and the executive, headed by the president as chief of country. The people who designed this authorities and wrote the Constitution distributed power amongst the three branches so that no 1 person or group of people in the regime could do enough power to control the others. The procedure for naming justices to the Supreme Court is one example of how this distribution of powers, called "checks and balances," works.

The chief justice and the acquaintance justices are named by the president. This authority represents peachy power, because the major effect court decisions accept on the legal system and on order in general. The writers of the Constitution tried to make certain, all the same, that presidents would name only qualified justices and also that they could not remove justices with whose decisions they disagreed. This insures the independence of the judicial branch. For that reason, no one tin become a member of the court unless the upper house of Congress�the The states Senate� approves. The Senate does not approve an appointment until its members are satisfied that the candidate is qualified. One time approved, a justice cannot be removed by either the president or the Congress without very practiced reason, nor can the salary of the justices be reduced. The chief justice and associate justices, therefore, serve on the court for life and need not�and should non�take into consideration political problems or the opinions of officials in the other branches of authorities when making legal decisions.

WHAT THE COURT DOES

The principal work of the Supreme Court is to make the final decision in legal cases in which a charge of violation of the Constitution is made. The Constitution gives sure powers to each branch of the federal (national) government. It also gives certain powers to the governments of the states, creating a federal organisation in which power is divided betwixt national and state authorities. Whenever a charge is made that a person or agency in any part of the federal or a country government has broken the law, the Supreme Courtroom may eventually be asked to decide the case. When it does, the determination itself becomes police.

Well-nigh cases�and some of the all-time-known� that come up before the Supreme Court involve charges that individual rights or freedoms have been violated. Such cases arise because the Constitution guarantees these rights and freedoms to everyone.

Most of the rights and freedoms that Americans enjoy are guaranteed in 10 short paragraphs amended (added) to the United States Constitution in 1791. These first ten amendments make up "the Neb of Rights." They guarantee freedom of spoken communication, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble in public and to ask the authorities

to consider grievances. Amongst the other guarantees are the right in criminal cases to be judged in a public trial by an impartial jury, to be represented past a lawyer at one's trial and freedom from cruel or unusual punishment. Because of the Bill of Rights, police cannot stop and search or arrest a person without good reason, nor can they search anyone's habitation without clear cause and the permission of a courtroom.

Elsewhere, the Constitution recognizes other rights. A very important one is the right to "due process." That means that no i can be deprived of life, freedom or property unless all proper legal procedures have been followed. Police, regime officials and agencies and judges must be very careful non to omit or shorten these prescribed legal procedures in any case. No i person, grouping of persons or institution can be deprived of even the most modest legal right by the enactment of a constabulary, by official action, by arrest, or in the form of a trial.

The importance to Americans of the Constitution, the law and the principles of equal justice is all-time understood through discussion of some cases that the Supreme Court has decided. While this discussion does non cover all the types of cases that come up before the courtroom, information technology shows the variety of decisions the court makes.

CHILDREN AND SCHOOLS

Most schools in the United States below the college level are public schools, though in that location are some private schools. Public schools are paid for by tax coin and free to those who nourish them. Each land has its own public schools for the children who live in the state. Rules for operating the schools are made by the state authorities, past lower-level school districts or by city governments in the cities where the schools are located. The federal regime commonly has no right to determine how the schools should be run. That doesn't mean, withal, that schoolchildren do not take rights guaranteed by the federal Constitution. They have, every bit the post-obit examples illustrate:

� For many years, public schools in some states were segregated. Some were open up only to white children, while blackness children attended their own "separate but equal" schools. Plessy five. Ferguson, a Supreme Court determination of 1896, accepted the justice of this arrangement and ruled against those who argued that all public schools should be open to students of both races.

