ipl-logo

Race Neutral Policy Summary

1293 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial disparities in criminal justice system

Incarceration rates in the United States are extremely higher than other countries. According to Schlesinger in her article “The Failure of Race Neutral Policies: How Mandatory Terms and Sentencing Enhancements Contribute to Mass Racialized Incarceration” there are, “Currently, one and a half million people are incarcerated in either state or federal prisons” (Schlesinger). This number is very high compared to other countries. A large majority of the people incarcerated are African Americans. Schlesinger makes this clear with the fact that, “Blacks are six times more likely than whites to imprisoned during their lives” (Schlesinger). This number seems very unjust. Why does the criminal justice so disproportionately incarcerate blacks? …show more content…

This is the best theory to explain the high incarceration rates of African Americans crime trend. The group threat theory is explained very well by King and Wheelock in their article, “Group Threat and Social Control: Race, Perceptions of Minorities and Desire to Punish.” King and Wheelock find that, “results indicate that changes in African American population size influence punitive attitudes for whites” (King & Wheelock). This means that the greater the population of African Americans the greater the amount of threat the white population feels. This is a very unnerving finding because generally white Americans are the ones making the decisions in the criminal justice system. It would make sense then that the criminal justice system is unfair to African Americans if the people creating it are biased against …show more content…

The behavior of law is the how the law is applied and the amount of law applied. The amount of law includes if there is an arrest, prison sentencing, and how long the sentence is (Fraga). Typically those with low socioeconomic status receive a greater amount of law than those with higher socioeconomic status. The people African Americans living in disorganized neighborhoods are unable to properly defend themselves in the court of law because they cannot afford the proper means to do so. This makes it very difficult for a person who is convicted of or even accused of a crime to recover financially. Many African Americans are unable to afford bail or a good lawyer. Being convicted of a crime makes it very difficult to provide for one’s family and himself or

Show More
Related

Comparing Bruce Western's Punishment And Inequality In America

98 Words | 1 Pages

Over the last thirty years, the prison population in the United States has increased more than seven-fold to over two million people, including vastly disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. For some racial and educational groups, incarceration has become a depressingly regular experience, and prison culture and influence pervade their communities. Almost 60 percent of black male high school drop-outs in their early thirties have spent time in prison. In Punishment and Inequality in America, sociologist Bruce Western explores the recent era of mass incarceration and the serious social and economic consequences it has wrought.

Read More

The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander: Chapter Analysis

2127 Words | 9 Pages

100). At the same time, however, police officers also target more Africa American communities due to high crime rates. Even though the crime rates in Black communities are not as high as it has been, those communities are still targeted. Mass incarceration, on the other hand, is not due to the fact of these crime rates. According to Alexander’s (2011) studies, “As of September 2009, only 7.9 percent of federal prisoners were convicted of violent crimes” (West & Sobol, 2010, p. 101).

Read More

Alexander The New Jim Crow Analysis

348 Words | 2 Pages

America’s criminal justice system is racially biased and influenced due to the fact that the punishment a person gets is not related to the crime that 's done, funds that help African

Read More

1960s Dbq Essay

918 Words | 4 Pages

Source A argues that disparities between blacks and whites have been appalling in court. According to Source A, “If a black person kills a white person, they are twice as likely to receive the death sentence as white person who kills a black person” (2). This reveals that a black person has a higher rate of receiving the death sentence when tried for murdering a white person. If a white person is tried for a killing of a black person they have a 50% chance of getting the death sentence, then that means that a black person would receive a 100% chance of getting the death sentence for killing a white person.

Read More

Analysis Of Between The World And Me By Ta-Nehisi Coates

1515 Words | 7 Pages

Police officers are more likely to stop and arrest African Americans, compared to other ethnic groups in America, and this has to do with stereotypes. Mainstream media portrays black men as violent, thugs or drug sellers which shapes the perceptions majority of Americans have towards African Americans (Hurwitz & Peffley, 2005). Therefore, these stereotypes become a method to dehumanize and make it acceptable for black people to be treated in a certain way in the criminal justice system. Also, there is a big gap when it comes to how to black people and white people view the criminal justice system because they experience it differently. Whites are significantly more likely to approve police aggression compared to their black counterparts, because they are not subjected to violence from Criminal Justice system (Hadden, Tolliver, Snowden, & Brown, 2016).

