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Racism today in america
Racism today in america
Racism today in america
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Racism today in america
Racism today in america
Racism today in america
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Matt Taibbi’s “The Divide” uses extensive research to attempt to contradict the understanding of our nonpartisan justice system. According to Taibbi, while poverty has increased, crime has decreased, and the jail population has increased 600% since 1991 (page xvi). He states while individuals are being prosecuted based on race and financial status. In which Taibbi argues that other offenders are not being prosecuted compared to minority groups.
Without a serious punishment, these people are more likely to repeat their crimes. Heather Kramer and Otis Newton, who write for the Lakeside Publishing Group, believe that disenfranchisement is a necessary measure against convicted felons, as these criminals have failed to comply with the very document that provides them with many freedoms. This article hopes to attract the attention of the general
White-collar crimes like what happened to Shirley Lee are prevalent today. Many view white-collar crime as less threatening than typical blue-collar crime (i.e. robberies). Both crimes however, affect society in a negative way. White-collar crimes cause more direct financial harm than blue-collar crimes. Blue-collar criminals cause more physical harm and for that reason are often perused and punished more rigorously.
Racism is systemic, and it has infected everybody from our systems of education to incarceration. CONCLUSION In every way, the criminal justice system is weighted to favor the wealthy. While someone of means slide through the system and experience some minor inconvenience, while the less fortunate will go through the process of their life destroyed.
Felon disenfranchisement is not only unconstitutional but also further institutionalizes racism. For example, in communities consisting of minorities like African Americans and Hispanics felony disenfranchisement unlawfully create a disadvantage for freedom of speech. As stated by Eric H. Holder, JD a US Attorney General “although well over a century has passed since post-Reconstruction …the impact of felony disenfranchisement on modern communities of color remains both disproportionate and unacceptable.” The act of taking away someone’s right to vote notably mirrors the act of forbidding African Americans to vote during the post-Reconstruction Era. Holder refers to the fact that taking away the right to vote essentially withdraws any opinions that minorities
This new law caused an increase from an estimated 300,000 to 2 million prison inmates over the course of the last two decades. (Michelle Alexander, 2010) According to Rebecca C. Hatey and Jennifer L. Eberhdt of Stanford University, California holds only 7% of African American population but 45% of California’s prison inmates are African American under the three strikes law. (Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase Acceptance of Punitive Policies 2014) Michelle Alexander writes that the mass incarceration of the 1990’s created a new “racial caste system” and extreme funding for the criminal system.
Fellow American citizens already copiously penalize felons in everyday life; they look down on them in society, restrict them from large amounts of jobs, and allow their past blunders to haunt them. Therefore, felons’ debt to society has not only been paid for by their prison sentence, but it has also been paid for by their tedious lifestyle. This leads to enfranchisement advocates pondering why The United States continues to punish felons and restrict them from the highest esteem of American culture, especially when they may have ended up with their doomed fate through a vacuous mistake. To further support their point that disenfranchisement fosters an overly severe punishment for felons, supporters of felon voting rights point out the fact that, “in 13 states a felony conviction can result in disenfranchisement, generally for life, even after an offender has completed his or her sentence” (Mauer 3). Champions of felon voting rights disagree with the continual reprimanding of felons after their sentence, as it exceeds their obligations to
In the “Cruel Hand,” Alexander addresses the impact of the legal and police system on race. The impacts of these institutions have clear impacts, like incarceration, but the unclear impacts occur after the incarceration ends. A person convicted of a crime “may be ineligible for many federally-funded health and welfare benefits, food stamps, public housing, and federal educational assistance. His driver’s license may be automatically suspended, and he may no longer qualify for certain employment and professional licenses. If he is convicted of another crime he may be subject to imprisonment as a repeat offender.
As indicated by Bartollas and Siegel, there is evidence which lends to the widely perceived view by many that a correlation exists between an individual’s social class and the type of justice and consequently the sentence an individual receives. As lower socio-economic offenders are less likely to afford quality legal representation, often enduring to suffer the consequences of the overworked public defender and be compelled into accepting a plea or are unable to secure to make bail, thus, as Bartollas states, “lower-class offenders have typically expected to receive longer prison sentences than higher class defendants” (2013). While justice should be blind to the gender of the offender, Bartollas states “women receive more favorable outcomes
In communities like Chicago where 80% of African American men have records (Alexander, p. 9), it is apparent that the jury will not be representative of the broader community. This again excludes felons from participating in the system which directly impacts them, and reinforces a social caste system which benefits white Americans who have the power to decide the guilt of those in the lower castes in the setting of a court room. In other words, African American defendants are unlikely to be judged by a true jury of their peers according to Wakefield and Ugen. This is similar to the practice of using trumped up charges to imprison and control freed African Americans discussed in the film “Slavery by Another Name” where elite whites controlled the corrections process and arbitrarily decided guilt based on little other than
### Thesis Statement: " The criminal justice system in the United States is fundamentally flawed and biased, leading to unjust outcomes and perpetuating systemic inequalities. This article delves into the shortcomings of the system, highlighting issues such as institutional racism, inadequate legal representation, punitive measures over rehabilitation, and the school-to-prison pipeline. By examining these critical flaws, it becomes evident that comprehensive reform is necessary to ensure fairness, equity, and justice for all individuals involved. --- In light of established evidence pointing to the faults within the criminal justice system, it is imperative to acknowledge the pressing need for reform.
Regardless of crime and culpability, those who are too poor to get out, stay in jail, while the wealthy walk free. As the system works, wealth, not culpability, shapes
A viewpoint when it comes to the major controversy of felon rights is often an biased opinion that originates from people as well as parents all alike and it is the argument that they as lawful citizens do not want violent offenders such as rapist, domestic offenders, and killers to be involved in voting whatsoever for the fact that these votes are ultimately determining what 's right or wrong for their country. The aspect that is often ignored and or unrealised in this situation is that violent offenders make up only a portion of those who get charged with felony offenses. According to statistics out of a list of twenty offenses that you can get charged as a felon for, violent crimes lies eighth on the list and even more substantial domestic violence and child abuse falls seventeenth on the list. So is it right to view all offenders the same way and hold limits on all as if they were exactly alike? Peter Dimond, an American economist, criticizes the system of economics that surrounds felons when he claims in the article “Should felons have the right to vote?” that to proceed from this issue “First, we need to recognize that felons aren’t necessarily villains – some may be victims themselves of an unfair judicial system, and even those that aren’t – those that have committed crimes deserving of felon status – should have their voices heard.
The political debate for and against felon disenfranchisement has compelling arguments on both sides. In the US, over 6 million felons are barred from voting due to laws that prevent felons with a sentence to vote (Chung). The number of imprisoned has been growing over the past 40 years, as the increasing number of imprisoned felons is directly correlated with an increasing number of disenfranchised felons. However, a more jarring statistic reveals that most disenfranchised felons in the United States are of a racial or ethnic minority. Based on information from the 2010 US Census Bureau, about 36 percent of disenfranchised felons are African American.
In middle of the article, Reiman explains “White-collar criminals are rarely arrested or charged: the system has developed kindlier ways of dealing with the more delicate sensibilities of its higher-class clientele” This statement connects to the fact that not only being an African American puts you into a degraded status, our judicial system treats differently among different races and allows white people with higher income to get away