In 1954, the father of a black girl living in Kansas decided that it was incorrect that his daughter could not attend a school nigh their abode because the school was for white children only. Instead, she had to walk much further to a school for black students. The father also believed the Constitution was being violated considering he considered the didactics offered in the distant school for black children to be inferior to that offered in the white school, and he took the case to court. The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all, and says no state can offer privileges to some people without offer these privileges to others. In 1954, the Supreme Courtroom was asked to decide whether the daughter's Constitutional rights were being violated because she was forced to attend a separate and�equally claimed by her father�inferior school. In this case, Oliver Chocolate-brown 5. Lath of Didactics of Topeka, Kansas, the court ruled in favor of the girl'south father and several other individuals who joined the case and against the state educational arrangement. Since that fourth dimension, black children accept had the right to attend school with white children in all states. Deliberately segregated public schools are illegal. � Many people from other countries enter the United states illegally. Among them are people from Mexico and other Fundamental American countries who cross the border in order to find work in the United States. One result of this illegal border crossing is that many children who are non citizens of the United States live in states such as Texas, New Mexico and California, which border Mexico.

People who enter the United States legally and who intend to become citizens enjoy nearly all of the rights of American citizens. Officials of the state of Texas believed, however, since educating children in public schools is very expensive, the children of people who came in that location illegally didn't necessarily have the right to an education paid for by public tax money. In 1975, the lawmakers of Texas passed a police force stating that children of illegal aliens could not attend Texas public schools. Some people in Texas thought the constabulary was unjust. They sued the state of Texas and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the law deprived people of equal rights�and since that decision no country has been allowed to deny public school education to any child.

R IGHTS OF THE Accused

Many cases that come earlier the Supreme Court involve charges that the police or a gauge has violated the rights of a person accused of a crime. It doesn't matter whether the person really committed the crime or not; the Supreme Court does not rule on the guilt or innocence of those defendant, just but on whether or not laws and legal procedures adapt to the Constitution. The Courtroom rules on whether the individual's right to due process� the proper and correct handling of a legal case�has been violated. If it has, the person must go costless, mayhap to stand trial once more with due procedure guaranteed. Hither are ii major cases of this type:

�In 1961, a Florida man named Clarence Gideon was arrested by police force as he stood about a pocket-sized store into which someone had cleaved earlier and stolen some beer. Gideon was arrested because some other human said he saw the theft take identify. Gideon was non represented by a lawyer in court. He claimed he was innocent, and tried to human activity equally his own lawyer. The witness succeeded in convincing the jury that Gideon was guilty, and Gideon went to prison house. Gideon read law books in the prison library and and then wrote to the Supreme Court, saying he had been denied the right to be represented by a lawyer. The Courtroom ruled that Gideon was correct. It said that people who are accused of serious crimes must have lawyers to defend them, even if they cannot beget to pay such lawyers. In that case, the state must pay the lawyer'southward fee. � In 1963, a homo named Ernesto Miranda was arrested in the state of Arizona. As police questioned him, Miranda confessed to a

kidnapping and rape. His confession was cited as evidence against him at his trial. Miranda appealed to the Supreme Court. He claimed his rights had been violated considering the law had non told him he could remain silent or that he had a right to be represented by a lawyer. The Supreme Court agreed that Miranda'southward rights had been violated and his conviction was overturned. Ever since, police have been required to inform arrested people that they do not have to answer questions and that they have the right to be represented by a lawyer.

PRESIDENTS

Fifty-fifty the nigh powerful official in the Usa, the president, tin can accept his actions declared illegal past the Supreme Court. One of the best-known examples is a 1952 case involving President Harry S Truman. In 1952, war machine under the control of the Un, those of the U.s. amid them, were fighting a war in Korea. Those forces depended on supplies from the United States. In early on 1952, the union to which steelworkers belonged announced a nationwide strike of the steel industry. Every bit president, Truman was also supreme commander of the military machine. In that capacity, he ordered the government to take over the functioning of all steel plants so that the supply of steel for the war effort would not exist cutting off. The Supreme Court ruled that he could not do this. It stated that only Congress has war powers, and not the president. Information technology said the president did not have the legal correct to control whatsoever industry.

