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Racial inequality in the justice system essay
Racial inequalities in the criminal justice system
Racial inequality in the justice system essay
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In American society, race, class, and incarceration play a huge role in privatized corporations and in the lives of Americans. Our country has a tendency of using a person’s appearance and class to its own advantage. The U.S claims to incarcerate the vast amounts of inmates it does in order to protect its citizens but there is more that happens inside the doors of prisons. In this essay, I will argue that the United States profiteers within the prisons, selfishly uses the prison industrial complex to their advantage, and lastly, how race and class effect prisons. The prison industrial complex consists of huge corporations making money off of prison inmates. Private corporations use prisons as an alternative way to have their products manufactured, for much cheaper and without having to worry about extra expenses. “Companies don’t have to worry about unionized workers, health care, or wages, due to inmates doing their tasks for only a fraction of the wage, according to Angela Davis in “ Masked Racism” as stated by Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans”(1998). In other words the wealthy make their money by exploiting the minorities. The U.S law enforcement tends to mainly target the minority …show more content…
In a Victor Rios interview with Dalton Conley (2010), Rios mentions “young people are marked at a very young age by the system”. The system not only attacks lower income adults, but also unfairly affects the lives of young children. Children see what law enforcement does around their community and they grow up thinking that, that is the norm. Therefore they get sucked into the criminal life. Being in that lifestyle they experience all sorts of hardships, which lead to a life in and out of prison. That is something that the government uses to his or her advantage because it will always have someone to blame for everything that is socially wrong in our
Most black Americans are under the control of the criminal justice today whether in parole or probation or whether in jail or prison. Accomplishments of the civil rights association have been challenged by mass incarceration of the African Americans in fighting drugs in the country. Although the Jim Crow laws are not so common, many African Americans are still arrested for very minor crimes. They remain disfranchised and marginalized and trapped by criminal justice that has named them felons and refuted them their rights to be free of lawful employment and discrimination and also education and other public benefits that other citizens enjoy. There is exists discernment in voting rights, employment, education and housing when it comes to privileges. In the, ‘the new Jim crow’ mass incarceration has been described to serve the same function as the post civil war Jim crow laws and pre civil war slavery. (Michelle 16) This essay would defend Michelle Alexander’s argument that mass incarcerations represent the ‘new Jim crow.’
Lappin, H. G., & Greene, J. (2006). Are prisons just? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 51-98). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
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
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for a number of reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. The ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system is caused by mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism.
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.
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001. 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...
While analyzing the modern prison system it is unintelligent to ignore the economic factors behind it. Activist and author Angela Davis claims that capitalism is both a tool and a driving force of oppression and that the modern prison system is a product of it (Davis 42). Unfortunately, Davis’ claims are problematic while inspecting private prison systems in the United States and her critique of capitalism. To better understand the problem with Davis’ claim it is necessary to; define and contrast the differences between mercantilism and free-market capitalism, and how private prisons are products of both cronyism and corporatism; to understand how government grants a monopoly on prisons, while creating and pushing for their artificial demand; and how private prisons are not products of capitalism but of the preindustrial concept of mercantilism.
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.
America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, in which most inmates are Black and Hispanic. Blacks are perceived as socially deviant, so society easily deems them as being criminals. Assata Shakur was convicted and prosecuted for numerous charges, including resisting lawful arrest, possession of an illegal weapon, intention to kill, physical assault, robbery at several locations, and other charges (13). Although Shakur was not at the scene of these alleged crimes, law enforcement decisively arrested and charged her. If Shakur was White, rather than a Black woman, the legal system would have perceived her as innocent and treat her leniently. Nevertheless, Law Enforcement carries a bias prejudice towards Blacks, and benefits from their oppression. Similarly to the New Jim Crow, in which incarceration is utilized as a means to exploit Blacks and empower Whites. Shakur believes, “Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery… They certainly aren’t planning to put white people in them. Prisons are part of this government’s genocidal war against Black and Third World People” (Shakur, 65). The privatization of prisons has increased and pursues to capitalize on minority inmates through the production of goods, while lawfully abiding by the 13th Amendment. Likewise, One who is convicted of an alleged crime is faced with a trial that is skewed to oppress Blacks from
The most problematic conclusion about Mass Incarceration, whatever the causes or practices, is that currently America has had the highest national prison rates in the world; furthermore, the rates of minorities (particularly African Americans) are extraordinarily disproportionate to the rates of incarcerated Caucasians. Despite the overall rise in incarceration rates since the 1980s, the crime rates have not been reduced as would be expected. Researchers, activists, and politicians alike are now taking a closer look at Mass Incarceration and how it affects society on a larger scale. The purpose of this paper is to examine the anatomy of Mass Incarceration for a better understanding of its importance as a dominant social issue and its ultimate relation to practice of social work. More specifically the populations affected by mass incarceration and the consequences implacable to social justice. The context of historical perspectives on mass incarceration will be analyzed as well as insight to the current social welfare policies on the
The era of mass incarceration began four decades ago, marking the greatest count of prisoners held in U.S. jails and prisons. When speaking of mass incarceration, more than acknowledging the numbers, the significance lies within the statistics of who the cities, states, and government are imprisoning. Out of the whopping two million people who are confined, more than 70 percent of prisoners are people of color, consistently of a poor and underprivileged background (Davis 1998: 684). Sociologists as well as psychologists’ studies bear and explain this phenomenon. The idea of social control and its relation to crime seemingly differ in groups and communities. Street crime, for instance, although is a form of formal social deviance, does not highlight
Race and crime is a major topic in today’s world because it is a highly debated subject and has a major impact on how society is today. Race and crime go hand in hand. No matter who commits a crime, there is always a race involved. With race and crime there are many stereotypes that come with the subject. Race and crime are both active matters in everyday life. It is everywhere. Social Media involves race and crime in practically anything. If one is active on say for example twitter, the point of twitter is to keep your followers interested by what you are showing them. There is a reason why the news opens up with the most violent crimes and twitter is no different. As a matter of fact any form of media grasps onto it. Another example would
The privatization of prisons and jails has led to mass incarceration, an issue that does not only effect those who are imprisoned, but also communities a whole. Prisons should no longer be private because it can create a need to put more people in jail for more profit. When money is an incentive, it can affect how law enforcement polices people. Also, when there are institutional biases against groups of people, and when individuals who work in law enforcement or related fields have biases, it can affect who is policed as well.
Politically, jails are best known as a warehouse for societies’ public order violators and those who are threatening to the public. This being said, taking the harmful people off the street and putting them into a confined area may stop the violence on the streets, but it creates an area for even more violence within the jails. This “rabble class,” also known as the miniority, poorly-educated, lower class offenders are the ones committing the most violence within the large jail facilities. Racial disproportionality within the criminal justice system goes hand in hand with the rabble class. Statistics indicate that racial minorities are at a higher risk of incarceration in the US. This has many reasons as to why, but minorities usually indicate
Another growing concern contributing to correctional overcrowding, is the growing ethnic population within prisons. In fact, inquiries has found that the war on crime was in reality a governmental scheme to excuse white fears and criticisms over civil rights issues (Beckett, 1997). Furthermore, these strategies were used to control a group believed to be a threat to the public. In fact, additional theories of racial threats described that whites tend to feel endangered by the existence of African American’s and have a habit of responding to their attendance with added retaliatory correctional policies (Jackson, 1999). It has even been found that the presence of more minorities and less whites have resulted in increased spending on corrections