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Racial Bias In The Criminal Justice System Essay

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Racism is something that is still ongoing and has even gotten worse in recent years. No matter what efforts are taken to try and get something to change, equal representation in the justice system is something we may never get. The justice system was and still is racist. From the racial profiling, harsher sentencing for people of color, and the over-representation of people of color in the criminal justice system. According to the NAACP “If Black and Hispanic people were incarcerated at the same rate as White people, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 percent.”(NAACP) Mass incarceration became the main source of cheap labor after the abolition of slavery. Though the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, convicts were still being …show more content…

Racial biases can affect jurors' perceptions and judgment. Jurors who are just normal citizens taking part in a duty asked of them can affect someone's whole life by just saying a few words. Racial biases by jurors can lead to biased outcomes in trials, and this bias can deny the right of individuals to a fair trial. The death penalty is one the harshest punishment one can receive in the criminal justice system, however, some studies show racial bias can lead to the use of the death penalty. Biases held by jurors can sway their perception of guilt or innocence which can result in the use of the death sentences for individuals from racial minority backgrounds. This type of bias undermines the core principles of impartiality that the justice system is meant to uphold. The justice system is meant to give equal protection to all, but being biased based on skin color is the justice system not upholding their key belief. The use of racial biases can cause harm to individuals who don’t deserve this harsh punishment just because of the color of their skin. The use of the death penalty should be free from racial bias to ensure that our society is giving everyone equal protection under the law regardless of one's race or

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This article critically examines the racial disparities in sentencing during the late 20th century and highlights how biased judgments influenced judges' decision making processes. "Just Mercy" aligns with these findings by emphasizing how racial bias affects sentencing outcomes. The author Bryan Stevenson explores implicit bias and cultural stereotypes illustrating their impact on judges' perceptions and judgments of African American defendants. Through concrete examples. "Just Mercy" vividly exposes instances of racial bias within the criminal justice system and reveals the unjust consequences faced by people of color.

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Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Criminal Justice Stevenson through his book has provided various examples that show that people of color and low-income individuals are more likely to be presumed fully prior to presenting their cases. The author has stated that executions are a good example of how norms and policies are used for the purposes of punishing and controlling the people of color For instance, he argues that one in three black people are expected to be sent to jail in their lifetime. Further on, eighty percent of people on death row are black while 65 percent of homicide victims are black.

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The study picked jury-eligible subjects, who were randomly assigned to view one of four versions of a simulated capital penalty trial in which the race of the defendant and race of the victim varied. The results of the study indicated that the deliberations created a punitive rather than lenient shift in the jurors’ death sentencing behavior. The white mock jurors had the tendency to sentence black defendants to death more often that white defendants. The author’s main thesis is that there are two important major flaws in the capital jury decision-making process. The first is its unreliability.

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The biggest disparity that was found was when a death penalty case involved a white victim and a black defendant. After reviewing the death penalty cases, there was an indication that “twenty-two percent of cases received the death penalty when a black defendant and white victim were involved….compared to only three percent when there was a black victim and white defendant involved.” The study broke this data down further and looked at the percentages of when a prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The study found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in “seventy percent of cases that involved white victims and black defendants and only nineteen percent when the roles were reversed.”

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After reading the Chapter 5 and 6 it is evident that racism is present throughout the court system. Although the racism is generally paired with law enforcement, the court system has a major issue as well; especially when looking at the jury selection process. When thinking about the court process the jury selection does not really become an issue or brought to the public's attention unless it is a major case. The U.S. Supreme Court has also stated the jury is "an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge" (Pp. 255.) The jury plays a vital role in the criminal justice system.

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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.

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Biased juries ruin lives. The reasons behind biased juries vary, but majority of the time it is because of the jury’s own personal morals. Juries’ morals range from racism to simply having a bad experience with the defendant. With biased and unfair juries an appeal can be extremely important to the defendant. In the 1950’s segregation and discrimination were at the highest, this did not help Black men and women.

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This report is helpful because it highlights how race is influenced on the death penalty. It will help me see if the death penalty is racially neutral. Coker, D. (2003). Addressing the real world of racial injustice in the criminal justice system. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

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Racism is an ongoing issue which had been taking place for centuries. Racism can take various forms, direct, indirect, individual or institutional. Institutional racism however, has been questioned frequently recently in light of criminal justice system, especially and more noticeably in the US now, where many believe the police is treating/handling black people unfairly comparing to other ethnic groups. According to Macpherson (1999) institutional racism is where organisation does not provide appropriate service due to someone’s colour, culture or ethnic origin, and can take form of racial discrimination in forms of attitudes, behaviours and processes. Macpherson developed this definition when undertaking an inquiry of Stephen Lawrence, a black child who was murdered

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African Americans face harsher circumstances in death row sentencing’s than any other race. In a study published in 2009 by Scott Phillips, a University of Denver sociology and criminology professor, conducted research between 1992 and 1999 in Harris County, Texas when an astonishing “504 defendants were indicted for capital murder” (O’Hare, 2010). At the end of his research, Phillips found that “convicted capital murderers were six times more likely to get a death sentence when they killed married whites or Hispanics with college degrees and no criminal record — as opposed to unmarried black or Asian victims with records and no college degrees” (2010). Phillip’s study proves that death row sentencing is bias as African Americans were more likely to be put on death row if their victim was of a higher social class than them. Florida’s death penalty sentencing in recent years has been extreme.

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George Woodworth once examined the death penalty rates among all death eligible defendants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between the years of 1983 and 1993. The results of their study proved that the odds of receiving the death penalty in Philadelphia increased by 38% when the accused was black. (“Race and the Death Penalty | American Civil Liberties Union”) This shows that the justice system is biased and proves that a black person is more likely to receive a death punishment for committing the same crime as a white person. Another example of discrimination is when death penalties are given to those that are poor and grow up in underprivileged backgrounds.

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Racism is an evil act that can destroy a society. The U.S is a nation of immigrants and, as such, it is a diverse society where racism has no place. In the past few years police officers in America have been discriminating against the black community. Police officers are meant to protect the public, not cause further damage and stress. They use over excessive force towards black people, target minorities and abuse their power.

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914 Words | 4 Pages

“ According to the National Association of Social Workers Web site, racism is “the ideology or practice through demonstrated power or perceived superiority of one group over others by reasons of race, color, ethnicity, or cultural heritage....” The definition further goes on to note that “racism is manifested at the individual, group, and institutional level.” (Blank, 2013) Despite how much time has passed by, racism continues to be a huge issue today. We see it every day, some have even been confronted by racial discrimination, or racial slurs even. We see how the system could be for example: how blacks continue to get more severe punishments or blacks have higher the chance to get criminally sentenced than whites.

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815 Words | 4 Pages

“The law may be color-blind as it is written, but not as it is enforced.” Racial bias in the death penalty can be traced back to Furman v. Georgia, where handing down the death penalty sentence, unfairly, constituted as a cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The reinstatement of the death penalty with its new sentencing guidelines, implemented by the Supreme Court, was to ensure that the death penalty sentence was used in a constitutional way. Despite these guidelines, somehow, racial bias has found a way to thrive. It has been documented that an individual is more likely to receive the death penalty in a case where the victim is White than in cases where the victim is Black.

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Racism and equality have something that has been going on for a long time now, dating back to all the way when Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech. The topic racism is something that needs to be changed; we do not need it in the world we live in right now with everything that has been going on. The major thing that is going on right now is the topic of how cops treat African Americans. We have seen many cases of the cops shooting and killing blacks the past few years, and it is something that is becoming a major issue.

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