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Social Structures Essay

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These unfair statistics towards the discrimination of minorities are allowed and institutionalized are the result of social structures. Structures are the building blocks of social justice within society. The word is a very loose yet defined term, as a structure can be anything from a ideology to a sect of government. Different structures effect different areas and issues within social justice by affecting the relationship between individuals and society as a whole. Institutionalized Racism, is racism that occurs as a result of different societal structures. For example, courts, non-diverse juries, and individual racism are all different common structures in society that contribute to make our social justice standards what they are. When combined …show more content…

In addition, Courts or in other words our Criminal Justice system, is far more vast of a structure then non-diverse juries and individual racism. The latter two are a far more specific scenario and ideology respectively. They all have a connection that allows them to combine and create injustice. Courts and non-diverse juries go hand in hand. Prosecutors are given a number of peremptory challenges to remove jurors, and these challenges are lopsidedly used on minorities. In addition, those who are against the death penalty in death penalty cases are discharged, and the majority of minorities in America are against the death penalty. The laws and process behind our courts leads to non-diver juries. Non-diverse juries go hand in hand with individual racism. Not every single juror in death penalty cases with minority defendants is a “racist.” However, bias against a defendant because of the color of his/her skin is individual racism. Black defendants of course get the death penalty at an astonishing rate when the victim is white where as when the tables are turned, the same can not be said. The racism that occurs in death penalty cases are clearly an unfortunate result of these three structures combining to create social injustice. (Racism Common in Jury

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for a dull respondent than for a white prosecutor in a practically identical case. A study in California found that the people who killed whites were general 3 times more slanted to be sentenced to death than the people who killed blacks and more than 4 times more likely than the people who killed Latinos. Looks at exhibit that 96% of states where there have been surveys of race and capital punishment, there was an example of either race-of-casualty or race-of-litigant separation, or both. A respondent was a few times more prone to be sentenced to death if the homicide casualty was white. A January 2003 study discharged by the University of Maryland presumed that race and geology are central point in capital punishment choices.

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There are many racist caucasian people that serve in juries. They believe that African Americans should be in a position under them so they would do whatever they could to keep them down. During the Scottsboro Trials nine African American men were arrested for something that they did not do. They were accused of raping two white girls

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The murder of Emmett Till,a black boy, went unpunished. The juries are oppressing black men. The jury shouldn’t oppress black men because it doesn’t give black defendants the due process of law. In both cases, the black people are oppressed because they are given a worse trial than the

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By definition racism is: “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” (Merriam and Webster) This problem is often times very relevant in our jury system, though if we send someone to prison, they have the right to a retrial and we can at least give them the rest of their lives back (and a lot of money in restitution). While as if we send someone to death, we can never give them their lives back. Recent studies show that in interracial murders, when there is a white defendant and a black victim, there were only 31 executions, whereas if there was a black defendant and a white victim, there was 291 executions carried out.

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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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1. How has your view of theology changed over the past eight modules/weeks? (125–150 words) I’ve come to realize that theology is more than the study of the doctrines of the Bible. By studying theology, I am reflecting on my faith and expressing my desire to know God.

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Is our justice system corrupted, racist or is it perfect? Did you know African Americans now constitute for nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population? This is probably the case because Blacks are incarcerated six times the rate of whites. African Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people. I believe race, ethnicity and gender disparities play a large role in how our system is executed.

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In the 20th century all white juries acquitted white defendants who were blamed for killing or harming blacks. Some say this was an example of nullification not selection. During prohibition, they often nullified alcohol control laws because of disagreement with the justice the law had. American juries draw the power to nullify from its right to render a general verdict in criminal cases. This would be the inability of criminal courts to direct a verdict no matter how compelling the evidence,

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“We Need To Talk About Injustice.”). Unfortunately, race affects the chance of execution and it happens more than it should. As a society, we have made so many improvements throughout history. The abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement has immensely improved our society but every day when we incarcerate innocent black individuals and send them to death row, we as a society are setting ourselves back sixty years. Do you want that?

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Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three

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Regarding an article titled "Race and the Death Penalty," written by the American Civil Liberties Union, "The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43% of total executions since 1976 and 55% of those currently awaiting execution. " For example, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, murders committed by African Americans are treated as more severe and "deserving" of the death penalty because of the prone, aggravating factors established by the simple initiation of "harm, fear, of pain" through the color of one's black skin ("Death Penalty in Black"). Furthermore, another measure of race's impact on the death penalty is the combined effect of the race of the defendant and the race of the victim. In the Philadelphia study, the racial combination which was most likely to result in a death sentence was a black defendant with a nonblack victim, regardless of the severity of the murder committed ("Death Penalty in Black").

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For years now there has been a lot of controversy involving the looming question: Is the criminal justice system racist? Racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one 's own race is superior. Ever since the Trayvon Martin case of 2012, the justice system has been in a complete downfall including all of the police brutality cases since then also. According to sources, 1 of every 4 African American males born this decade are expected to go to prison in their lifetime. Census Bureau reports that the U.S. is 13 percent percent black, 61 percent white, and 17 percent latino.

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Furthermore, it has been documented that in some jurisdictions, Black defendants are given the death penalty

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Social structure also refers to patterns of social relationships in a society . Social structure deals with the organisation of these relationships and how they are arranged into patterns. Social structure is the framework that allows people to have different interactions with each other. Social institutions create the necessary foundation in order for social structure to be possible. Within social structure there are two concepts.

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