The Role Of Minorities In The Criminal Justice System

Many across this country are blaming race on why young, unemployed African-Americans and Hispanics seem to pay a higher punishment than other groups of offenders. Jacobs and Kkleban (2003) even say that minorities are treated differently worldwide in the criminal justice system. It’s not that simple to blame it solely on racial discrimination. In her lecture, Williams (2015) says “A predominately White Congress has mandated that prison sentences for the possession and distribution of crack cocaine are 100 times more severe than the penalties for possession of the same amounts of powder cocaine.” McNamara and Burns (2009) take it even further and say that states simply turn the cases over to the federal government to get the higher

penalties. I have found that in my 18 years of law enforcement experience, it is not that easy. The crack cocaine has to be a certain amount and the case and suspect have to meet certain criteria. Could the purpose of the higher penalties be that crack cocaine was seen as a greater problem than power cocaine, not because more of the crack dealers were African-American? Society needs to work on getting all races to stop selling crack cocaine.
Other groups want to blame the supposed higher punishment on poor representation in court. Williams (2015) says, “The courts assign attorneys to defend the poor in serious criminal trials whom the wealthy would not hire to represent themselves in traffic court.” With all the attorneys that are unemployed at this moment, I do not see how this could entirely be true. In Knoxville, Tennessee, those who cannot afford an attorney are appointed one from the Public Defender’s Office. In my experience, these are attorneys who are working their way up and are just as good as one you would pay for.
In my experience, I have seen that much of the racial disparity in the criminal justice system is because of education, not racial discrimination. The unemployment rate among minorities is definitely higher than White Americans and so is the high school dropout rate (McNamara &Burns, 2009). Instead of trying to blame all the problems on the criminal justice system, society should work harder to keep minorities in school and receive a better education.
References:
Jacobs, D., & Kleban, R. (2003). Political institutions, minorities, and punishment: Pooled cross-national analysis of imprisonment rates. Social Forces, 82(2), 725-755.
McNamara, R., & Burns, R. (2009). Multiculturalism in the Criminal Justice System. New York, NY: McGraw Hill
Williams, D. (2015).Diversity in Criminal Justice. Bethel University. Retrieved from online lecture.