Los Angeles Courtroom Drawings

Discrimination and racial disparities exist at every phase of the U.S. criminal justice system, especially when it comes to sentencing. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, as there are over 2 million people imprisoned today. The drawing is a visual representation of my annotated bibliography. In it, I stated that the criminal justice system is broken, as it discriminates against people of color. The left side of the illustration depicts the scene of the courtroom during the trial of a white defendant. The right side of the illustration is an exaggerated representation of what happens to people of color, when they are prosecuted. As, seen from the picture, these two realities extensively differ. In the leftward portion of the drawing, the arrangement looks like what one would see if they were to step into a Los Angeles courtroom. There are rows of benches for those in attendance, two desks for the defense and prosecution, the faces of the jury in their chairs, the judge at his chair, and the flags of California and the United States next the judge. The alignment of the courtroom is meant to display the honesty and fairness of the justice system. This is a façade however, as the right side of the illustration shows. The right side of the picture is a representation of the

African-Americans are disproportionately imprisoned by discriminatory laws and deprived of their civil rights by our supposed democracy. This country’s criminal justice system still has not escaped the influence of racial prejudice. The criminal injustice system has transformed enslavement and institutionalized the violence and horror of previous generations, as slaves are no longer held in captivity on plantations, but rather in