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Race discrimination in the police force
Police and racial profiling history
Research papers on racial discrimination within the criminal justice system
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Racial inequality within our Justice System This is one area that is a constant problem and will be a problem most likely for the rest of our lives and our many future generations to come. With colored people usually having more problems than whites. Such as Black Americans are more likely to have their cars searched than whites. Whites receive less stops from police officers than both Blacks and Hispanics. Not just that both Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be arrested for drug use then whites as well. Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be jailed while awaiting trial for all sorts of crimes. The outcomes of race-based inequality in criminal justice system isn’t always fair, and people of all sorts of racial backgrounds are targeted based on that individuals preferences on those individuals. Police arrest black Americans for drug crimes at twice the rate of whites despite the fact that whites use drugs at comparable rates and sell drugs at comparable or even higher rates (Center of American Progress). Black …show more content…
In the days of the "Old Jim Crow" everyone of color was denied many opportunities to succeed such as education and mobility. In the "New Jim Crow" some blacks are disenfranchised while others are elected President. It seems to me the answer lies with the individual rather than society. Yes, you may be poor, and you may not have the advantages of others, but it's still your choice to involve yourself in dealing or using drugs (whether or not they should be legal is irrelevant) or whatever else incarcerates you. That 90% of federal crack cocaine defendants are African American. That in 1992 a study found that in seventeen states, not a single white had been prosecuted on federal crack cocaine charges (Gallagher
Everyone is affected in one way or another. Prisons are overcrowded and the government has to spend billions on the prison system. Taxpayer’s money fund the cost of prisons facilities, programs, services and security staff. The children of the inmates are affected because they are been raise without a father role model to teach them how to properly function in society and this increase the chances for them to end up in jail. Prisoners lose freedom to be with their love ones. Police interaction with minorities are getting more violent and deathly. Low and middle class communities are affected by the racial injustice because it built resentment and distrust in our law enforcement and criminal justice system. The bottom line is if do not have racial equality in America things are only going to get
Human rights experts have reported that in the 70s, African Americans in the U.S were already being overrepresented in drug arrests, with twice as many arrests as Caucasians (Fellner, 2009). Since the war on drugs began, African
The prospect of a racially discriminatory process violates the ideals of equal treatment under the law under which the system is premised (Kansal, 2005). Law enforcement, as the frontline of the criminal justice system, has a great deal to do with who ends up being incarcerated. Law enforcement personnel are the initiating beings who start the path to incarceration for individuals they come in contact with. Their decision in terms of making a stop, making a report, making an arrest and so on determines if and how that individual will enter the criminal justice system. One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling.
The targets of the drug war are certain racial groups just because they are of color, they are targets because the law enforcements have bias opinions about the people of color rather than those who are white.The people of color and whites are both as likely to use and sell drugs, but the people of color have a bigger probability to get arrested, searched, prosecuted, convicted or sent to jail for the violation of drug laws. The drug war isn't only about people of color, it is about every races including white. The enforcement does not look for the increasing of drug activity because But the law enforcement doesn’t focus on the high income neighborhoods in search for drugs, what they do is focus on the poor low income neighborhoods because that is where they think drugs are being abused. The drug policies are very discriminatory and attack those that are non white, or those who live in a neighborhood where everyone thinks drugs are abused there. According to the article “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States” it uses statistics from seattle that shows a clear example of the discrimination of the supposed war on drugs.“A recent study in Seattle is illustrative. Although the majority of those who shared, sold, or transferred serious drugs[17]in Seattle are white (indeed seventy percent of the general Seattle population is white), almost two-thirds (64.2%) of drug arrestees are black”(hrw.org 1). This quote shows what a study found in seattle, that the population in seattle is seventy percent but most of the people in jail are blacks. Seattle has a problem where cocaine and crack are the main drug being abused and sold, but the people who sell it the most is whites but the majority who end up in jail for cocaine or crack charges are african americans. Well this happens because black people do drugs but also white people, but the ones who are the victims of incarceration are
With everything in life, we can work to fix injustices and a problem in society, but trying to fix what was wrong not only takes time, but also may be imperfect. As mentioned previously race played and still does play a large role in how crime is treated in the United States. This article explains how the racial disparity is not a coincidence and the article provides facts of the disparity, and what the Fair Sentencing Act does. The author begins the article by chronologically exploring the details of how the disparity began. The Anti- Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which was introduced in the Reagan-era, was responsible for the disparity. The Act stated that 1 gram of cocaine was equal to 100 grams of crack (Davis 2011). An extremely large difference. She ends the article explaining that despite the fact that there is a decrease in the ratio, it is still unfair. The Fair Sentencing Act only works to reduce the disparity and does not eliminate it completely (Davis 2011). While the ratio was once 100-1(crack to cocaine), the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 brought it down to 18-1.
