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Criminal Justice Disparities Essay

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Disparities in the Criminal Justice System (3) The criminal justice system in the U.S. targets and punishes African-Americans much more aggressively than white people. African-Americans constitute a smaller percentage of the population than whites but have a higher rate of arrested especially for drugs. African‐Americans make up around 12.5 % of the population in the US but account for about 40% of arrests, 50% of the prison population, and 50% of death row inmates. “African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.” (NAACP.org) In the larger context of society, I feel this issue as well as many others such as discrimination in housing, education inequalities and media portrayals in some way …show more content…

Where we see this clearly is with arrests for drugs. In the 60’s Nixon decided drugs and addiction were a crime instead of a health issue. This was a thinly veiled means to put blacks behind bars, “The rhetoric of "get tough" and "law and order,"um, was part and parcel of the backlash of the civil rights movement. A Nixon administration official admitted the war on drugs was all about throwing black people in jail.” (Movie:13th) The war on drugs and incarceration of people of color was reinvigorated by Reagans war on drugs with changes to the drug laws. The establishment of harsh mandatory sentencing for crack cocaine, considered a poor black drug but lesser sentencing for powdered coke, a more expensive form favored by whites once again meant people with brown skin were headed to jail in record numbers, “Congress, in virtually record time, established mandatory sentencing penalties for crack that were far harsher than those for powder cocaine. The same amount of time in prison for one ounce of crack cocaine that you get for 100 ounces of powder cocaine. Police here are cracking down on crack dealers. Usually black or Hispanic, Latino, they were getting long sentences for possession of crack. You're black with crack cocaine, you goin' to prison for basically the rest of your life. Um, and if you're white, you're

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