¶ … judicial reform is based on the idea that a total or partial political reformation of the judiciary can be performed as a stage in a much grander reform concept that includes both the legal and the executive branches of government. When judicial reform is effected, the aim is to end corruption in the judicial system -- whether the issue is bribery or cronyism or any other form of corruption. Prison control, such as the concept of the Panopticon is about instilling social values in the prisoners by giving them the sense that they are always being observed and therefore should act accordingly. While this concept does not necessarily gel with the concept of reform, as in the idea to reform prison conditions so that prisoners are more comfortable and so that the penal system (like the judicial system) is cleansed of corruption, it does offer a kind of reformation strategy via the concept of social engineering.
The impact of Ruiz v. Estelle on a Texas penitentiary actually helped to escalate violence between inmates and guards. It was a sweeping case of reform that ushered in a new type of control within the prison which had a very negative affect on a Texas penitentiary. The court case prompted prison officials to introduce a much sympathetic view towards prison inmates and it was meant to end issues such as overcrowding and prisoner maltreatment. Yet, the relaxation of controls did not help prisons...
Essentially, the prison community in Texas was made up of diverse ethnicities and races and this mixture was not properly assessed in the wake of the reforms prompted by this case.
Judicial intervention can occur when an attorney files a request for judicial intervention and asks that a judge intervene on a specific case. However, another kind of judicial intervention can happen. This other kind can be such as when judicial intervention occurs in the lawmaking process: in this case, it is a circumstance when a judge assesses that a specific problem or problems are negatively impacting a community or society as a whole and judge sees the need to insert himself into the lawmaking process so as to better guide it towards the good that he sees. This sort of judicial intervention, however, is rare and is criticized because it is commonly held that judges should stick to the judicial sphere and lawmakers should stick to their sphere and that there should not be mixing between the two.
The lessons of the past should teach us that judicial reform and prison control should be careful to consider all angles and environments of a prison. Cases should take care to look at the big…
