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Racial inequality in the judicial system and incarceration
Racial inequalities in the criminal justice system
Racial inequalities in the criminal justice system
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The third way to reduce criminality and delinquency amongst the black youth is to educate them about the system itself. When our youth do not understand their rights within the system, it is so easy to have them sucked up into the criminal justice system and a statistic. African Americans have been wrongly convicted of crimes since slavery. It got even worse after slavery, during the reconstruction years. Many African Americans were lynched for crimes that they did not commit. Today, there are many innocent African American men who are behind bars for crimes that had nothing to do with them. Racially disparate treatment has permeated the United States criminal justice system throughout history. During the Jim Crow era, trials consisted of racial
Juvenile delinquency is a problem these days, despite a recent drop in arrests. Roughly 2.5 million juveniles are arrested every year for different crimes in America. About 100,000 of those are violent crimes, however those statistics are slightly inaccurate since only half of juvenile crimes are reported (Juvenile Justice Basic Statistics, 2011). Creating interventions to assist at-risk youth means preventing them from starting on a path to crime is a priority. Juvenile justice system researchers and professionals must gain a better understanding of the contributing elements that cause delinquent behavior.
In many nation states, it is noticed that there is a disproportionate number of black people especially those youngsters going through the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation is illustrated by related data released by the U.S. Department of Justice and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. In America, almost 3500 per 100,000 residents of the black male were sent to jail in 2013 which was over seven times more than the ratio their white counterpart had and in England and Wales, 8.5% of young black people aged between 10-17 were arrested during the same period .This essay aims to explore the reasons behind the ethnic overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and believes that the higher rate of offending for some race groups and the existence of systematic racist which partially stems from the contemporary media distortion are attributive to the overrepresentation.
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
Unfortnalety, insititulaized racism in these underprivileged communites can channel individuals of color into criminal activities. The effects of slavery still linger on, constructing systematic barriers that continue to plague many individuals of color. One cannot be punished harshly if one is seemingly a product of their environment. The final alternative is prison abolition. This measure is extremely straightforward; the idea is that mass incarceration is similar to slavery because it is an unjust and racist system. Abolitionist wish to end the prisons entirely, and instead, construct prison-industrial complex. Ultimately, this has to be my least favorite alternative because it automatically assumes that every individual in the prison system a person of color. In addition, I believe that individuals who commit severe crimes such as murder and rape should be placed under some sort of prison establishment. Overall, I really despise the present prison infrastructure. I hope that in the future, individuals will become enlightened about the issues of mass incarceration and continue to develop methods that can alleviate the high numbers of imprisoned
Studies and anecdotes have shown that our modern approach, however, is ill-equipped to reduce crime or deal with chronic delinquents while at the same time protecting their due liberties. We now stand on the precipice of decision: How can we strike an appropriate balance in the juvenile justice system? Should we even retain a separate system for children at all? The answers are usually difficult, sometimes subtle, but always possible to attain.
In the wake of President Obama’s election, the United States seems to be progressing towards a post-racial society. However, the rates of mass incarceration of black males in America deem this to be otherwise. Understanding mass incarceration as a modern racial caste system will reveal the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy America. The history of social control in the United States dates back to the first racial caste systems: slavery and the Jim Crow Laws. Although these caste systems were outlawed by the 13th amendment and Civil Rights Act respectively, they are given new life and tailored to the needs of the time.In other words, racial caste in America has not ended but has merely been redesigned in the shape of mass incarceration. Once again, the fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system show evidence of a new racial caste system at work. The structure of the criminal justice system brings a disproportionate number of young black males into prisons, relegating them to a permanent second-class status, and ensuring there chances of freedom are slim. Even when minorities are released from prisons, they are discriminated against and most usually end up back in prisons . The role of race in criminal justice system is set up to discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of minority men. From stopping, searching, and arresting, to plea bargaining and sentencing it is apparent that in every phases of the criminal justice system race plays a huge factor. Race and structure of Criminal Justice System, also, inhibit the integration of ex offenders into society and instead of freedom, relea...
