According to Your Text, the "Typical" American Family Today Is:

THE AMERICAN Family unit

Belonging to a family is 1 bail almost everyone in the earth shares, but family patterns vary from state to country. In some countries, for case, the grandparents are the family leaders. In other countries, many families live and work together as i on community farms. What are families like in the The states?

The family in the United States is diverse and changing, but notwithstanding central to the identity and well- beingness of virtually all Americans. Here, the Drane family of Massachusetts enjoys playing a soccer game in the chiliad of their house. A. Diakopoulos

FAMILY PATTERNS

The United states of america has many different types of families. While about 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 one parent, normally a woman. In a few families in the United states, at that place are no children. These childless couples may believe that they would not make proficient parents; they may want freedom from the responsibilities of child- rearing; or, perhaps they are not physically able to have children. Other families in the U.s. take one adult who is a stepparent. A stepmother or stepfather is a

person who joins a family by marrying a begetter or mother.

Americans tolerate and take these different types of families. In the United states of america, people have the correct to privacy and Americans exercise not believe in telling other Americans what type of family grouping they must belong to. They respect each other'southward choices regarding family groups.

Families are very important to Americans. One sign that this is truthful is that Americans show great concern most the family as an institution. Many Americans believe there are likewise many divorces. They worry that teenagers are not obeying their parents. They are concerned most whether working women can properly care for their children. They also

worry that besides many families alive in poverty. In one nationwide survey, nearly lxxx percent of the Americans polled sid the American family is in trouble. At the same time, when these people were asked about their own families, they were much more hopeful. Most said they are happy with their home life.

How tin Americans be happy with their private families but worried near families in full general? Paper, motion pictures and television shows in the Usa highlight difficulties within families. Family crimes, problems and abuse become news stories. Simply most families practise non experience these troubles. Since the earliest days of the United States, people have been predicting the pass up of the family. In 1859, a newspaper in the city of Boston printed these words: "The family in the erstwhile sense is disappearing from our land." Those words could have been written yesterday. Just the truth is that families are stronger than many people think.

Four out of five people in the The states live as members of families and they value their families highly. In one poll, 92 pct of the people who were questioned said their family was very important to them.

Families give united states of america a sense of belonging and a sense of tradition. Families requite usa forcefulness and purpose. Our families prove us who we are. As one American adept who studies families says, "The things nosotros need most deeply in our lives�dearest, communication, respect and proficient relationships�have their ancestry in the family."

Families serve many functions. They provide a setting in which children tin can exist built-in and reared. Families help educate their members. Parents teach their children values� what they recollect is important. They teach their children daily skills, such as how to ride a bike. They also teach them common practices and customs, such as respect for elders and celebrating holidays. Some families provide each member a place to earn coin. In the United States, all the same, most people earn coin outside the home. The nigh important job for a family is to requite emotional support and security.

Families in a fast-paced, urban country such as the Us face many difficulties. American families suit to the pressures of modern society past changing. These changes are not necessarily good or bad. They are simply the fashion Americans adjust to their world.

Changing AMERICAN FAMILY

When Americans consider families, many of them think of a "traditional family." A traditional family unit is one in which both parents are living together with their children. The male parent goes out and works and the female parent stays dwelling house and rears the children. The biggest change in families in the Us is that virtually families today do not fit this image. Today, one out of three American families is a "traditional family" in this sense.

The most common type of family unit now is one in which both parents work outside the home. In 1950, just 20 pct of all American families had both parents working outside the domicile. Today, it is 60 percent. Even women with young children are going dorsum to work. Almost 51 percent of women with

children younger than 1 twelvemonth former now work outside the home.

Another big change is the increase in the number of families that are headed by but one person, normally the mother.

Between 1970 and 1988, the number of single-parent families more doubled� from 3.viii one thousand thousand to 9.4 1000000. In 1988, nearly i out of every four children under eighteen lived with simply one parent.

Some families look even less like the typical traditional family. They may consist of a couple of one race who have adopted children of some other race, or from some other country. In many states, single people may also adopt children. Some people take in foster children�children whose parents cannot take care of them.

Another alter is that families in the United States are getting smaller. In the mid- 1700s, there were six people in the boilerplate household. Today the average household contains betwixt two and three people. A household is defined as any place where at least one person is living.

One recent change is that the number of marriages is rising. The number of babies born also has been climbing steadily for the by x years. Many experts see these trends as a sign that Americans are returning to the values of matrimony and family.