Religion, SPEECH AND PRESS

American concern for freedom of organized religion, press and spoken language is reflected in the hundreds of cases that have come before the Supreme Court:

� A well-known Supreme Court case of the early 1960s involved a woman named Madalyn Murray, who believed that freedom of religion also meant the freedom not to have a religion. Mrs. Murray felt it was wrong that in the metropolis of Baltimore, Maryland, public schoolchildren were required to read from the Christian Bible. The Supreme Court agreed with Mrs. Murray. It ruled that the First Amendment to the Constitution requires the country to exist neutral in its relations with believers and nonbelievers. Thus, any religious exercises in public schools are unconstitutional.

The ruling in the Murray case was one of many that have caused keen controversy. Religious people were offended that the court had decided that a public school�run past a government�could non require Bible readings. Other rulings voided laws that required prayers. (Prayer in religious schools is protected by the Constitution because such schools are run privately and not by a government.)

� A man named Eddie Thomas worked in a factory in which military cloth for the government was manufactured. Thomas worked in a role of the manufacturing plant which did non make military textile. One day, he was transferred to a department producing military machine fabric, despite his claim that his religion forbade him to practice anything involving the making of weapons. He was told he couldn't continue to work for the company if he refused to take the new task. Thomas then left his position and went to a state government office to claim unemployment payments, which are made to people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. He was told he couldn't receive the payments because he had quit his task for no good reason. The Supreme Court, in 1981, ruled that the government office was wrong. Information technology could not strength him to go back to work in violation of his religion and his conscience.

� In 1971, two major United States newspapers began publishing a history of American involvement in the war in Vietnam (in Southeast Asia). The history was in the grade of a report prepared for loftier authorities officials. Information technology had been stolen from regime files and given to the newspapers. The American authorities went to courtroom to stop the newspapers from publishing the report. The Supreme Court ruled, however, that considering the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press the government could not practice this�and the newspapers continued to publish installments of the report.

ABORTIOX

In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that, under a correct to privacy, the Constitution guarantees women the right to accept abortions�to end pregnancy by a surgical process inside the commencement three months, and with some restrictions thereafter. Ever since, people who believe that ballgame ways taking a human life have tried to get the court to overturn that controversial ruling. By the end of its 1991 term, the Court had not washed so. Simply it had let stand up some restrictions on a woman's correct to an abortion. For example, in 1989, a Supreme Courtroom decision gave state legislatures some elbowroom in passing laws governing abortions within their borders.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Not everyone whose instance goes before the Supreme Court is a winner. Losers have included prisoners who claimed they were treated unjustly because they were locked up ii to a cell congenital for one. The Supreme Court did not remember this "overcrowding" was "cruel and unusual punishment," which the Constitution prohibits.

Some other loser was a man who was arrested for calling a policeman a "fascist" and using other abusive language loudly in public. The Supreme Court ruled that freedom of voice communication does not requite people the right to use words that unjustly impairment the reputation of another person.

It should also be noted that non all Americans are satisfied with all Supreme Court decisions. Many Americans believe that the court too ofttimes "takes the side of the criminals" in declaring proceedings invalid because an accused person's rights have been violated. Others argue, however, that protecting the innocent is the existent intent of these rulings, and that it is better to have a few criminals go free than to have ane innocent person be jailed.

Not all cases are settled in the Supreme Courtroom. But a small percent win the attending of the principal justice and the acquaintance justices. Many cases sent to the Supreme Courtroom are studied past the justices and and then sent back to the court or person from which they came. That means that, as a lower court has ruled on the case, the ruling remains in effect.

Lower courts frequently hear cases and brand decisions that are extremely important to large groups of people. In recent years, for example, Native Americans�meliorate known equally American Indians�have gone to courts to have state returned to them. The land may have been taken from them by white people a hundred or more years ago. In ane case argued in the 1980s, Indians in the land of Connecticut were awarded nearly 400 hectares of country that had been taken from their people in the 1700s. In the 1980s, the land was owned by the people who lived on it, but the federal authorities awarded the Indians money to buy back the land and to open their own businesses on it.