Read More

Annotated Bibliography: The New Jim Crow

1343 Words | 6 Pages

African American now are nearly 1 million of 2.3 million incarcerated population. They are being incarcerated six times the rate of whites. Together, with Hispanics, they are covering prisons by 58 percent as of

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Remarks By The President At The NAACP Conference

577 Words | 3 Pages

Our criminal justice system is harsh on all the prisoners but especially to the African American prisoners. If our communities, courtrooms, and cell blocks work together, our criminal justice system can be

Read More

Jim Crow Era Research Paper

460 Words | 2 Pages

Michelle Alexander says in her book, “The New Jim Crow” that millions of African-Americans are arrested for minor crimes every day. These African-Americans remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever labeled them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become law-abiding citizens. Michelle Alexander also says that people are swept into the criminal justice system especially in poor communities of color for minor crimes. More than 108,000 New Yorkers are currently disenfranchised with the law. Eighty percent of those being African-Americans.

Read More

Essay On The 13th Amendment

887 Words | 4 Pages

1 out 4 human beings in the world are in prison in the U.S. We have a higher rate of prisoners than any other country. These things do not just happen, history is not something you choose, it is put in place for you. Many people do not understand why so many African Americans are in prison and the communities are so bad. The government with the help of the president and congress have had strategic plans to criminalize and enslave African Americans for profit since way before time did exist.

Read More

Essay On African American Sharecropping

885 Words | 4 Pages

America jails three thousand one hundred nine out of every 100,000 black males. Such a ridiculously high number of black males incarcerated is not uncommon. There is a disproportioned amount of exposure of crimes committed by African Americans. Conservative media outlets such as newspapers, popular online blogs, and radio can aggrandize black crimes which causes prejudice with people who use those sources, adding on to the already prejudice societal views. The American systems have always been against the social, economic and educational advancement of African Americans since the end of slavery.

Read More

Black Men In The Criminal Justice System

800 Words | 4 Pages

“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.

Read More

Argumentative Essay: The American Dream

908 Words | 4 Pages

The Huffington Post says, “The U.S. incarcerates nearly seven times as many people, measured as a share of population, as Canada does. People of color are disproportionately represented in the American prison population and are typically punished more severely than white peers for the same crimes” (Daniel Marans). Racism against people of color has caused them to be represented poorly in society as potential criminals, especially black. MIT informs its viewers that “according to the United States census Bureau, blacks are twice as likely to be poor compared to other races, and eight times as likely to be imprisoned. Blacks are also three times more likely to be convicted of drug violations than whites.

Read More

Essay On Mass Incarceration

526 Words | 3 Pages

If a quarter of the nation is locked up, and almost half of those prisoners are black, freedom is stripped from an entire race. African Americans only make up 13% of the US population (Vera). Despite their small racial representation in the country, the lifetime likelihood of a black man going to prison is 1 in 3, while the lifetime likelihood of a white man going to prison is 1 in 17 (DuVernay, 13th). However, the United States prison industry prior to Nixon was

Read More

Michelle Alexander The New Jim Crow Summary

1075 Words | 5 Pages

The racial disparity can be accounted for through the mass incarceration of black offenders in terms of sentencing with mention of a racial caste in place, not allowing those of color to move from their position. As such, mass incarceration has led to prisons being filled with an overpopulation of those who are black than any other race. Interesting enough, it has been proven through surveys that those who are white are more likely to engage in drug crime rather than those who are black. I found this to be an interesting point to discuss as it raises the question as to just why are more people of color incarcerated at a growing rate than

Read More

Race In The Prison System Essay

965 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

More about Race Neutral Policy Summary

Related Topics

Open Document