Juvenile Delinquency is a complicated subject because researchers and scholars have tried different methods to reduce it. Research shows that the methods which have had better results are those that are implemented in a way where the family of the juveniles gets involved in the process (Laub, 2014). A policy that will be advocated is the policy in the city of Santa Ana, CA: The Santa Ana Police Athletic and Academic League (SAPAAL). If we want to reduce delinquency and crime then we should focus on prevention rather than intervention. There is not one theory that explains why people commit crime, on the contrary, there are multiple well-known theories that argue for different explanations of delinquency. As learned through lectures
In my opinion, the application of the early intervention theory will have the best chance of helping the United States break free of the harm that the current criminal justice is doing to our society. The early intervention approach primarily focuses on saving the children. This theory concentrates on the child and the juvenile. “Early intervention involves placing children at risk for criminal future into programs early in life, so as to prevent them from developing into a juvenile or adult criminal.” (Kubrin & Stucky, 2013, p. 276). As discussed with criminology classmates, “younger children are more malleable than adults, so it is easier to correct their behavior than it is to correct the behavior of an adult person”. (Classmates group discussion,
By taking a look at the political and economic effects that aided the mass incarceration in the United Sates in the late 1990s. Stating the downfall of jobs and the new appointed laws that carry longer sentences for drug offenders were main factors. Giving light that all are effect by these new factors but Male minorities, with low-status, and poor education are more likely to end up in jail then their counterpart. This article helps tie in all factors for why “The Jim Crow Laws” still exist today, just renamed and not subjected to one race. Both Bruce Western and Christopher Wildeman concluded that incarceration is a cycle that affects not only the person in prison but their families as
Many inequalities exist within the justice system that need to be brought to light and addressed. Statistics show that African American men are arrested more often than females and people of other races. There are some measures that can and need to be taken to reduce the racial disparity in the justice system.
For the past two decades, the criminal justice system in the United States has been undergoing a tremendous expansion. There are now more than one million black men in jail and that one out of every four black males will go on prison in there lifetime. Knowing these statistics it put a burden on the black community because many families are left with single family home, the unemployment rate for black male go up, they can not vote and now they make jail seem like it is fun to go to.
In conclusion, I have covered the three major points of John Black and his success story with the juvenile justice system, the future of juvenile justice system and the international efforts being made in regards to juvenile justice. Juvenile delinquent will continue to be the problem of the society. Predictably it may become worse with our current situations. After everything that I have learned from this course, I strongly believe that proper parenting is the key to solve this problem; proper parenting should never be neglected because it is a first line of defense when it comes to the efforts of preventing juvenile delinquent.
I started to realize that there was a lot that I didn’t know about juvenile justice or law. For example, there are at least 336 youth out of every 100,000 confined in the United States every year under the juvenile justice system (jjie.org. n.d.). Now this information is good when it comes to trying to rebuild the juvenile justice system or create your own system. It gives you some actual numbers that you can use to determine the proper direction to go when it comes to try to build a system that will stop juvenile from returning to the court or juvenile prisons. Unfortunately, there is one other place in the world other than the United States that has a high rate of juveniles going to prison which is South Africa but their rate is only 69 out of every 100,000 youth (jjie.org. n.d.). However, South Africa does not truly have the resource to deal with their juvenile in the way the United States does. Therefore, there are ways we can make this number smaller but we would have to look at some of the main problems of our juvenile and the high cost of confining our juvenile. If we look at these things we can stop building prison and start to place that money into programs to help our juvenile as well as reduce the recidivism rate. Furthermore, the programs have to be based totally on reducing the recidivism rate as well as teaching them how to control themselves when they are about to find themselves getting
The truth about crime prevention is more complicated –less utopian than some liberals would like, but far more promising than conservatives will admit. Prevention can work and that it can be far less costly, in every sense, than continuing to rely on incarceration as out first defense against violent crimes. Instead of simply insisting that prevention is better than incarceration, then, we need to pinpoint more clearly what kinds of prevention work—and why some programs work and others do not, the most encouraging efforts share important characteristics; there are reasons why they work, whether the ‘target’ population is abusive families, vulnerable teens, or serious juvenile offenders who’ve already broken the law. Likewise, there are reasons why other programs fail, no matter how fashionable or popular they may be. Given what we’ve learned about crime prevention in recent years, four priorities seem especially critical: preventing child abuse and neglect, enhancing children’s intellectual and social development, providing support and guidance to vulnerable adolescents and working intensively with juvenile offenders. These aren’t the preventive strategies that can make a difference, but they are the ones that offer the strongest evidence of effectiveness. And they also fit our growing understanding of the roots delinquency and violent crime.
... even willing to die for money, so in order to truly address this juvenile delinquency problem we cannot just address the surface level social issues,but must also, and perhaps more importantly, focus on the economic foundation that motivates juveniles to continue a path of crime. Economic problems are the only factors that contribute to social issues, but the resources being wasted on these corrections facilities and other ineffective socially addressing programs should be better spent on improving the economic situation of communities. About one-quarter of juveniles who offended at ages 16-17 also offended as adults at ages 18-19, therefore the growing urgency and importance to address juvenile justice is undeniable, because by addressing juvenile delinquency you are addressing crime in general (“Child Maltreatment & Juvenile Delinquency: Facts and Figures").