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY

To understand why these changes are happening, let us await at the history of the family in the United States.

When the The states was established, more than 200 years ago, it was a big, sparsely settled country. Earlier, this land had been a colony of Great Great britain. For many years the immigrants who settled in the United States were most all of European origin, just later people came to the United States from all over the world. Life was hard for these early families. The average marriage in colonial America lasted only ten years because many people died young. Few people lived to exist older than 60. A widow or widower often remarried many times. Even with today's high rate of divorce, many marriages last longer now than marriages did in the 1700s.

Later, Americans began settling the American West. They were looking for land to farm and for a meliorate life. They left behind their homes, their relatives and their friends. When these settlers said adept-bye to the people they loved, usually information technology was forever. These first settlers of the Midwest and the swell Plains of the northwestern United States were isolated; frequently their nearest neighbor was many miles away. Family members had to work together and to depend on each other to survive.

The family unit formed an important economic grouping. All of its members helped to bring food and money into the home. They worked on a farm, planting and harvesting, or they worked making goods to sell at a market. Few people got married as a result of dear or affection solitary. Most people married considering they needed a family in order to brand a living. When people married, often they looked for the husband or married woman who could bring the most cloth goods into the marriage. In colonial America, men who did not ally 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 existence an industrial nation. This happened in the tardily 1800s. In 1820, fewer than viii percentage of Americans lived in cities. By 1900, about forty percent of all people lived in cities. People began earning their money outside the dwelling house in factories. Instead of getting married on the footing of economical demand, 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 increment. Betwixt 1900 and 1920, the divorce rate doubled; in 1900, there were 4 divorces for every 1,000 married couples. This trend alarmed people, but divorce was not new. The first divorce in the United States occurred in 1639 and involved a man who had married twc women. Still, divorce was difficult. A married woman was her husband's property. If a husband driveling his wife, she had few alternatives and sometimes a wife, or even a husband, would run away from a bad marriage.

The decade of the 1950s is thought to take been the about family unit-oriented period in American history. People praised and glorified families. Hundreds of thou of young couples married. They married at the youngest ages in the history of the United states. In the 1950s, by the time men and women reached 21 years old, more than two-thirds of them were married. Today fewer than half of all 27-yr- olds are married.

The 1950s was also a "baby boom" fourth dimension, with very high birth rates. In 1 yr alone more than 4.three million babies were born. The boilerplate mother had more than three children; today the average mother has ane or two children.

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

Slowly some of the values accepted during the 1950s began to change. During the 1960s and the 1970s, some women found that they wanted more than from life than rearing children, and caring for household matters. Women began to run into that they had choices. They could accept a task or a family, or both. More women began taking jobs. Co-ordinate 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 period of the late 1970s and early on 1980s has also been chosen the decade of the "me generation." This is a time in which people have explored new means of living. In the 1970s many couples began living together without existence married. These couples questioned why they needed a matrimony license.

For about 10 years, the number of unmarried couples living together grew chop-chop. Birth control also became more widel) accepted. Couples were able to choose when they wanted to kickoff a family.

Other changes also occurred. I change was an increment in divorces. In 1970, there

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

In the mid-1980s, more traditional matrimony and family unit 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 unit life. Even leaders who speak out strongly for women's 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 changing. But what do these changes mean? Are they proficient or bad? In order to understand, let u.s.a. look at what is backside these numbers.

DIVORCE

About half of all marriages in the The states end in divorce. These numbers are very high, as they are in many other industrialized countries. A divorce happens when a husband and a wife legally end their marriage. The number of divorces grew steadily in the U.s.a. for many years. Now, all the same, the number has stopped growing. During the by few years the number of divorces has been decreasing.

Couples in the United States may still be getting divorced at a fairly high rate, but this does not hateful that they exercise not believe in marriage. It just means that they are giving upwards being married to a particular individual. Most people in the United Sates who become divorced marry once more. About eighty percent of all men who become divorced remarry. About 75 per centum of all women who go divorced remarry.

United States divorce laws allow men and women to terminate bad marriages; getting a divorce is now rather easy in the The states. And while a 1924 written report of families in one town in the American Midwest constitute few happy couples, in 1977, researchers who went back to the same boondocks found that more than 90 percent of the married couples in that town said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their marriages.

