Enduring Myth Of Black Criminality, By Brent Butler And Steve Harmon

The United States criminal justice system is diminishing millions of lives every day. Ironically, the amount of inequalities that the criminal justice system portrays goes against the term ‘justice’. There is a 33% chance that a black male will end up in jail in his lifetime, while white males have a 6% chance. There are 4,749 black males incarcerated while there are only 703 white males. Prisons receive revenue of 1.65 billion dollars per year which makes them willing to incarcerate anyone that they can (“Enduring Myth of Black Criminality”). Two stories that give an insight into the criminal justice system are the stories of Steve Harmon from the book Monster and Brent Butler from the documentary Murder On A Sunday Morning. Steve Harmon is

He is being accused by association and could possibly be facing a life sentence. Brent Butler is a fifteen-year-old boy who is being accused of the murder of a lady named Mary Ann Stephen. Similar to Steve, Brent is also facing a life sentence. The documentary shows many details of his trial as well as the events that led to his arrest. Combined these two texts show the reader that the criminal justice system is corrupted, biased, and fairly racist. Brent Butler and Steve Harmon are both being accused of a crime that they did not commit. Brent Butler was picked up by the police because he was a black male who was walking in the area of the murder of Mary Ann Stephen. Steve Harmon was picked up by detectives because they believed that he was an accomplice in the murder of Alguinaldo Nesbitt. In Monster, the prosecutor

Brent had a different and tougher experience with his case than Steve did. In Brent Butler’s case he experienced abuse from a detective as well as racial slurs. The detective was sure that Brent committed the murder because the witness who happened to be a white man said that he was the shooter. He did not even get to write his own testimony, another detective wrote it for him. When he was in the room giving his testimony the sound was off and there was no detective outside to listen to what Brent was saying. In Murder On A Sunday Morning, Brent’s defense attorney shows pictures of his injuries and puts Brent on the stand to testify. Brent said that the detective was poking him in his chest, punched him in the stomach twice, and punched him in his left eye several times. The detective also said to Brent, “It’s niggers like you that make me mad these days”. In Monster, the guard says, “...then they lock them up. (Turns and looks off camera toward STEVE.) Ain't that right, bright eyes?” (Myers 14). Steve Harmon may have suffered verbal abuse from the guards at jail but they never touched him or threw racial slurs at him. No one should be harmed while in police custody, they should feel safe. Since Brent is black, the detective probably felt that he could get away with treating Brent however he wanted to at that time. This helps demonstrate the fact that the criminal justice system is biased and