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Racial discrimination in the justice system
Racial inequality in the criminal justice system
Racial discrimination in the united states
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Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Justice System Introduction In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution. Criminal Apprehension 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. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...ican Sociological Review 55(5): 609-627. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28199010%2955%3A5%3C609%3ACADOTL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 Tappan, Paul W. 1947. “Who Is the Criminal?” American Sociological Review 12 (1): 96-102. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28194702%2912%3A1%3C96%3AWITC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z Turner, Billy. 1986. “Race and Peremptory Challenges During Voir Dire: Do Prosecution and Defense Agree?” Journal of Criminal Justice 14: 61-69. U.S. Department of Justice. 2002. “What is the Sequence of Events in the Criminal Justice System?” http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cjsflowco.pdf. Walker, Samuel, Cassia Spohn, and Miriam DeLone. 2000. The Color of Justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Wilbanks, William. 1987. The Myth of the Racist Criminal Justice System. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
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.
In 1999, black men are much more likely to be stopped and searched by six percent than Asian and White men. The Macpherson inquiry report generated institutional racism after the death of a young black man named Stephen Lawrence. There are disproportionately large number of crimes committed by young black men, according to police records that leads to inequalities (Parliament u.k., n.d.). In the light of, policy makers tried their best to ameliorate the racism problem and to prosecute racist offenders (Phillips, 2007). However, the implications of institutional racism affect black men and remains prevalent up to these days based on statistic records.
In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander states that we still use our criminal justice system to “label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage i...
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
Welch, Kelly. 2007. “Black Criminal Stereotypes and Racial Profiling.” Journal of Contemporary Justice 23(3): 276-288 also talks about the discrimination within the courtroom, in the court it has been shown that the prosecutors when fighting a case against the defendant who’s client is Black use their race as an argument to win the case. They try to show how Black people are prone to be violent due to racial factors and therefore should be sentenced harshly. Given the history, unfortunately this argument sets in well and therefore leads to sentencing and prison time for the Black
**Lynch, Michael J. and Patterson, Britt, Race and Criminal Justice (New York: Harrow and Heinstien, 1991)
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.
These statistics demonstrate that racialized mass incarceration exists in the U.S. There are a few reasons why African Americans are discriminated against by the legal system. The primary cause is inequitable protection by the law and unequal enforcement of it. Unequal protection is when the legal system offers less protection to African Americans that are victimized by whites. It is unequal enforcement because discriminatory treatment of African Americans that are labeled as criminal suspects is more accepted.
Johnson, P. A. (2014). Down syndrome. In L. J. Fundukian (Ed.), The gale encyclopedia of medicine (4th ed.). Retrieved from Gale Science in Context database. (Accession No. DU2601000443)
Weich, R., & Angulo, C. (2002). Racial disparities in the American criminal justice system. Rights at risk: Equality in an age of terrorism, 185-218.
Unequal treatment of minorities characterizes every stage of the process. This the price that is paid in order to keep this false fallacy of justice while African and Hispanic Americans, and other minority groups, are victimized by disproportionate targeting and unfair treatment by police and other law enforcement officials; by racially skewed charging and plea bargaining decisions of prosecutors; by discriminatory sentencing practices; and by the failure of judges, elected officials and other criminal justice policy makers to redress the inequities that become more glaring every
Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) is a disease in which benign tumors develop and grow on various types of nerves along the central nervous system. It is caused by a mutation in the gene neurofibromonin-2. This gene typically acts as a tumor suppressor; a mutation in this gene causes failed suppression of tumors, resulting in the uncontrolled cell division that leads to the formation of tumors. These tumors develop and grow on various nerves along the central nervous system, directly affecting the nerves’ functions and therefore affecting an individual, specifically in the central nervous system. For instance, one vestibular schwannomas are a type of tumor which develop as a result of this disease. They grow on and affect
The symptoms of NF2 includes continuous ringing in the ears or hearing loss, “tumors along the eighth cranial nerve” (the nerve responsible for hearing), “cataracts at a young age”, tumors located in the brain and/or along the spinal cord (causing numbness), balancing problems, or the muscles literally waste away (National Human Genome Research Institute, 2016). When a mutation occurs in the gene NF2, Neurofibromatosis Type 2 takes place. The gene NF2 is the location of a code named merlin, or schwannomin, that’s function is currently unknown but thought to be “involved in controlling cell movement, cell shape, and communication between cells” as well as “insulate nerve cells” (Genetics Home Reference, 2012).
College is advanced education that everyone should have, including those who cannot financially afford it. People who want to go to college will find a way to make it happen despite their financial state. It is not necessary to make college free. By doing this, arguments of inequality and disagreements will arise, and although the thought of free college means well, is it really the way we want to change the college system?
A college education currently has become a necessity in the society. Most of the student country wide is wondering if college tuition can be made free since it is difficult to finance every student due to the state of the economy. Due to factor, many people especially students and teachers believe that college tuition should be free due to the fact that students cannot afford college costs, students graduate with huge debt, and it would influence more people to attend college. The student’s grades will as well be improved since students will be able to concentrate in school and focus on their education without fees phobia.