WORKIMG MOTHERS

Today sixty percent of all American women piece of work exterior their homes. This is a big change for the Usa. Simply 40 years ago, 75 percent of all Americans disapproved of wives who worked for wages when their husbands could back up them financially. Today most people accept that many women work outside the abode.

At that place are 2 reasons why mothers and wives work. One reason is that there are many opportunities for women. A adult female in the United States tin can work at many jobs, including an engineer, a doc, a teacher, a government official, a mechanic or a transmission laborer. The other reason women piece of work is to earn coin to back up their families. The bulk of women say they piece of work considering it is an economical necessity.

Nearly 80 percent of women who work support their children without the help of a man. These women often have financial

difficulties. I in 3 families in the United States headed by a woman lives in poverty. Many divorced Americans are required by police to assistance their former spouses support their children, merely not all fulfill this responsibleness.

A wife's working may add a strain to the family. When both parents work, they sometimes accept 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 contempo survey, for example, the majority of men and women said that they prefer a union in which the husband and wife share responsibilities for home jobs, such as kid rearing and housework.

Many teenagers feel that working parents are a do good. On the other paw, when parents have younger children, who require more time and care, people's views are more mixed nigh whether having a working mother is good for the children.

What happens to children whose parents work? More half of these children are cared for in daycare centers or by babysitters. The residual are cared for by a relative, such every bit a grandparent. Some companies are trying to help working parents by offer flexible work hours. This allows one parent to be at home with the children while the other parent is at piece of work. Computers may too help families past assuasive parents to piece of work at their dwelling with a home calculator.

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

Unlike their parents, many single developed Americans today are waiting longer to go married. Some women and men are delaying matrimony and family considering they want to finish schoolhouse or start their careers; others desire to go more established in their chosen profession. About of these people eventually will marry. One survey showed that only 15 per centum of all unmarried adults in the United States want to stay unmarried. Some women become more than interested in getting married and starting a family unit as they enter their 30s.

I positive result may come from men and women marrying later. People who get married at later ages have fewer divorces. Along with the decision to look to ally, couples are also waiting longer before they have children, sometimes in club to be more firmly established economically. Rearing a child in the The states is plush.

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

GENERATION GAP

If children in the United States are wanted and loved, why do they fight with their parents? At least this is i view of families that American television shows nowadays. The other type of family shown on American idiot box is 1 in which everyone is nifty friends with everyone else. These families seem to have no problems.

In real life, most families in the U.s. fall somewhere in the middle. Talk nigh a "generation gap" has been exaggerated. The generation gap is a gap betwixt the views of the younger generation of teenagers and the views of their parents.

Many parents in the The states want their children to be creative and question what is around them. In a autonomous lodge, American children are taught not to obey blindly what is told to them. When children become teenagers, they question the values of their parents. This is a role of growing up that helps teenagers stabilize their own values. In i national survey, lxxx percent of the parents answering the survey said their children shared their beliefs and values. Another study showed that almost teenagers rely on their parents more for guidance and advice than on their friends.

When American parents and teenagers do debate, commonly it is well-nigh simple things. One survey found that the most common reason parents and teenagers argue is because of the teenager's attitude towards another family member. Another common reason for arguments is that parents want their children to help more around the business firm. The third nigh common basis for arguments between parents and teenagers is the quality of the teenager'southward schoolwork.

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

UPROOTEDNESS

How exercise issues arise in American families? I view is that American families do not have enough stability and that people motion too much to accept community roots. Of course, many American families remain for generations in the aforementioned town or even in the same business firm. At the same time, the Usa is a mobile, adaptable country. People are willing to work difficult in guild to advance in their jobs. Good workers are offered new opportunities in their jobs, sometimes in a unlike metropolis. Families must make the decision. Do they want to have the new job in a new boondocks? Or do they want to give upward the opportunity?

The thousands of American families who do decide to move each year may face a difficult time adjusting to a new life. They leave backside a community that they know. They leave behind schools that they trust and friends and family unit members whom they dearest. They exit behind a church or religious group. They leave behind a web of supports that helps go along a family strong.

In a new town, children and parents can get lonely. This loneliness strains a family. For instance, the area of the United States where people move the most frequently, the Southwest, also is the area with the greatest number of divorces.

People in the United States know how difficult moving can exist, then they endeavour to lessen the strain for these families. Many neighborhoods grade groups to make newcomers feel at habitation. Teachers in schools as well have meetings to welcome new students. These teachers might pair a new student with a "buddy"�some other

student to assist the new student.