Criminal offense AND DRUGS

Why is such an all-encompassing system of courts necessary? Despite the respect of most Americans for police and the decision of the legal system to protect the rights of individuals, the United States, like all other countries, does experience crime. Specially in large cities, the crime rate tin be high.

A high per centum of criminal offense in the United States is direct related to the illegal sale and utilise of drugs. Drugs are smuggled into the country by organized groups of criminals despite intense efforts by the government to stop the illegal drug trade. Those who become addicted to drug use sometimes rob or break into houses or stores to become money to pay for the drugs.

Drug corruption has caused nifty concern in the U.s.. The federal government has worked hard to finish the growing of opium poppies, of coca plants and of cannabis (source of marijuana and hashish) in other nations. It has likewise gear up special agencies, sometimes working with agencies from other nations, to catch the smugglers outside and within the The states. Teachers and many other citizens work together to teach children about the dangers of drug utilize. Many authorities agencies in us and private denizen groups work to help drug addicts give up their drug use and turn to useful lives.

COPING WITH CRIME

Business concern most crime has as well led to special government programs and special programs of private citizen groups to stop criminal offense and to assistance prisoners lead useful lives subsequently their prison sentences finish.

In one program, immature people are brought into the prisons to talk with prisoners. The idea is that prisoners can practise more than any other people to stop young people from turning to crime. The feel of existence inside a prison as well might accept a crime-deterrent effect on the young people.

In some programs, prisoners acquire a useful trade and so they won't return to crime when they are released. Government programs also encourage private businesses to requite young people from poor families jobs so they will be able to earn money legally and will non feel that criminal activity is their only means of getting what they demand.

Most states have set up funds to help

victims of crimes. This authorities money, taken from taxes, might help to pay doctor or hospital bills if the victim was injured, or to supercede certain types of stolen goods, or to make upwardly for wages lost as a consequence of having to announced in courtroom to testify against an accused person rather than existence at work.

Like travelers in foreign countries everywhere, visitors to the United States frequently worry near the crime rate. A visitor might wonder, "Just how safe will I exist?" An American might respond, "I wouldn't worry nigh that if I were you. Here, every bit elsewhere, you should exist careful�all of us should�but, chances are, nothing will happen to you."

Despite this caution, which includes locking their homes and cars, most Americans do not spend their fourth dimension worrying about crime. They move freely and live their lives aware that, worldwide, wherever at that place are many people in that location is crime, and that by exercising some caution they will probably not have difficulty.

Some other fact that an American might bespeak out to a person planning to visit the United States is that there is much less criminal offense in some places than in others. Criminal offense rates differ from urban center to city. Within cities, crime rates vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. A visitor to most any large metropolis merely has to enquire someone if a particular surface area is safe to visit. One study, published in 1985, compared the amount of law-breaking in cities of all sizes effectually the United States. Its conclusion: "Some places are so condom you couldn't pay someone to assail you, while others are just plain unsafe."

Nearly Americans would also probably point out that the rules for safety in the Us are also rules that one should follow anywhere one travels.

In no state, regardless of its political or economical arrangement, has the trouble of crime been solved, though the American people and their government go on to search for means to create a safe and more just club. Ane affair is sure. Whatever is done to effort to decrease criminal activeness, information technology will exist done within the strict rules provided by the Constitution and watched over carefully by the system of courts. Summed up, those rules guarantee that which is most important to the American people: "Equal Justice Nether Law."

Suggestions for Further Reading

Friedman, Lawrence M. Introduction to American Law. New York: Norton, 1984.

Friendly, Fred West. and Martha J.H. Elliott. The Constitution: That Frail Balance New York: Random House, 1984.

Garraty, John A., ed.

Quarrels That Have Shaped the Constitution. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.

Germann, A.C., F.D. Mean solar day, and R.R.J. Gallati. Introduction to Police force Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas, 1985.

The Supreme Court Historical Order. Equal Justice Under Law: The Supreme Court in American Life.

Washington: U.Southward. Authorities Press Part, 1980

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Date: 2015-02-28; view: 9188

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