Discrimination In The Criminal Justice System

With practices that are aimed at reducing discrimination the argument has been made that racial discrimination is no longer an immediate issue in the American society. It has additionally been argued that the United States Constitution protects all of its citizens, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, monetary status. With that statement, it is said that race has nothing to argue for in the American criminal justice system. Although the Constitution pledges equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etcetera, racism still occurs in the American law enforcement and criminal justice systems.

The criminal justice system of the United States has long been known for the discrimination against not

only racial minorities, the emotionally and mentally disabled, but also people of poverty, that are without the means to defend themselves as well as they should in a court of law. It is not to go unsaid that we live in a world that is filled with crime. According to a statistics study that was conducted, out of 6,484,507 victimizations of violent crime; whites accounted for 42.9 percent, blacks accounted for 22.4 percent, Hispanics accounted for 14.8 percent, and the other/ unknown group accounted for 19.9 percent. (Taylor NA) The people that commit these crimes must have a consequence for their illegal actions.
The criminal justice system has been put into place to keep the process of proving innocence or guilt fair and safe. This system ensures that there is a justice also served to people who break the laws set up by the government. However, there are many different faults of the criminal justice system that can hinder the way that it runs. We will explore many different things in this essay.
First, I would like to start with the topic of criminology and the causes of criminality. The term criminology is derived from the Latin word “crīmen” which means accusation. Criminology is the scientific study of the nature extent, management, causes, control, consequences, and prevention of criminal behavior, on both the individual and social levels. (Wikipedia NA) Criminology can be influenced by many things such as, home life, media, education level, income levels, geography, peers, and many other factors. These factors contribute to the reasons that people commit the crimes that they do.
Italian Cesare Lomboso was influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Lomboso measured the physical features of prison inmates and concluded that criminal behavior correlated with specific bodily characteristics. Particularly, these characteristics were cranial, skeletal, and neurological malformations. (Free Dictionary NA) This theory was just another explanation to why people are mentally underdeveloped and they end up committing crimes.
Racial profiling has once again become an incredibly controversial topic in this country in the past few years, as it was in the 60’s with the civil rights movements. From an increase in unarmed minority people being gunned down by police and other members in communities, to innocent people being put in jail for crimes that they did not commit, it is easy to see why people are becoming upset by the racial profiling that is occurring.