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Peurpose and history of criminal justice
Peurpose and history of criminal justice
Peurpose and history of criminal justice
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Introduction Criminal justice and security is one of the largest industries in
the United States. Such a statistic is (and rightly so) of great concern to
Afro-Americans because a disproportionate percentage of individuals under the
control of the US Criminal Justice System are from the Black community. This
paper will look at the alarming statistics and attempt to trace the roots of the
disparity. It will then consider the affects and explore possible solutions to
the expanding problem.
The Imprisoned Black Youth Black communities throughout the U.S. are witnessing
the institutionalization of their youth. Of course institutionalization is
nothing new to Afro-Americans, it is something Blacks have faced since their
existence in this country. In the beginning Blacks were forced into the
institution of slavery. After the abolition of slavery Blacks faced
institutional racism, that is, racism legitimated by the whole of society
directed against the few of society. As a facet of that institutional racism
Blacks are now forced to persevere the increasing trend of control by the US
Criminal Justice System. Control by the USCJS includes the probation, parole,
imprisonment, and death of Blacks. A study conducted by the Sentencing Project
in 1989 found tat more than one-fourth of all Blacks between the age of 20 and
29 are under the control of the USCJS . This alarming figure becomes more so
when you consider their are more Blacks in prison in this age group than their
are all Blacks in college . This clearly reveals what is meant by the
institutionalization of our Black youth. Black communities are being legally
robbed of their youth by a system that locks up those who pose a threat to the
status quo of institutional racism. The consequences of this are detrimental
indeed. The children are the future, but what future does a community have whose
children are all locked up. By virtue of robbing the Black community of their
youth, the USCJS robs Black communities of their future leaders and role models .
With such a condition at hand entire communities are lost and the ills of the
urban ghettos are augmented. To help explain why Blacks are being locked up, and
what part of imprisonment plays in institutional racism it would be helpful to
first look at the roots of institutional racism.
Institutional Racism And It's Roots Institutional racism was a term first coined
by Stokley Carmichael in his book Black Power. Concerning racism, Carmichael and
co-author Charles V. Hamilton made the following observation:
Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms, individual
Whites acting against individual Blacks, and acts by the total of White
There are more black Americans who are under correctional control, on parole or probation and in jail or in prison than they were enslaved in the 19th century. Now there ...
In 1999, black men are much more likely to be stopped and searched by six percent than Asian and White men. The Macpherson inquiry report generated institutional racism after the death of a young black man named Stephen Lawrence. There are disproportionately large number of crimes committed by young black men, according to police records that leads to inequalities (Parliament u.k., n.d.). In the light of, policy makers tried their best to ameliorate the racism problem and to prosecute racist offenders (Phillips, 2007). However, the implications of institutional racism affect black men and remains prevalent up to these days based on statistic records.
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.
CQ Researcher published the article. They are an authority with where they stand in the world; meaning they are very informational and helpful. It is scholarly reviewed. By comparing it to my other sources, this source has more information and helps a lot more than the rest of my sources. The article is objective and informational. The goal of this article is to inform people on the statistics and how we can help lower the numbers.
Nationwide, blacks are incarcerated at 8.2 times the rate of whites (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” This difference in proportionality does not necessarily involve direct discrimination; it can be explained by a number of combined factors. Correctional agencies do not control the number of minorities who enter their facilities. Therefore, the disparity must come from decisions made earlier in the criminal justice process. Law enforcement, court pre-sentencing policies and procedures, and sentencing all have a direct effect on the overrepresentation of minorities in the correctional population.
This news article addresses the issue of the mass amount of kids in jail and who is most likely to be in jail. In this article, the author uses many key statistics of the amount of colored kids and teens in jail. In the beginning, the article starts with the amount of kids in jail then proceeds to tell us the percentage of colored kids versus the percentage of non colored kids in jail. Next, it focuses on the amount and increase of people that have been incarcerated just in the past few years and why they have most likely been sentenced. Lastly, the author then states what actions have been taken to stop this and mentions the committees that have formed to help those who have been targeted by this issue. The intended audience is parents who
Racism (n): the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other race (Wordnet search, 1), a controversial topic in today’s society, a subject that many people try to sweep under the rug, but yet a detrimental problem that has been present in America since the colonial era. Will this dilemma come to a halt? Can all Americans see each other as equals despite their skin color and nationality; and what role has it played in past generations versus today’s generations and how will it affect our future? Has this on going way of thinking gotten better or worse? These are questions raised when many think about the subject; especially members of American ethnic groups and backgrounds, because most have dealt with racial discrimination in their life time.
“The United States has only five percent of the world’s population, it holds one quarter of
In theory if this trend continues it is estimated that about 1 in 3 black males being born can be expected to spend time in prison and some point in his life. One in nine African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. Although the rate of imprisonment for women is considerably lower than males African American women are incarc... ... middle of paper ... ... King, R., and Mauer, M., (2007).
Another reason racialized mass incarceration takes place is because of the high rates of poverty and unemployment for inner city African Americans, especially those with low-education and low skill levels. Urban ghettos have been associated with the problem of social disorganization and crime. The biggest reason for this is the war on drugs. There is no substantial proof that verifies African Americans are more involved in illegal drug consumptions than other groups are. However they are arrested more than other groups. Bobo and Thompson stated that blacks are almost 34% involved in drug-related arrests though only 14% of those are among regular illegal drug users. Among drug related convictions, African Americans make up half of the cases whereas only 26% of the white population is convicted. As Bobo and Thompson stated, “Illegal drug consumption seems to know no race. Incarceration for drug-related charges, however, is something visited in a heavily biased manner on African Americans.”
There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1
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.
It is normal to believe that the United States has, first and foremost, the idea of the essential dignity of individual human beings, the equality of all men, and certain inalienable rights to freedom. What keeps a majority of people skeptical is the oppression and biased conclusions that have been observed in the criminal justice system the last few years. The Sentencing Project, a non-profit organization that is criminal justice oriented, published a report named “Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers” which contains enough statistics to consider the decisions taken by the criminal justice system as suspicious or questionable. “Minorities charged with felonies were more likely to be detained than whites,” the report stated, creating an evident discrepancy between the unbalanced equations of equal justice (para #5). To support this idea, the report mentions, “A black male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life, a Hispanic male has a 17% chance, and a white male has a 6% chance.” The entanglement between the judicial decision and the ethnicity or skin color is becoming not an assumption but a reality. Last but not least, it states that DNA testing indicates that a 63% of African American people are exonerated, meaning that
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, it is projected that one in every three African Americans born are expected to go to prison. The consequences for black men have radiated out to their families. By 2000, more than 1 million black children had a father in jail or prison"(Coates pg.2). Men going to prison at such high rates has left many women to fend for themselves.
The world has lived through generations of racism and racial profiling. After the days of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Civil Rights Movement, the American people thought they had passed the days of hatred and discrimination. Although Americans think that they live in a non-racist society, minorities today still live in the chains of oppression and prejudice through sports, schools, and social media.