Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
It is a stereotype that black people are more likely to be criminals than white people. Does this stereotype have any truth to it? A black male born in the United States of America today would have a one in three chance of going to prison. This cannot be said for a white male in the same circumstances.
African-Americans are the predominant race in prisons in the United States of America (Rushton). Aboriginals are the predominant race in prisons in Canada (Wortley). The majority of both of these nations are whites. Does this show that minorities commit criminal offences more than the majority population? There have been different theories t...
The US Justice Department statistics 2003 and onwards demonstrates significant disproportion in the incarceration rate of minority African American and Hispanic men between the ages of 25 and 29 years as compared to the rate associated with White men of the same age. Bell (2007), proposes that as minority groups grow in numbers within the dominant group they will experience greater equality. However, rate of incarceration among minority males remains alarmingly high and as compared to their White counterparts. As with health care there are racial disparities that will influence outcomes when an individual is brought before the criminal courts. Additionally, there is significant correlation between a person’s level of education and the likelihood of his involvement in criminal activities. Studies and statistics have shown that among male high school dropouts there is high incidence of unemployment, low income and rate of illicit drug use as compared to men with degrees from four year colleges. Further to this, although the rate of school dropout and even arrest is not significantly different across the race lines, literature alludes that African American men have a higher rate of conviction for the same crime committed.
The book was well organized with the first chapter introducing the international nature of racial and ethnicity issues, each of the next chapters focusing on issues involving race, ethnicity, and crime in a specific country, and the last chapter summarizing these findings and discussing the future surrounding these topics. Throughout the book, Gabbidon presents salient points that explain the inequalities and injustices that are present in these modern day countries. Gabbidon validates his theory by providing historical context, current population statistics, criminal justice statistics, and an analysis of crime and race relations for each country profiled. The data presented aligned well with Gabbidon’s objectives and supported his proposed theories. Gabbidon identified the international breadth of the problems involving race, ethnicity, and crime in the selected countries and provided a detailed explanation of the origins of injustice and inequality due to the colonial
... black males. Latino men are also targets of this perception of being criminals. Most societies are built to see minorities fail. For example, “to make laws like the three-strikes-and-you’re-out laws, right, these are made for habitual criminals, but what’s a habitual criminal? …a guy that keeps on committing the same crime over and over again, why does he keep on committing the same crime over?...You never bothered teachin’ him when the first time he went into the prison system”(Black 905). Most of the lives of minorities reflected around that type of scenario when it came to the prison system. Instead of having a system to help them, they had a system that failed them and were considered “criminals”. In some cases, most of the men being arrested were arrested for drug possession or minor crimes however, they were treated like second-degree murderers.
In many nation states, it is noticed that there is a disproportionate number of black people especially those youngsters going through the criminal justice system. The overrepresentation is illustrated by related data released by the U.S. Department of Justice and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. In America, almost 3500 per 100,000 residents of the black male were sent to jail in 2013 which was over seven times more than the ratio their white counterpart had and in England and Wales, 8.5% of young black people aged between 10-17 were arrested during the same period .This essay aims to explore the reasons behind the ethnic overrepresentation in the criminal justice system and believes that the higher rate of offending for some race groups and the existence of systematic racist which partially stems from the contemporary media distortion are attributive to the overrepresentation.
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,
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
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.
Race and Ethnicity on Sentence Outcomes Under Different Sentencing Systems. Crime & Delinquency, 59(1), 87-114.
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.
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... ... middle of paper ... ... King, R., and Mauer, M., (2007).
This theory however as some have argued has emerged from social disorganisation theory, which sees the causes of crime as a matter of macro level disadvantage. Macro level disadvantage are the following: low socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial heterogeneity, these things they believe are the reasons for crime due to the knock on effect these factors have on the community network and schools. Consequently, if th...
Social Science Research, 38, 717-731. http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/tmp/9506051508484483171.pdf. Nielsen, A. L., & Martinez, R. (2011). Nationality, immigrant groups, and arrests. Examining the diversity of arrests for urban violent crime.
Crime and criminalization can be ambiguous; crime is only crime until certain authorities deem the actions illegal. However, social inequalities can lead to increased crime rates, notions such as gender, age, race, and class influence crime and provide criminologist with the date to determine who is most likely to commit a crime and where.
Wilson, James and Herrnstein, Richard. "Crime & Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime" New York: Free Press, 1998.
In today’s society there is a high fear of crime by society. Society actions show that there is anxiety and fear about crime. Therefore, anxiety and fear about crime has placid our cities and communities. Society express fear of being victimized by crimes, criminal activities, and behaviors. Therefore, according to, (Crime, 1999) states that “ the level of fear that a person holds depends on many factors, including but, not limited to: “ gender, age, any past experiences with crime that a person may have, where one lives, and one’s ethnicity.” All of those factors have a huge impact on one’s fear level.