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Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system
Influence of culture on beliefs, values, and behaviors
Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system
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An Investigation into the Effects of Race on the Perception of Guilt
Abstract
The aim is the see whether people are more likely to find a black man
guilty of a crime. Having found both a black man and a white man of
middle attractiveness out of a choice of 10 photos picked from
magazines, subjects were read a short account of a crime and rated the
guilt of the offender on a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 being not guilty).
I used subjects aged between 11 and 18, all were Caucasian and
attended Sevenoaks School. I used 75 subjects in total. They were
shown either the picture of the black man, the picture of the white
man or no picture as a control. The results showed that the black man
was perceived to be more guilty than the white man. The average guilt
rating of the white man was 5.2 and for the black man was 6.98. Using
the Mann-Whitney U test, this data was shown to be significant at the
5% level. This illustrates that certain racial stereotypes still exist
in society but perhaps on a subconscious level.
Introduction
============
Theory
In 1954 Bruner and Tagiuri theorised that our perceptions of others
are not based on reality but on our general expectations. Everyone has
ideas about which personality traits are consistent with other
personality or physical traits. This theory is Implicit Personality
Theory (IPT), this is an "unconscious inference process that enables
us to form impressions of people based on very little evidence." IPTs
are shared by everyone in a culture and govern their behaviour at an
unconscious level. IPT can be demonstrated using experimental
techniques and manifests itself in many ways, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ysical traits are associated with personality
traits. There seems to be evidence to suggest that racial stereotypes
exist, associating blacks which committing crimes as Katz and Braly
discovered back in 1933. Some 70 years on, despite all human rights
progress, racism exists. My study reinforces the investigation by the
Howard League, which states that the British League system is biased
against blacks. This creates issues when considering the validity of
trial by jury. A majority white jury is more likely to convict a black
man of a crime than they would a white man if they were tried for the
same crime. These are rather sweeping statements to make on limited
information. To draw such strong conclusions is impossible but my
investigation, when added to others, casts enough of a shadow to
warrant further investigation.
ii. If you were white you had an advantage. You could easily steal, kill, or hurt an individual and blame on the other race. The writer explains at the end of the article, Joaquín Murieta, was innocent of his crimes. They tied him up on tree and embarrassed him in front of the public which included lashing him for stealing the horse. They killed his brother, friend, wife, and punish him for stealing horse that was his friends. Whites did not have consequences for their action whether they were right or wrong. They were above the law which included killing, hurting, and stealing from anyone that wasn 't
Winthrop D. Jordan author of White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812, expresses two main arguments in explaining why Slavery became an institution. He also focuses attention on the initial discovery of Africans by English. How theories on why Africans had darker complexions and on the peculiarly savage behavior they exhibited. Through out the first two chapters Jordan supports his opinions, with both facts and assumptions. Jordan goes to great length in explaining how the English and early colonialist over centuries stripped the humanity from a people in order to enslave them and justify their actions in doing so. His focus is heavily on attitudes and how those positions worked to create the slave society established in this country.
According to Blumer (1958) there are numerous key factors that contribute to racial prejudice. First, when Blumer is explaining racial prejudice it is tremendously important to note that when defining racial prejudice he is not looking at an individual‘s feelings in particular, he is analyzing racial prejudice within a group. He states that there is an important relationship that needs to occur between various racial groups in order to have prejudice. The individuals within these racial groups need to identify themselves within a particular group, as well as understand where they stand with another racial group.
In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander states that we still use our criminal justice system to “label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage i...
“New Century Foundation to Release Interracial Crime Report.” 1999. n. pag. Online. AT&T Worldnet. Internet. 30 Nov 2000. Available: www.amren.com/colorpr.htm
to read, write and work alongside white and black men, he accomplished what an average white
The author omits critical information about many factors, which could explain the higher rate of severe sentences for African Americans than White Americans other than racial injustice. The article, “Possibility of Death Sentence Has Divergent Effect on Verdicts for Black and White Defendants” by Jack Glaser, et al. provides an excellent analysis of the racial disparities that Cholbi mentions. Glaser provides clear evidence of how factors such as sentence severity and jury selection can influence sentencing. The authors also discuss how African Americans are though of when discussing crime and how African Americans are considered like apes. However the article discusses how these assumptions comply with African-American behavior; “There is also evidence that in the context of criminality, there is a relatively strong association between Black men and apes. It follows that insofar as Black people may be viewed as being less worthy of humane (or even human) treatment, concerns over punishment severity (even death) would be less consequential” (Glaser et al. 541). The authors stimulate an experiment through mock jurors and found no concrete evidence to suggest banning capital punishment due to racial discrimination. Therefore Glaser et al. does a superior argument when compared to
Statistical accounts show consistent accord in that African Americans are disproportionately arrested over whites. What is much less lucid, however, is the real reason for this disparity. Both criminologists and political scientists alike have expounded remarkably polarized explanations for this phenomenon. Exemplary of this are two arguments as developed as they are diametrically opposed, that of William Wilbanks and that of Samuel Walker, Cassia Spohn and Miriam DeLone.
By the slave code, they are adjudged to be as incompetent to testify against a white man, as...
Walsh, James, and Dan Browning. "Presumed Guilty Until Proved Innocent." Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN). 23 Jul 2000: A1+. SIRS Issues Researcher.
Although the United States system is based on the connotation of innocent until proven guilty and justice being blind to things such as race, ethnicity or social class (Kornblum & Julian), evidence proves otherwise. Racially discriminatory sentencing in non-capital cases demonstrated that young, black and Latino males receive a much harsher sentence, especially if unemployed compared to white offenders. The race of the victim also dictates the sentence. If the victim is white, than the black offender is much more likely to receive a harsher sentence than blacks who commit crimes against blacks. If the murdered victim is white, the offender has higher probabilities of receiving the death penalty (The Sentencing Project). Race is an indisputable factor in the sentencing process and teaches that black lives are not as important as those of
from the victim and the scene of the crime be tested and his appeals were denied ("A.B. Butler").
Racism within the Justice System. Living in the twenty first century, Americans would like to believe that they are living in the land of the free, where anyone and everyone can live an ordinary life without worrying that they will be arrested on the spot for doing absolutely nothing. The sad truth, with the evidence to prove it, is that this American Dream is not all that it appears to be. It has been corrupted and continues to be, everyday, by the racism that is in the criminal justice system of America. Racism has perpetuated the corruption of the criminal justice system from the initial stop, the sentencing in court, all the way to the life of an inmate in the prison.
“ ….Judgments, right or wrong. This concern with concepts such as finality, jurisdiction, and the balance of powers may sound technical, lawyerly, and highly abstract. But so is the criminal justice system….Law must provide simple answers: innocence or guilt, freedom or imprisonment, life or death.” (Baude, 21).
“African-American males are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white males and 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic males. In 2013, almost 3 percent of black males were imprisoned compared to 0.5 percent of white males. America’s prisons and jails cost more than $80 billion annually – about equivalent to the budget of the federal Department of Education” (Eisen, 2015). After hearing McCleskey v. Kemp trial, the court is informed about the defendant’s background and criminal history; mitigating factors affecting culpability brought to the attention of the