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Gender Disparities In Prison Essay

1263 Words6 Pages

If we are created the same and have the same rights, then why do we see unequal treatment when it comes to men and women committing the same type of crimes. Gender disparities in the criminal justice system is a huge issue and had affect thousands of inmates in prison. People are not treated equally mostly when it comes to gender. One may have a longer sentence than others based on their gender. Men are being incarcerated much longer in prison and has a more severe punishment. There is a gender gap because we set a mindset when it comes to favoring one side, which can be seen as gender disparities, inequality and discrimination. In the article, “Women as Victims”, when a woman commits a crime, Americans are not used to seeing women committing …show more content…

The article, Mass Incarceration stated,“A disproportionate number of people incarcerated for nonviolent crime were people of color, particularly African American men” (Thomas Riggs 2015). African American are being racially profiled and have a more difficult time dealing with society. They are being incarcerated for crimes that are not severe because of their gender and identity. According to the article, “Mass Incarceration” it stated, “As a result, the U.S. prison system has a disproportionately high number of minority inmates. While African Americans account for only 12 percent of the overall population, they make up more than half of the prison population” (Thomas Riggs 2015). Discrimination had played a crucial role in determining the sentence of a person. Minorities like African American are being treated more harshly than others which leads to an increase of their population in jail. Men and women that are African American are being punished differently compared to the other race. In addition, our judicial system shows that the inequality and injustice for men in prison is a severe issue, which need to be a concern for

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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”).

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In Michelle Alexander’s book, she argues that mass incarceration is a huge form of racialized social control. While most agree with her that many more black men are put in prison than white men, some also agree that discrimination can arise in public situations, not just in prison. Based on my own experience in public school and in my community, I have seen just how other people of color are discriminated in society too. Alexander concentrates her main points on the racism and discrimination of blacks more than any

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I. Gender Disparity Guidelines and Data In the context of gender disparity in criminal sentencing, some may think that having said that criminal courts are more lenient on women is just one’s opinion. In fact, a lot of researches and data suggest that there is a strong different in gender in the sentencing outcomes. Men are sentenced to longer prison terms than women. Men are 42% more likely to be sentenced to prison.

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African Americans are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and sentenced to harsher penalties compared to their white counterparts for similar offenses. The over-policing of African American communities, racial profiling, and biased sentencing practices contribute to the lack of opportunities and a cycle of incarceration. Reforming the criminal justice system by addressing racial bias, implementing alternatives to incarceration, and focusing on rehabilitation can help create a more equitable society and provide opportunities for individuals to reintegrate successfully into their

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But one problem that African Americans still face is the unfairness of the American prison and criminal justice system. The United States holds the title as the highest prisoner population in the world. With African Americans account for less than 12% of the United States, they still make up a large portion of the U.S prison population. Black people are incarcerated at higher rates than whites, despite being equally susceptible to committing crimes as whites. The American prison and criminal justice system has a long history of racial discrimination towards African Americans which can be supported through examples of unjust laws, disproportionate incarceration rates among different races, the and cases of African Americans being unfairly persecuted for crimes they didn’t commit.

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Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.

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The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world with about 2.3 million people in prison. According to Vitanna.org’s statistics, an estimated one million of these prisoners are African American. 12.3 percent of the population is black, yet over 43 percent of America’s prisoners are black. This disparity is certainly unnatural, seeing as how African Americans are no more likely to be criminals than whites. Black men are overrepresented in prisons because of the unfortunately common stereotype that they are all remorseless criminals.

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“African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.” The majority group of this statistic are people who come from african american backgrounds. The fact that black people are to make up nearly half of the prison population alone, really conveys the rate at which they are being arrested. Black men are often victims of racial profiling by police. They are targeted by police officers, and security guards, and are accused of crimes unrelated to them, simply on the basis of their skin color.

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Women convicted of “other property offenses” – a category of crimes that includes arson, receiving stolen property and breaking and entering — received shorter prison sentences. • Black female defendants were, in some ways, treated differently than white female defendants. Black women were assigned higher bond amounts and were more likely to be sent to prison than white women. Women of both races were equally likely to be released prior to

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Among black men in 11 states, at least 1 in 20 were in a state prison. In 2010, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in the United States an estimated 558,700 African American adults were incarcerated under state and federal jurisdiction. African American males had an imprisonment rate 3,059 per 100,000 while white males had a rate of 456 per 100,000 (Bureau of Justice Statistics). These results show African

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“The more things change, the more they remain the same”. While many Americans feel like the years of enslavement in the United States are a thing of the past. Most do not realize the harsh reality that minorities are faced with on a daily due to the color of their skin. It isn’t that the American people are turning their cheeks to this injustice, but rather, they just aren’t aware that in some cities and towns minorities are racially profiled and subjected to harsher punishments than those of their white counterparts. According to an article posted on American Progress, one in every fifteen African American men and one in every thirty-six Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to one in every one hundred and six white men.

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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.

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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.

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No government system can fully be indiscriminate against two groups, and this is true in our legal system’s final destination: prison. In prison, the two binary genders face unique and distinct problems that the other gender may not face. While they both face different issues the biggest ones each faces leads to increased likelihood of recidivism, or going back to prison. The issues that the genders face in prison is noticeable, with considerable differences between men and women, yet there does not seem to be a consensus of whether or not these problems warrant change.

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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.

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