“One in three black males and one in six Latino males are imprisoned during their lifetime while only one in seventeen white males are incarcerated” (Bonczar, T., 2003). Furthermore, of the U.S. population African Americans make up 12.9 percent, Hispanics 15.8 percent, and non-Hispanic whites 65.1 percent while the percentage of jail and prison inmates, African Americans make up 39.4 percent, Hispanics 20.7 percent, and non-Hispanics whites were only 34.4 percent of the jail and prison population (Walker, Spohn, & Delone, 2012, p. 283). Some believe there is racial discrimination involved in the sentencing process; others believe it is disparity due to other factors such as prior criminal history. This paper will uncover possible reasons for this disparity and discuss ways to decrease any discrimination that may be contributing.
The first explanation for this variation could be from the fact that African Americans and Hispanics commit more serious crimes and have more serious prior criminal records than whites. In a study by King, Johnson, and McGeever, the likelihood of a jail sentence was higher for men with prior convictions, those found guilty at trial, and those who committed more serious crimes (King et al, 2010, p. 19).
Second, it could be tied to indirect economic discrimination as indigent people usually use a public defender as they cannot afford to hire a private attorney. Usually those who do not have the money to employ a private attorney end up being detained prior to trial and fair off worse in the sentencing phase as compared to those that were released prior to trial. (Walker et al, 2012, p. 285).
A third rationalization might be from the application of neutral laws and policies that result in racially...
... middle of paper ...
...ounsel representation as they do not have time to prepare their case to do the best they can for their client.
We all know that the criminal justice system is not perfect and will never be so, but we need to always strive to look for improvements to give everybody an unbiased and honest hearing as best as we can. I do not believe we will ever reach a point that there is no discrimination in our world but we must never give up to bring it to the least amount it can possibly be. Nobody is perfect and if you engage in activity that puts you in the legal system, we should strive to give everyone equal treatment with bail, counsel and in sentencing. There is no room to treat others of different racial backgrounds differently, we need to have our criminal justice system as unbiased as it can be and maybe that will benefit our world outside the criminal justice system.
There have been different outcomes for different racial and gender groups in sentencing and convicting criminals in the United States criminal justice system. Experts have debated the relative importance of different factors that have led to many of these inequalities. Minority defendants are charged with ...
criminal justice system. If the current trends persist, one out of every three African American men can expect to go to prison over the course of his life, as can one out of every six Latino males, compared to only one in seventeen white males (Bonczar 2003). For females, the figures are significantly lower, but racial and ethnic disparities are very similar. For instance, one out of every eighteen African American females can expect to go to prison, as can one out of every 45 Latino females, and one out of every one-hundred and eleven white females (Bonczar 2003). The racial disparities in imprisonment have been felt the most by young African American males (Western and Pettit 2010). Males are a significant majority of the prison and jail populations, accounting for around ninety percent of the population (Western and Pettit 2010). Racial disparities in incarceration are astounding when one counts the men who have been incarcerated in their lifetime rather than those serving time on any given day (Western and Pettit 2002). For instance, in 1989, approximately two percent of white men in their early thirties had been in prison compared to thirteen percent of African American men in their early thirties (Western and Pettit 2002). These extreme racial disparities disproportionately affect communities of color and have significant collateral effects such as family stress and dissolution,
...system that has existed in the United States or anywhere else in the world” (Alexander 234). W.E.B. Dubois argued that “The burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs” (Alexander 217). Our nation must address this burden and correct that racial injustices created by our so-called criminal justice system. The criminal justice system cannot continue to hide behind the front of being a colorblind system - racial inequality and injustice must be challenged.
Throughout the semester, we have discussed many different issues that are currently prevalent in the United States, specifically those related to racial discrimination. One specific issue that I have developed interest and research in is that of institutionalized racism, specifically in the form of mass incarceration, and what kinds of effects mass incarceration has on a community. In this paper, I will briefly examine a range of issues surrounding the mass incarceration of black and Latino males, the development of a racial undercaste because of rising incarceration rates, women and children’s involvement and roles they attain in the era of mass incarceration, and the economic importance that the prison system has due to its development.
Kansal, T. (2005). In M. Mauer (Ed.), Racial disparity in sentencing: A review of the literature. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project. Retrieved April 12, 2005, from The Sentenceing Project Web site: http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/disparity.pdf
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
If given this prompt at the beginning of this semester I would have answered with a resounding yes, the criminal justice system is racist. The classes I have previously taken at LSU forced me to view the criminal justice system as a failed institution and Eric Holder’s interview in VICE - Fixing The System solidified that ideology. The system is man-made, created by people in power, and imposed on society, so of course there will be implicit biases. The issue is that these internally held implicit biases shaped the system, leading the racial and class disparities. VICE – Fixing The System addressed heavily the outcomes that we see in today’s society based on these implicit biases. Additionally, this documentary focuses on the ways that mainly
Race and Ethnicity on Sentence Outcomes Under Different Sentencing Systems. Crime & Delinquency, 59(1), 87-114.
Sampson, Robert J. and Janet L. Lauritsen. 1997. "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States." Crime and Justice 21:311-74. doi: 10.2307/1147634.
While this journal shed some light on the racial disparity in the actual conviction process, the method used to gather the information for this journal only used three data sources. It gave factual statistics, but I would agree with the authors hypothesis that race/ethnicity could not be fully explained by controlling for an offender’s prior record, age, or gender.
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.
You might find yourself reading the topic of this paper and automatically shaking your head in disagreement. After all, this is the 20th century and the Jim Crow Laws are a thing of the past. These laws are something that we read about in our History books. Racial segregation and discrimination is all but a thing of the past. Right?.....................Wrong! The facts and statistics (which I will document below) are overwhelming and the crux of the matter is that racial disparities and bias are indeed found within our criminal justice system today even in the year 2014. The truth is that our U.S. criminal justice system is a very racist system.
In the United States, the rate of incarceration has increased shockingly over the past few years. In 2008, it was said that one in 100 U.S. adults were behind bars, meaning more than 2.3 million people. Even more surprising than this high rate is the fact that African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated, especially low-income and lowly educated blacks. This is racialized mass incarceration. There are a few reasons why racialized mass incarceration occurs and how it negatively affects poor black communities.
Discrimination against the minority population is a major problem in the United States society’s justice system. There are many examples where African American and low-income minorities are treated differently and not given the chance to prove their innocence. The law enforcement promises to treat all men or women equal opportunity, but the same system has put 120,000 innocent African Americans in prison. While most of them still remain in prisons, injustice by law enforcements is still a burden to the minorities in America. Moreover, wrongful conviction is a horrible injustice when a person spends years in jail. This is getting recognized by the U.S. system but often late. In many cases by the time a person is proven innocent, he or she might
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