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Racial discrimination within the justice system
Race in criminal sentencing
Racial discrimination within the justice system
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The criminal justice system has been in place the United States for centuries. The system has endured many changes throughout the ages. The need for a checks and balances system has been a priority for just as long. Federal sentencing guidelines were created to help create equal punishments among offenders. Judges are given the power of sentencing and they are not immune to opinions, bias, and feelings. These guidelines are set in place to allow the judge to keep their power but keep them within a control group of equality. Although there are a lot of pros to sentencing guidelines there are also a lot of cons. Research has shown that sentencing guidelines have allowed the power to shift from judges to prosecutors and led to sentencing disparity based on sex, race, and social class.
There are differences between state and federal sentencing guidelines. The federal guidelines are very vast and complicated (Leonard-Kempf and Sample 2001 p.113). These guidelines have been amended many times over the course of the past 25 years. According to Gazal-Ayal, Turjeman and Fishman (2013 p. 131) judges have historically had the weight and responsibility to sentence criminals in the way that they see fit. Some judges have abused this responsibility leading to the creation of sentencing guidelines. The Sentencing Reform Act was passed in 1984 in order to place strict guidelines on the judge’s discretion during sentencing (Rehavi and Starr 2013 p. 11). The United States Sentencing Committee wanted to keep the judge’s personal opinions and beliefs separate from the courtroom in order to create fair sentences. The creation of sentencing guidelines keeps people involved in the sentencing process in check.
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Richman, D. (2013). Federal White Collar Sentencing in the United States: A Work In Progress.
Law & Contemporary Problems, 76(1), 53-73.
Rozen, M. S. (2011). Abandoning the Victim Requirement: Clarifying the Position of Trust
Enhancement in Federal Sentencing. University Of Chicago Law Review, 78(4), 1543-1583.
Siegfried, D. I. (2010). "Based On" the Guidelines? Applying Retroactive Sentencing
Amendments to Binding Plea Agreements. University Of Chicago Law Review,77(4), 1801-1839.
Starr, S. B., & Rehavi, M. (2013). Mandatory Sentencing and Racial Disparity: Assessing
the Role of Prosecutors and the Effects of Booker.Yale Law Journal,123(1), 2-80.
Steiker, C. S. (2013). Lessons From Two Failures: Sentencing For Cocaine And Child
Pornography Under The Federal Sentencing Guidelines In The United States. Law & Contemporary Problems, 76(1), 27-52.
One of the problems with the law is its principle of removing judicial discretion. This severely hinders a judge's ability to make a punishment fit the crime. While some felons deserve life in prison, it is unfair to create a standard that would force judges to sentence offenders to life imprisonment for relatively minor crimes.
In her essay “Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet,” Susan Brownmiller, a prominent feminist activist, argues that pornography should not be protected under the First Amendment (59). Her position is based on the belief that pornography is degrading and abusive towards women (Brownmiller 59). She introduces the reader to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, and explains how it relates to her beliefs on censoring pornographic material (Brownmiller 58). In addition, she provides examples of First Amendment controversies such as Miller v. California and James Joyce’s Ulysses to explain how the law created a system to define pornographic material (Brownmiller 58). She described the system that used a three-part test as confusing (Brownmiller 58). Regardless of whether or not the First Amendment was intended to protect obscenities, she and many others believe that the legislatures should have the final say in the decision of creating and publishing pornography (Brownmiller 60).
Felman (2012) explains this by saying “in the last twenty-five years since the advent of mandatory sentences for drug offenses and the Sentencing Guidelines, the average federal sentence has roughly tripled in length” (p. 369). The development of these guidelines indicates that for the same crimes that individuals committed previously, they are now receiving longer sentences. Mandatory sentencing also suggests that no matter an individual’s circumstance, they will receive the same punishment as everyone else. Although this is a step towards the impartiality that the criminal justice system is constantly seeking, there are certain issues that have been found with what can be deemed as harsh, mandatory
Kansal, T. (2005). In M. Mauer (Ed.), Racial disparity in sentencing: A review of the literature. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project. Retrieved April 12, 2005, from The Sentenceing Project Web site: http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/disparity.pdf
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
Sentencing disparity refers to the differences in sentences that are passed down in the same instances. This can happen on a variety of fronts. It can occur with judges, in different states, states v. federal, different prosecutors, among different victims, etc. (Criminal – Sentencing…2017 p.4) A more specific definition from USLegal.com states that, “Sentence disparity refers to an inequality in criminal sentencing which is the result of unfair or unexplained causes, rather than a legitimate use of discretion in the application of the law.”. There are a variety of ways that sentencing disparity affects the justice system. There are three factors that disparity looms around; they are gender disparity, racial disparity, and age disparity. (4
Mandatory sentencing is not anything new. It began in the 1970s. The main purpose for mandatory sentencing was to try to get rid of the drug lords and to eliminate most of the nation’s street drug selling. It was to impose that the same crime would have the same sentence all over the nation. Some of the negatives that rose from mandatory sentencing were nonviolent drug offenders and first time offenders who were receiving harsh sentences. Inmate populations and correction costs increased and pushed states to build more prisons. Judges were overloaded with these cases, and lengthy prison terms were mandated to these young offenders. Mandatory sentencing is an interesting topic in which I would like to discuss my opinions in going against mandatory sentencing. I will show the reasons for this topic, as well as give you my personal brief on which I support.
