Racism Within The Judicial System

Racism Within the Judicial System

While growing up in an urban area, it’s easy to dismiss the injustices and racism that one has grown up around, this is seen as normal. As a minority, when one is stopped by a police officer, the two most common outcomes are either death or being a brutally violent arrested. The United States is infamous for the number of incarcerated citizens: 670 per 100,000. Shockingly enough, the numbers continue to rise. How is it that the nation that extols the virtues of life, liberty and justice also maintains one of the most draconian prison systems in the world? In the past couple of years, there has been an increase in the public's exposure to police brutality. This topic was highly discussed after the death

After the Civil War ended, slavery in the United States was abolished, but this did not end the discrimination and the injustices that black people faced. In the south, the main source of a steady income was cotton and apparently there can't be cotton without slaves. With obvious anger and desperation to regain slavery, the black codes were created in 1865. The Black codes could be described as,“ White southerners, seeking to control the freedmen (former slaves), devised special state law codes. Many northerners saw these codes as blatant attempts to restore slavery.” ( The Southern “Black Codes”). With laws, such as not being able to preach without permission from the prison, limited what “freedom” they had gained. The Black Codes made it extremely hard for freed slaves to make a life for themselves, they could not be homeless or jobless. Ultimately, the main goal was to incarcerate as many freed slaves as possible, in order to exploit them for free work and regain power over them, much like the current prison system. The black codes were only in effect from 1865 up until 1866. After they were removed, there were still long term effects that negatively impacted the lives of many. This created a certain connotation around black people, making them seem like criminals and violent people who are in prison for a valid reason. Although, this pattern of criminalizing minorities hasn't stopped, it was

A ‘reasonable’ answer as to why this is occuring at such high rates is the case that minorities are the one who are committing most of the crimes. Thought this isn't the case, the problem is coming from within the judicial system. The way the system is setup, it's possible that, “ black men in their 30-40’s have been incarcerated at some point in their lives.” (Demby). Due to their race, they are being the main victims of the injustice that the judicial system continues to spread. The way that the statistics are being presented, it seems as if every black man will without a doubt commit a crime at some time in their life, but this is completely unfair and unrealistic. This is creating a stereotype around black people, they're being seen as criminals on and out of the courtroom. Even if this was the case, it's not as if any other races are not committing any crimes, the numbers should even out, considering the fact that black people make up a small fraction of the american population. In the United States, “ African Americans make up only 12% of the general public and 42% of death row.” (Hauser). The gap between those two numbers is baffling. How is it possible that black people makeup less than a quarter of the American population, but make up almost half of the prison population that is on death row. This isn't even considering the fact that other inmates are not on death row. Within