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

Americans are really moving less frequently than they did 20 years agone. In 1960, about xx percent of the population moved. In 1987, about 18 percent of the population moved. These people moved shorter distances, also. Almost 90 pct of the people who moved in 1987 stayed inside the same state. In families in which both parents are working, a family unit may decide not to move because ane parent would have to give up his or her good job.

FAMILY VIOLENCE

Not all families learn to work out their problems. Sometimes family issues tin can explode into violence. Twenty percent of all murders in the U.s. involve people who are related. Often people learn violence from their mothers or fathers. These people repeat the roughshod pattern by abusing their children or beating their wives. There are also cases of wives abusing their husbands. Violence in the family is a serious trouble in the Usa, as it is in many countries.

People are looking for answers. One solution is to arrest people who abuse members of their family. Traditionally, police in the United States hesitate to interfere with family unit issues. However, the shame of an otherwise law-constant man beingness arrested for pain his married woman has been shown to be effective in stopping him. Many cities and towns in the United States also offering "safe homes" in which an abused person can find shelter. Aid is besides available for parents who abuse their children. By working together in groups, parents can learn how to pause the pattern of pain their children.

Strong FAMILIES

In a perfect world, families would accept no problems. Parents would know how to rear their children to be 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. Subsequently dinner, for example, happy families may accept walks together or play games. Strong families also talk about their problems. They may fifty-fifty argue then that problems tin be resolved before they become also big. Members of strong families show each other amore and appreciation. Members of potent families are as well committed to one another and they tend to be religious. Finally, when problems ascend, strong families work together to solve them.

The values that Americans cherish, such as republic and economic and social freedom, are values that Americans desire for their families. Americans piece of work hard to make their families successful. Today, however, families are changing, but they are not disappearing. Americans take that strong, happy families come in many sizes and shapes

Suggestions for Farther Reading

Berger, Brigitte and Peter Fifty. Berger. The War Over the Family: Capturing the Eye Ground. New York: Ballast/Doubleday, 1984 (cl983).

College of Home Economics,

Iowa Land University.

Families of the Future:

Continuity and Change.

Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1983.

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

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

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.

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

New York: Harper and Row, 1982.

. THE Police force AND THE JUDICIARY

"Equal Justice Nether Law." These words, which affirm that the United States is a nation governed according to law and that that police force protects and directs the deportment of all people equally, are carved in marble, high overhead, on the front of ane of the most meaning buildings in Washington, D.C. The four-story marble building, in the style of an aboriginal Greek temple, is the one in which the Supreme Courtroom of the United States does its work.

The Supreme Court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices, and the responsibility and ability of these nine people are extraordinary. Supreme Court decisions tin can impact the lives of all Americans and can change society significantly. This has happened many times in the class of American history. In the past, Supreme Court

The United States prides itself on being a nation of laws. The Supreme Court, which considers cases involving the interpretation of the meaning of the U.Southward. Constitution, is the land'southward highest and most powerful court.

James Thou.Due west. Atherton, The Washington Post rulings have halted actions past American presidents, have alleged unconstitutional� and therefore void�laws passed past the Congress (the government's lawmaking torso), take freed people from prison house and have given new protection and freedom to black Americans and other minorities.

The Supreme Court is the court of concluding appeal and information technology may rule in cases in which someone claims that a lower court ruling on a Federal police is unjust or in which someone claims there has been a violation of the United States Constitution, the nation's basic police force.

THE Courtroom SYSTEM

There are many federal courts in the system which has the Supreme Court equally its head. In addition, each country within the United States has established a system of courts, including a state supreme court, to bargain with ceremonious, criminal and appellate proceedings. There are besides canton and city courts. Even many of the smallest villages, those in which but a few hundred people live, have a local estimate, called a "justice of the peace," who handles minor legal matters. In that location 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., a person defendant of a crime is considered to exist innocent until he or she is proven guilty. The Constitution requires that whatsoever accused person must take 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 group of unbiased citizens, called a jury. A person who has been judged guilty must still be treated justly and fairly, as prescribed past law. A person treated unjustly or cheated by another or past a government official must have a place where he or she can win justice. That place, to an American, is a court.

