More handpicked essays just for you.
Gender disparity in criminal justice system
Gender disparity in criminal justice system
Women in the criminal justice system, pearson, fourth edition, chapter 6
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
A recent study of sentencing decisions in Pennsylvania (Steffensmeier et al., 1998) identified significant interrelationships among race, gender, age, and sentence severity. The authors of this study found that each of the three offender characteristics had significant direct effects on sentence outcomes and that the characteristics interacted to produce substantially harsher sentences for one category of offenders—young black males. This study responds to Steffensmeier et al. 's (1998:789) call for “further research analyzing how race effects may be mediated by other factors. ” We replicate their research approach, examining the intersections of the effects of race, gender, and age on sentence outcomes.
After reading the book, “Race, Gender, and Punishment: From Colonialism to the War on Terror” by Mary Bosworth and Jeanne Flavin, they discuss what they feel are the four “sociohistorical processes (Bosworth, Flavin: 2)” of social control, these being colonialism, slavery, immigration, and globalization. The authors separate each of these into their own chapter for a certain reason, to show the treatment of colonized people. The book focuses on how “colonialism, like each of the factors that underpin this collection, operates both structurally…and ideologically through culture, and the construction of the imaginary. (Bosworth, Flavin: 3).” Stepping back to the days of slavery, race has been the worldwide pyramid of power, in which white/Caucasian
(Moulds, 1978) This leads to women getting less harsh punishments than their male counterparts. So, one could argue that this need to protect women is actually hurting them, and society in general. When they are given lighter sentences, women learn that they can get away with more, because of the leniency they are given in the system. However, taking a step back and looking at the way media treats women vs men tells a very different story.
What main points were made in the study/research concerning social control? One of the main points that are made in the introduction show that women are more likely to be punished for things that violate the traditional gender role. Women are more likely than men to be punished for things like status offenses according to the text which include things such as liquor law violations, curfew violations, etc. The reading always breaks into how the women’s race can factor into sentencing. One of the shocking fact that the study shows is that black women are more likely to receive harsher sentencing than white women would receive.
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 justice system is a complicated system. The justice system is the third branch of the government. This branch holds the responsibility to create and up hold laws. The justice system has a precise order of how things fall into place when a crime has been committed. The process to arrest an individual to the sentencing of that individual takes a bountiful amount of steps and procedures.
In America, there is a constant debate on race and the death row. Questions about either African American are sentenced and executed more than a white man. But what most people don’t think about is gender and the death row. That is because women are very rarely sentenced to death and even fewer women actual put to death, Women accounted for only 1.4% of the 2,890 persons under sentences of death in 1994. And the numbers have not changed much.
Unfortunately, there are racial disparities in the United States in the legal system. Prison sentences imposed on African American males in the federal system are nearly 20 percent longer than white males convicted of similar crimes. The 1994 Crime Bill signed by President Clinton established mandatory minimum sentences. African American and Latino offenders sentenced in state and federal courts face greater odds of incarceration than white offenders who are in similar situations and receive longer sentences than whites in some jurisdictions. Research has shown that race plays a significant role in determination on which homicide cases resulted in death sentences.
Patricia O 'Brien 's article on We should stop putting women in jail. For anything is not practical. The article title was misleading and the article focused on women should not be incarcerated for nonviolent crimes and getting rid of women 's prisons. The examination of women in U.S. prisons reveals that majority are nonviolent offenders with poor education, little employment experiences and abuse from childhood to adulthood. She said the United States is a prison nation and have more than 1.5 million people incarcerated.
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.
Their bonds were set at amounts that were 54 percent lower than what men were required to pay. • Women were 58 percent less likely to be sentenced to prison. • For defendants who were sentenced to prison, there generally was no gender disparity in the length of the sentence. There were disparities in sentencing for some individual types of crime, however. For example, female defendants convicted of theft received longer prison sentences than male defendants convicted of theft.
Women of color are the most targeted, prosecuted, and imprisoned women in the country and rapidly increasing their population within the prison systems. According to Nicholas Freudenberg, 11 out of every 1000 women will end up incarcerated in their lifetime, the average age being 35, while only five of them are white, 15 are Latinas, and 36 are black. These two groups alone make up 70 percent of women in prison, an astonishing rate compared to the low percentage comprise of within the entire female population in the country (1895). Most of their offenses are non-violent, but drug related, and often these women come from oppressive and violent backgrounds, where many of their struggles occurred directly within the home and from their own family.
People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.
Gender should not depend on how people get treated differently from the opposite gender. If someone commits a crime regardless of their gender, they both should have to face the consequences regarding the crime they committed. A male should not be treated different than a female after committing a crime just because he is male and visa versa. Gender discrepancies play a role in everything in our world today. Whether it be in crime, sports, school, or even careers, males are typically punished much harder than females, and also get the most credit when it comes to sports, school, and their careers compared to females who excel in the exact same thing males do, even if the females are better than the males in any of those fields.
There are many indicators of the huge impact in disparities in sentencing women as compared to men and more so when it revolves around minorities ( race and class). Though there are lower crime rates among women as compared to men, there are significant disparities which tend to show favouritism to women. Research has shown that men get 63 per cent longer custodial sentences than women. In addition, it is twice more likely to have women get non custodial sentences even after conviction. However, as mentioned the disparities are more profound when issues of race and class are intertwined in the sentencing.
