Racism In The Justice System Essay

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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 aspect of the initial stop, the sentencing in court, all the way to the life of an inmate in the prison. There seems to be nothing stopping it as it continues to grow
Even before the stop are made (add comma after made?) cops watch possible suspects of any suspicious activity even without any legal right. “Plainclothes officers known as “rakers” were dispatched into ethnic communities, where they eavesdropped on conversations and wrote daily reports on what they heard, often without any allegation of criminal wrong doing.” (NYPD Racial Profiling 1) This quote explains how even before a citizen is officially stopped by a cop, there are times when that they have already had their personal conversations assessed without their knowledge or without them having done any wrong acts. It was done, based solely on their ethnicity and social status alone. (you can add an example of what the people, who were being watched, were doing) Then (comma?) when police are out watching the streets, they proceed to stop people again simply based on racial profiling. In an article called Watching Certain People by Bob Herbert, stated that “not only are most of the people innocent but a vast majority are either black or Hispanic” (Herbert 1). Racism is happening before the suspect even gets a chance to explain themselves or be accused of any crime, and the rules of being able to do such a thing are becoming even more lenient so that police are able to perform such actions. “The rule requiring police to
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

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