Role OF THE CONSTITUTION

American business organisation for justice is written into the basic police of the state, 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 authorities of three branches. One of these is the judicial branch, and the Supreme Court of the U.s. is the most 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 equally master of state. The people who designed this authorities and wrote the Constitution distributed power among the three branches so that no one person or group of people in the government could exercise 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 associate justices are named by the president. This dominance represents bully power, considering the major effect court decisions have on the legal organization and on society in general. The writers of the Constitution tried to make certain, notwithstanding, 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 i can go a member of the court unless the upper house of Congress�the United States Senate� approves. The Senate does not approve an appointment until its members are satisfied that the candidate is qualified. Once canonical, a justice cannot be removed by either the president or the Congress without very good reason, nor can the salary of the justices exist reduced. The chief justice and associate justices, therefore, serve on the courtroom for life and demand not�and should not�take into consideration political problems or the opinions of officials in the other branches of government when making legal decisions.

WHAT THE Court DOES

The chief work of the Supreme Court is to make the terminal decision in legal cases in which a accuse of violation of the Constitution is made. The Constitution gives certain powers to each branch of the federal (national) government. It also gives certain powers to the governments of the states, creating a federal system in which power is divided between national and country authorities. Whenever a charge is fabricated that a person or bureau in whatever office of the federal or a state regime has broken the law, the Supreme Courtroom may eventually be asked to decide the example. When it does, the determination itself becomes police force.

Most cases�and some of the all-time-known� that come earlier the Supreme Courtroom 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 ten short paragraphs amended (added) to the United States Constitution in 1791. These kickoff 10 amendments brand upward "the Bill of Rights." They guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of organized religion, freedom of the printing and freedom to assemble in public and to inquire the regime

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

Elsewhere, the Constitution recognizes other rights. A very important one is the right to "due procedure." That ways that no one can be deprived of life, liberty or property unless all proper legal procedures accept been followed. Police, government officials and agencies and judges must be very careful not to omit or shorten these prescribed legal procedures in any case. No one person, grouping of persons or institution can be deprived of even the most minor legal right past the enactment of a law, past official activeness, past arrest, or in the course of a trial.

The importance to Americans of the Constitution, the law and the principles of equal justice is all-time understood through give-and-take of some cases that the Supreme Court has decided. While this word does not embrace all the types of cases that come before the court, it shows the variety of decisions the court makes.

CHILDREN AND SCHOOLS

Nigh schools in the Us beneath the college level are public schools, though in that location are some individual schools. Public schools are paid for by taxation money and free to those who attend them. Each country has its own public schools for the children who live in the state. Rules for operating the schools are fabricated by the land regime, past lower-level school districts or by city governments in the cities where the schools are located. The federal authorities usually has no right to decide how the schools should be run. That doesn't hateful, however, that schoolchildren do non have rights guaranteed past the federal Constitution. They take, equally the following examples illustrate:

� For many years, public schools in some states were segregated. Some were open simply to white children, while black children attended their own "dissever but equal" schools. Plessy v. Ferguson, a Supreme Court conclusion of 1896, accepted the justice of this system 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 wrong that his daughter could not attend a school near their home because the school was for white children merely. Instead, she had to walk much farther to a schoolhouse for black students. The father also believed the Constitution was being violated because he considered the education offered in the afar schoolhouse for black children to be inferior to that offered in the white school, and he took the instance to court. The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all, and says no country tin can offer privileges to some people without offering these privileges to others. In 1954, the Supreme Court was asked to make up one's mind whether the daughter's Constitutional rights were being violated because she was forced to attend a separate and�as claimed by her father�inferior school. In this example, Oliver Dark-brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the court ruled in favor of the girl'south father and several other individuals who joined the case and confronting the state educational system. Since that time, black children have 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 Key American countries who cross the border in guild to observe work in the Us. One result of this illegal border crossing is that many children who are not citizens of the U.s. alive in states such every bit Texas, New United mexican states and California, which border Mexico.

