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Racial Discrimination and Disparity in the United States Justice System
Criminal justice inequalities african americans
Unfair justice systems
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In The Divide, author Matt Taibbi conveys to the reader the inner workings of temporary assistance offices. Taibbi argues that in order to receive benefits, one must wait hours in line at the offices and hopefully be accepted to get benefits. Even after waiting, they may be rejected for discrepancies found in their homes, such as clothes not suiting for a single mother or a child at school when you are asking for food stamps for him. An example that Taibbi discussed was a couple working at a fast food restaurant that was expecting a child.
As hard as it is to admit, the American justice system is flawed. The documentary Broken on All Sides explores some of the problems the American justice system has. Some of these problems include mass incarceration in America and racial injustice. This documentary begins with the discussion of the drug war which led to a massive increase of incarnated citizens in America following this was the discussion of the brutality and discrimination African Americans face when it comes to the American justice system. While still bouncing off those two main topics, the documentary begins to discuss about what life is like inside jails/prions and the problems former felons deal with once released from prison.
Politics. What does it do to us and our views of people? In “Divided We Now Stand,” Susan Page, the current Washington Bureau Chief for USA today, explains just that. She spends the article giving readers studies and insights as to how people oppose simply because the party says to oppose, and she shows us how people feel about opposing parties and treat them as a result of partisan views. In this article, Page has many good points and strategies, but her argument could be improved.
The author’s studies indicate that the criminal justice system choose majority of their targets and suspects predominantly by race. According to studies conducted by the U. S Department of Justice, the imprisonment rate by race per 100,000 residents over 3,000 black males were imprisoned in the year 2000 compared to white males imprisonment rate of less than 500. This shows that conviction of crime, robbery, murder, and other violence and drug related crimes has a clear discrepancy across racial groups.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.
Alexander’s book introduction addresses some of the injustices that minorities especially African Americans have to endure under the war on drugs. However, Alexander also points out that drug crimes are relatively low compared to other countries meaning that there is no correlation at all between rising efforts on law enforcement funding and declining crime rates. Alexander comes to the conclusion that the current criminal justice system is set up to keep social control over minorities. The New Jim Crow assignment has a total of twenty six questions.
Coker gives great evidence that supports racial injustice in the criminal justice system. She discusses on the Supreme Court’s rulings and accusations of racial preference in the system. This article is helpful because it supports my thesis on race playing a role on the system of criminal justice. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1997). Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes.
MacDonald makes a lot of good points about how the politicization of criminal justice can hurt the entire field. I do not agree that racial profiling does not exist, but I do agree that political witch hunts and fishing expeditions are likely to punish good officers and limit their ability to do their jobs, while failing to ensure that minorities are treated equally. An unfortunate but valid point that she offers is that the disproportionate amount of minorities involved in incarceration does not indicate racial profiling, but just that more minorities are committing crimes (Macdonald, 2001). I’d like to say that I’m well aware that crime is a response to poverty, not ethnicity. The disproportionate amount of minorities below the poverty line
To support my claims I will be talking about incarceration, pullover rates & situations and police training in great detail. When it comes to the sentencing of convicted criminals, there are racial, ethnic and gender disparities. In 1984 the Sentencing Guidelines and Policy Statements of the Sentencing Reform Act, or short for SRA, was designed to eliminate sentencing disparities and states clearly that race, gender, ethnicity, and
The United States prides itself on being a country of opportunities where the underprivileged can rise up and everyone is treated equally, but is that really the case? In reality the income of an individual gives them advantages of going above the system. The sociological explanation of the influence of the wealthy over the criminal justice system is described in the of the Pyrrhic defeat theory written in Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton book The Rich Get Richer and the Poor get Prison Ideology, class and Criminal Justice. The Pyrrhic defeat theory emphasizes the failure of the criminal justice is the consequence of success for those in power, who are taking advantage of the system.
Is it fair that an African American man is sentenced up to life in prison for possession of drugs when Brock Turner is sentenced to only 14 years, later to be reduced to six months for sexually assaulting an unconscious women. The judiciary system are believed to have a high african american incarceration rate as a result of discrimination. At a presidential debate on Martin Luther King Day, President Barack Obama said that “Blacks and whites are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, and receive very different sentences… for the same crime.” Hillary Clinton said the “disgrace of a criminal-justice system that incarcerates so many more african americans proportionately than whites.”
According to the Bureau of Justice, weapon arrests are 5 times greater for blacks compared to whites; numbers reading 69 for whites and 430 for blacks. Progressives will argue that the disparity reflects on the institutional racism in the criminal justice system. Others say the disparity is due to the fact that black people are disproportionately more likely to commit such crimes. There 's truth to both, yet there 's no disputing the figures. Much of it comes down to professional discretion.
A study conducted by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services undertaking claims of sentencing disparities studies the felony sentencing outcomes particularly in New York courts between the years 1990 and 1992. Astonishingly, the study concluded that approximately one-third of minorities sentenced to prison would have received a shorter sentence with the possibility of a non-incarcerative penalty if they had been treated similarly to their white counterparts. Consequently, other sentencing data is consistent with the results of this study’s findings. On a national scale, black males specifically, who were convicted of drug felonies in state courts 52 percent of the time, while white males typically receive prison sentencing approximately 34 percent of the time. In addition, these figures are not constrained to gender given the similar ratio among black and white women as well.
For years now there has been a lot of controversy involving the looming question: Is the criminal justice system racist? Racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one 's own race is superior. Ever since the Trayvon Martin case of 2012, the justice system has been in a complete downfall including all of the police brutality cases since then also. According to sources, 1 of every 4 African American males born this decade are expected to go to prison in their lifetime. Census Bureau reports that the U.S. is 13 percent percent black, 61 percent white, and 17 percent latino.
The emphasis of socioeconomic status in capital punishment cases plays a critical role in the evaluation of an inmate’s disposition and the biases that occur from the impacts of wealth. Economic standing impacts an individual to be drawn to or propelled from crime, dependent on the influence from the surrounding community. The initial socioeconomic influence on destitute areas provokes individuals to live a life of crime, which ultimately brings many crimes to be charged with capital punishment convictions. Occupational prestige and education stand amongst several other factors that account into the economic evaluation of death row inmates and the social impact left on an individual. In addition to the initial impact from socioeconomic upbringing, the decision-making in court can result in juror bias against the defendant.