Mandatory minimum sentencing is the practice of requiring a predetermined prison sentence for certain crimes. The most notable mandatory minimums are the ones implemented in the 70’s and 80’s, hoping to combat the rising drug problem. Mandatory minimum sentencing has existed in the United States nearly since its very birth, with the first mandatory minimums being put into place around 1790. Recently, as the marijuana laws of many states have scaled back in severity, the issue of mandatory minimums has caused controversy in the US. There are two distinct sides to the argument surrounding mandatory minimum sentencing. One group believes we have a moral obligation to our country requiring us to do no less than lock up anyone with illegal drugs
The Sentencing Project. (2008). Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers. Retrieved from http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_reducingracialdisparity.pdf
For police officers who want to solve more violent, severed cases, it is practically impossible for them to make as much as the officers making arrests for petty, nonviolent drug crimes. More often than not, law enforcement officers are paid based on the amount of arrests they pay. Why would an officer pursue more rape, murder, and burglary cases when they could simple make a few easy drug arrests and get paid the same amount or more with half the work? “The financial incentive built into the system virtually guarantee that the overwhelming majority of drug arrest in the United States will be for nonviolent, low-level drug offenses,” as stated by Michelle Alexander, a civil right advocate and writer. As the amount of petty, drug arrests for nonviolent offenses increases, the respect for police officers and the laws they’re trying to enforce is lost. Although it is not the officer’s fault to blame, the current judicial system pins them up as the bad guy. Making it so that the current system not only hurts those being convicted, but also all the law enforcement involved. With the way the system is set up now, it police officers unable to solve difficult crimes. Drug crimes are easy arrests, and the frequency of them makes causes a police officer’s ability to solve real, hard-hitting cases virtually nonexistent. As for the judges involved, the minimum sentencing requirements basically make it impossible for the judges to actually do their job. With the mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent drug crimes, it takes the judge’s ability to serve justice out of the equation. No matter what the individual case may be, there’s no way for an offender to get anything less than that of the mandatory minimum. It’s practically ridding these citizens of the right to a fair trial; seeing that no matter what the judge rules as fair,
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
Sentencing models are plans or strategies developed for imposing punishment for crimes committed. During the 19th century these punishments were normally probation, fines and flat sentences. When someone was given a flat sentence, he or she had to serve the entire sentence without parole or early release. However, by the end of the 19th century the new models were developed. These new models include indeterminate, determinate, advisory/voluntary guidelines, presumptive and mandatory minimum sentencing (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2011).
This case illustrated that there were real consequences to white collar crime. In addition to paying the fifty million dollar fine, he relinquished another fifty million dollars of his illegal trading profits. (He still had millions remaining, however, from his illegal gains.) His actual prison sentence was three years, yet he served only twenty-two months in the federal prison at Lompoc, California, which was known to have a “country-club” atmosphere.
It is these guidelines and rules that a judge follows when deciding what sentence that the defendant will be given when they are found guilty. The United States Sentencing Commission makes up the sentencing guidelines. “The sentencing guidelines help the judges to resolve their confusion. Sentencing guidelines are designed to ensure the consistency of sentencing in United States courts” (USLegal, 2014).
Sentencing reform should stay the way it is because you're being punished for the act of actions you took into your own hands. in other words you did the crime you could do the time. for example on the article I read incarceration helped bring crime down. It started while several factors that influence crime rates, it would be difficult to deny that the consequences for crimes have a significant influence.