People who enter the U.s.a. legally and who intend to get citizens enjoy nearly all of the rights of American citizens. Officials of the land of Texas believed, however, since educating children in public schools is very expensive, the children of people who came there illegally didn't necessarily have the right to an teaching paid for by public tax money. In 1975, the lawmakers of Texas passed a law stating that children of illegal aliens could not nourish Texas public schools. Some people in Texas idea the police was unjust. They sued the state of Texas and the instance eventually reached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the police force 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 before the Supreme Court involve charges that the constabulary or a estimate has violated the rights of a person accused of a crime. It doesn't matter whether the person actually committed the criminal offence or non; the Supreme Court does not rule on the guilt or innocence of those accused, just merely on whether or non laws and legal procedures suit to the Constitution. The Court rules on whether the individual's correct to due procedure� the proper and right handling of a legal example�has been violated. If it has, the person must go free, possibly to stand trial again with due procedure guaranteed. Here are 2 major cases of this type:

�In 1961, a Florida man named Clarence Gideon was arrested by police every bit he stood near a pocket-sized store into which someone had broken earlier and stolen some beer. Gideon was arrested because another man said he saw the theft accept place. Gideon was non represented by a lawyer in court. He claimed he was innocent, and tried to deed as his own lawyer. The witness succeeded in convincing the jury that Gideon was guilty, and Gideon went to prison. Gideon read law books in the prison library and then wrote to the Supreme Court, saying he had been denied the right to be represented by a lawyer. The Court 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's fee. � In 1963, a man named Ernesto Miranda was arrested in the land of Arizona. Equally 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 police had not told him he could remain silent or that he had a right to exist represented by a lawyer. The Supreme Court agreed that Miranda's rights had been violated and his conviction was overturned. Always since, police have been required to inform arrested people that they do non accept to answer questions and that they have the right to exist represented by a lawyer.

PRESIDENTS

Even the most powerful official in the United States, the president, can have his actions declared illegal by the Supreme Courtroom. One of the best-known examples is a 1952 case involving President Harry Due south Truman. In 1952, armed services under the command of the Un, those of the United States among them, were fighting a war in Korea. Those forces depended on supplies from the U.s.a.. In early 1952, the wedlock to which steelworkers belonged announced a nationwide strike of the steel industry. As president, Truman was also supreme commander of the armed forces. In that chapters, he ordered the authorities to accept over the operation of all steel plants and then that the supply of steel for the war effort would not exist cut off. The Supreme Court ruled that he could not do this. Information technology stated that only Congress has war powers, and non the president. It said the president did not have the legal right to command whatever manufacture.

Organized religion, Voice communication AND Printing

American business for freedom of organized religion, press and speech is reflected in the hundreds of cases that accept come before the Supreme Court:

� A well-known Supreme Court example of the early 1960s involved a woman named Madalyn Murray, who believed that freedom of religion likewise meant the freedom not to accept a religion. Mrs. Murray felt it was wrong that in the urban center 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 land to be neutral in its relations with believers and nonbelievers. Thus, any religious exercises in public schools are unconstitutional.

The ruling in the Murray example was ane of many that take acquired great controversy. Religious people were offended that the courtroom had decided that a public school�run by a government�could not 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 mill in which military cloth for the government was manufactured. Thomas worked in a part of the mill which did not make military material. Ane day, he was transferred to a section producing military cloth, despite his claim that his religion forbade him to do anything involving the making of weapons. He was told he couldn't keep to work for the visitor if he refused to take the new chore. Thomas and then left his position and went to a land government office to claim unemployment payments, which are made to people who lose their jobs through no mistake of their own. He was told he couldn't receive the payments considering he had quit his chore for no proficient reason. The Supreme Court, in 1981, ruled that the government office was wrong. It could not force him to become back to work in violation of his religion and his conscience.

� In 1971, two major The states newspapers began publishing a history of American involvement in the state of war in Vietnam (in Southeast Asia). The history was in the form of a report prepared for loftier regime officials. It had been stolen from government files and given to the newspapers. The American government went to court to end the newspapers from publishing the report. The Supreme Court ruled, however, that because the Constitution guarantees liberty of the printing the government could not exercise this�and the newspapers continued to publish installments of the report.

ABORTIOX

In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that, nether a right to privacy, the Constitution guarantees women the right to have abortions�to end pregnancy by a surgical procedure within the get-go three months, and with some restrictions thereafter. Always since, people who believe that abortion means taking a human life accept 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 allow stand up some restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion. For case, in 1989, a Supreme Courtroom decision gave state legislatures some leeway in passing laws governing abortions within their borders.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Not everyone whose case goes earlier the Supreme Court is a winner. Losers have included prisoners who claimed they were treated unjustly considering they were locked upwards 2 to a cell built for one. The Supreme Court did not retrieve this "overcrowding" was "cruel and unusual punishment," which the Constitution prohibits.

