Upper Class Boys example essay topic
This movie definitely portrays the idea of upper class defeating the legal system more frequently. Because Richard's father is the Governor of the town, he can afford a highly prestigious lawyer that will get him off for any sort of crime he may pull. Being rich is a great advantage to these boys because they aren't even looked at as suspects at first. The first suspect is a lower class male that sells drugs to the boys. This man, Ray, has lots of evidence leading to him, and isn't thought twice about considering his social status. Even though there was certain evidence that was not linked to Ray, he was considered guilty until a cop looked a little deeper and found a small link to the boys.
And even when a larger link was found to the boys, it still took lots of convincing to reopen the case and look at someone other than the lower class man, Ray. This movie emphasizes the fact that lower class people are automatically linked in the legal system because of their unfortunate statuses. Ray is an older man with nothing but the selling of drugs supporting him, while the boys are young and vibrant people with their whole lives ahead of them. Why would they want to give up all they have? These boys have so many materialistic items that they become bored with their lives.
They have no chores, no job, absolutely no responsibilities and school is too easy for them, so why not make the entertainment themselves. I think this movie represents the stereotype that lower class people are more inclined to commit a crime. In this movie it seemed that because Ray's social status was very low and he had nothing going for him that he would have more will to commit a murder. It's as if he had no morals simply because he lived a poor life, therefore making him the prime suspect. If this cop Cassie had not pursued the case further, Ray would have been convicted and sent to prison if not death row, letting the boys get away with everything. Crime in the United States is focused around the lower class and is rarely heard amongst the upper class.
People in the upper class, of course, commit crimes but are hardly ever caught simply because of their social status. They have money, position, and lots of connections on order to drive the attention away from themselves. Because Cassie pursues the case further, the boys are caught. Richard makes a run for it and ends up getting killed. In the process he shoots at Cassie and Justin jumps in front of it, saving Cassie. At first she tells him that she will take care of him until she notices something new about Justin, finding out that he was the actual killer, Richard just helped.
She then tells him he better get a lawyer and he pleads with her saying that Richard made him do it and it was all a joke, and that they were bored. Justin gets convicted and goes to jail. I think that the boys would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for the detective Cassie. The entire police department was content with convicting Ray, which would have let the real murderers free.
This movie sends the idea that in our legal system the whole idea is efficiency, not accuracy. The police took evidence, found a suspect, and was in no time on another case. They completely over looked the fact that these upper class boys had nothing to do with their time other than to plan a murder. It could very well be possible that this happens a lot in our societies.
More focus is put on the lower class that at times are less capable to even commit the crime due to certain means they don't have. I certainly believe that more emphasis should be put on the evidence and crime itself rather than automatically assuming due to one's social status.