ipl-logo

Racial Disparities Regarding Sentencing

842 Words4 Pages

Racial disparities concerning sentencing have an adverse effect on the African American community. Racial profiling and plea bargaining are contributing factors that lead to overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system. Data and statistics support the assumption that African Americans are disproportionately subjected to racial profiling, traffic stops which leads to searches and seizures that lead to minor offenses which can also lead to incarceration, rather than probation or rehabilitation (Kamalu, Coulson-Clark, & Kamalu, 2010). The existence of racial prejudice exists when African American defendants are more likely to be convicted and given harsher charges than their white counterparts that have received the same charge, but …show more content…

If found guilty the sentencing phase is addressed. One of the main functions of criminal sanctions is to offer offenders rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation, there have been discussions that regard the possibility of differential treatment of groups and the overrepresentation of males and Blacks within the criminal justice system (McNamara, & Burns, 2009). It has been suggested in early research that sentencing and the severity of sentencing for minorities showed signs of discrimination, with more recent research the findings are conflicting. Socioeconomics status influences incarceration for those of the minority …show more content…

This gift can be offered due to socioeconomics that has hindered minorities for centuries. It gives the community a chance to heal. Socioeconomics affects the environment, education, employment, housing status, guidance that is needed for many. Many of these offenders live in poverty and most are single parents raising children. With this gift, it gives them the advantage to turn their lives around with the help of the court system and programs that teach minorities how to advance in society. Prosecutors and judges know the conditions that most of these minorities face and appear to be willing to aid in their rehabilitation for a greater cause. This offer helps to rebuild relationships with the communities that have become distrusting of the criminal justice system. Prosecutors are well aware of the poverty that exist within minority communities and they have extended the hand of help for all minorities due to the socioeconomic conditions that all minorities face in society today. When racial minorities are given the opportunity for sentence reduction that shows the courts are trying to alleviate the burden that sentencing puts on families and the community.
Kamalu, N. C., Coulson -Clark, M., & Kamalu, N. M. (2010). Racial disparities in sentencing. Implications for the criminal justice system and the African American

Show More
Related
461 Words | 2 Pages

He claims the prejudices of the judicial system handed out mandatory sentencing for those who used their constitutional right to have a trial by jury. The author builds a relationship with the audience by using Pathos in order to compel them to recognize the urgency to change the current law. Girault explains the failing logic of the law on page 225, he states that communities were to be made safer and instead of targeting petty crimes the focus would be to bring down kingpins, however after three decades of the SRA it still was a failure. Girault defines the sentencing reform act as discriminatory and states that minorities are hugely effected by this law and states ”Black people are overwhelming charged, convicted and sentenced at a higher rate to federal crimes since the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act.” (Girault 228).

Read More
328 Words | 2 Pages

Bryan Stevenson negotiates the prejudice and intolerance within the criminal justice system, and the biases within based on economic and racial status. This book exposed myself to a deeper level of injustice inside our system than what I already had a conception of. Each story Bryan talks about hits on different subjects that opened my eyes to how our system truly treats minorities so coldly. Those of a different race, economic status, are treated far worse than we can imagine. Within the past few years racial injustices have began to gain more attention in the media, allowing awareness into the discrimination still present in our system.

Read More
977 Words | 4 Pages

A recent trend in the United States Justice System, at local and state levels, is to implement the use of formulas and algorithms to determine sentencing length. In her article “Sentencing, by the Numbers”, University of Michigan law professor Sonja Starr focuses on this trend, and shows flaws that she finds in the system. In the article, she agrees with the actions of Attorney General Eric Holder in criticizing the system for the way in which it determines the risk of future crimes. Throughout, Starr presents the system as something that will, instead of solving mass incarceration, make the problem worse for impoverished persons and minorities. Starr argues that the system discriminates against those with a socioeconomic disadvantage, has

Read More
1024 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1343 Words | 6 Pages

Coker gives great evidence that supports racial injustice in the criminal justice system. She discusses on the Supreme Court’s rulings and accusations of racial preference in the system. This article is helpful because it supports my thesis on race playing a role on the system of criminal justice. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1997). Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes.

Read More
433 Words | 2 Pages

Recently, “In 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that African Americans receive 10% longer sentences than whites through the federal system for the same crimes,” (dosomething.org, n.d.). White Americans tend to get less of a punishment than an African American, simply because of their skin color and what people associate with their race. Although courts don’t convict innocent people frequently, they punish people of color harder than they punish white Americans. Judges and juries are supposed to be equal and just, but they don’t always put equality before

Read More
1642 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More
279 Words | 2 Pages

Statistics prove that Mandatory Minimums affect minorities disproportionately. In fact, African Americans are over 10 times more likely to enter prison for drug offenses than their Caucasian counterparts despite both racial groups using drugs in equal amounts. This shows the racial bias of the Justice System at work by using Mandatory Minimums to punish minorities with harsher sentences. Blacks and Hispanics make up 74.4 percent of the people convicted of drug charges while only making up less than 30 percent of the population. Indicative of this widespread problem, 39.4 percent of convictions in 2011 involved Mandatory Minimum Sentencing (United States Sentencing Commission 148).

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

In 2009,black males comprised less than thirteen percent of the U.S. population,21 but accounted for almost 40% of the male jail and prison population.22I African American men, with an incarceration rate of 4749 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents, were incarcerated at a rate more than six times higher than that of white men (708 inmates per 100,000).25 This trend extends to juvenile delinquency courts. For example, in2007, juvenile arrest statistics showed that while African American youth accounted for only seventeen percent of the general population, they comprised fifty-one percent of arrests for juvenile violent arrests and thirty two percent of arrests for juvenile property arrests.29 It is well-documented that “youth of color enter and stay in the system with much greater frequency than White youth” in nearly all juvenile justice

Read More
784 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
181 Words | 1 Pages

It sad to see that more than half of the young men in our American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system. Where’s the justice when our system automatically demotes them to a permanent second-class status, and challenges their chances of happiness and freedom. When minorities from the justice system are released, they are harshly discriminated against. This discrimination does nothing but regenerates a cycle of imprisonment. With the world at their backs, the result usually ends up with repeated behaviors that places them back into the system.

Read More
921 Words | 4 Pages

When there was a misdemeanor drug offence, black defendants were 27 percent more likely than whites to get a plea offer that included incarceration.” This shows unfairness

Read More
1248 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More
935 Words | 4 Pages

Research Paper Draft Over the last past decades, the rate of incarcerations for minority has risen at an unprecedented rate (Warren, Gelb, Horowitz & Riordan, 2008).Criminals of difference races, sexes, or socioeconomic status receive different sentences for same crimes. The United States now incarcerates more than 1 out of 100 American adults. The United States holds the record for both prison population size and percentage of citizens in prison (Warren, Gelb, Horowitz & Riordan, 2008). American prisons do have a disparate number of minority inmates in their populations.

Read More
965 Words | 4 Pages

Therefore, making plea bargains necessary for the courts although more minorities use these plea bargains, which could potentially explain why so many minorities are over represented in the correctional system (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone,

Read More

More about Racial Disparities Regarding Sentencing

Related Topics

Open Document