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

It should besides exist noted that not all Americans are satisfied with all Supreme Court decisions. Many Americans believe that the court too often "takes the side of the criminals" in declaring proceedings invalid because an accused person'south rights have been violated. Others fence, yet, that protecting the innocent is the real intent of these rulings, and that it is better to have a few criminals go costless than to have i innocent person be jailed.

Not all cases are settled in the Supreme Court. Only a small percentage win the attention of the master justice and the associate justices. Many cases sent to the Supreme Court are studied by the justices and and so 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 often hear cases and make decisions that are extremely important to large groups of people. In recent years, for example, Native Americans�amend known as American Indians�have gone to courts to have land returned to them. The land may have been taken from them by white people a hundred or more years ago. In one instance argued in the 1980s, Indians in the state of Connecticut were awarded almost 400 hectares of land that had been taken from their people in the 1700s. In the 1980s, the land was endemic past the people who lived on it, just the federal government awarded the Indians coin to purchase back the land and to open their ain businesses on information technology.

Crime AND DRUGS

Why is such an extensive system of courts necessary? Despite the respect of almost Americans for law and the determination of the legal organisation to protect the rights of individuals, the Us, like all other countries, does experience criminal offence. Specially in large cities, the crime charge per unit tin be high.

A loftier per centum of criminal offence in the United states is directly related to the illegal auction and use of drugs. Drugs are smuggled into the country by organized groups of criminals despite intense efforts by the regime to stop the illegal drug merchandise. Those who become addicted to drug employ sometimes rob or break into houses or stores to get money to pay for the drugs.

Drug abuse has caused bang-up business in the United States. The federal authorities has worked hard to stop the growing of opium poppies, of coca plants and of cannabis (source of marijuana and hashish) in other nations. It has also set up special agencies, sometimes working with agencies from other nations, to catch the smugglers outside and inside the United states. Teachers and many other citizens work together to teach children about the dangers of drug use. Many government agencies in the states and private citizen groups piece of work to help drug addicts surrender their drug use and plough to useful lives.

COPING WITH Crime

Concern about criminal offense has also led to special government programs and special programs of private denizen groups to stop crime and to help prisoners atomic number 82 useful lives afterwards their prison sentences end.

In one plan, young people are brought into the prisons to talk with prisoners. The idea is that prisoners can practice more than whatsoever other people to terminate young people from turning to crime. The experience of being inside a prison also might have a crime-deterrent effect on the young people.

In some programs, prisoners learn a useful trade so they won't render to crime when they are released. Regime programs also encourage individual businesses to give immature people from poor families jobs so they will be able to earn money legally and volition not feel that criminal activity is their but means of getting what they need.

Almost states have prepare funds to help

victims of crimes. This government money, taken from taxes, might assist to pay doctor or hospital bills if the victim was injured, or to supplant certain types of stolen goods, or to brand up for wages lost every bit a result of having to appear in court to testify against an accused person rather than beingness at work.

Like travelers in foreign countries everywhere, visitors to the United States frequently worry about the crime charge per unit. A visitor might wonder, "Only how safe will I be?" An American might reply, "I wouldn't worry almost that if I were you. Here, as elsewhere, you should be 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 non spend their time worrying about crime. They motility freely and alive their lives aware that, worldwide, wherever at that place are many people there is criminal offence, and that past exercising some caution they will probably not accept difficulty.

Another fact that an American might bespeak out to a person planning to visit the United States is that at that place is much less criminal offence in some places than in others. Crime rates differ from urban center to city. Inside cities, criminal offense rates vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. A visitor to almost any large urban center merely has to ask someone if a particular expanse is prophylactic to visit. One study, published in 1985, compared the amount of crime in cities of all sizes effectually the U.s.a.. Its conclusion: "Some places are so safe you couldn't pay someone to assault you, while others are only plain dangerous."

Nearly Americans would also probably indicate out that the rules for safety in the United States are likewise rules that ane should follow anywhere one travels.

In no country, regardless of its political or economic system, has the problem of criminal offence been solved, though the American people and their government continue to search for ways to create a safe and more but club. One matter is certain. Whatever is done to endeavor to decrease criminal activity, it will be washed 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 nearly of import to the American people: "Equal Justice Under Police force."

Suggestions for Farther Reading

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

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

Garraty, John A., ed.

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

Germann, A.C., F.D. Day, and R.R.J. Gallati. Introduction to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas, 1985.

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

Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980

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Date: 2015-02-28; view: 9191

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