1. What is the difference between a. and a. Inequality became instrumental in privileging white society early in the creation of American society. The white society disadvantaged American Indians by taking their land and established a system of rights fixed in the principle that equality in society depended on the inequality of the Indians. This means that for white society to become privileged, they must deprive the American Indians of what was theirs to begin with. Different institutions such as the social institution, political, economical, and education have all been affected by race.
“Most modem sentencing systems in the United States express an explicit commitment to ensuring that a defendant 's sentence is not affected by the defendant 's race or gender (Hessick, 2010).” Even though individuals are protected through the Bill of Rights and Sentencing Reform Acts, there are still disparities in sentencing within the criminal justice systems. Often, race and gender bias negatively affects sentencing.
In today’s world, the American still has barriers to overcome in the matter of racial equality. Whether it is being passed over for a promotion at the job or being underpaid, some people have to deal with unfair practice that would prevent someone of color or the opposite sex from having equal opportunity at the job. In 2004, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Incorporation was a civil rights class-action suite that ruled in favor of the women who worked and did not received promotions, pay and certain job assignments. This proves that some corporations ignore the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects workers from discrimination based on sex, race, religion or national origin.
Even though racism has always been a problem since the beginning of time, recently in the United States, there has been a rise in discrimination and violence has been directed towards the African American minority primarily from those in the white majority who believe they are more superior, especially in our criminal justice system. There are many different reasons for the ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system between the majority and the minority, but some key reasons are differential involvement, individual racism, and institutional racism to why racial disparities exist in
These authors’ arguments are both well-articulated and comprehensive, addressing virtually every pertinent concept in the issue of explaining racially disparate arrest rates. In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, Wilbanks insists that racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is a fabrication, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Walker, Spohn and DeLone’s The Color of Justice dissents that not only are African Americans not anywhere near the disproportionate level of crime that police statistics would indicate, they are also arrested more because they are policed discriminately. Walker, Spohn and DeLone addi...
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. Racial disparity in the criminal justice system exists when the proportion of a racial or ethnic group within the control system is higher than the proportion of the group in the general population. The cause of this disparity varies and can include differences in the levels of criminal activity, law enforcements emphasis on particular communities, legislative policies, and/or decision making by one or more persons at some level in the criminal justice system.
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.”
... Blacks tend to forget that the War on Drugs has devastated other families in their communities and silenced families due to the fear of humiliation. The War on Drugs and drug policies have been useful tactics that have continued to disenfranchise black males and keep them isolated from society, allowing for upper class whites to continue to dominate society as they have for centuries. Though the term Jim Crow is not one that you see on a day-to-day basis to refer to the disenfranchisement of blacks in today’s society, it still exists and is full fledged. Targeting black people through the form of drugs allows for racial discrimination to occur without using the classification as a public basis.
2010, “Racial Disparities in Sentencing: Implications for the Criminal Justice System and the African American Community”, African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies 4(1): 1-31, in this Albonetti’s study is discussed in which it was found that minority status alone accounted for an additional sentence length of “one to seven months.” African American defendants were “likely to receive pretrial release but were more likely to be convicted, and be given harsher sentences after conviction than white defendants charged with the same crimes.” One of the reasons behind this are the sentencing laws, it is seen that these laws are designed in a way that they tend to be harsher towards a certain group of people, generally towards the people of color than others thus leading to inequality with the sentencing
When a person of color is being sentenced the unjustness of sentencing is blatantly shown such as in the article Race Sentencing and Testimony which stated, “ These scholars conclude that black male arrestees “face significantly more severe charges conditional on arrest offense and other observed characteristics” and attribute this primarily to prosecution charging decisions” (Mauer 4). This piece of writing explains that for no other reason than race do these people get convicted far more significantly than others who have the same charge but are white, which continues as far as giving a person of color the max sentence that they can have on a certain charge just for the color of their skin. The justice system has turned into the opposite of what it claims to be and continues to grow as a racist overseer, bashing down on those that they believe should be punished as harshly as possible simply for the color of their skin. The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but are being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years