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Racial disparity in the criminal justice
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In the book, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, readers are given a look at the long and extensive history of racism towards African-Americans. From there, the reader is shown how racism towards African-Americans has not gone away and is still very much common in modern society. Throughout the novel, Alexander argues and discusses how African-Americans are being discriminated against in the form of mass incarceration. “Mass incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice system but also to the larger web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison” (Alexander 14). The War On Drugs can largely be put to blame for the increase in incarcerations.
Since, the majority of African-Americans live in areas of drug involvement, they are more likely to be racially profiled and investigated. This has created an uneven ethnic ratio in prisons and produced stereotypes that affect children that prevent them from becoming abiding citizens.
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
In every country, criminals are punished differently such that some are sentenced to prison, others the public becomes the judge and the jury while for the case of the United States we usually have a trial to prove that they are not guilty and if they are indeed guilty then they will be just sentenced them to jail. In the article “How to Dismantle the “New Jim Crow”? it states how the number of inmates have increased since the late 1960’s. In some cases, the prisons are filled with minority race within the community for example; the African American, Latinos, and many more that’s why they call it the new Jim Crow. With this kind of treatment of the minority, some people have different reasons as to why the minority race is the one that is mostly
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
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.
Yet the fact is that African Americans are incarcerated, on probation, or parole in numbers unacceptably disproportionate to the population. The official explanation for the inequality is: higher crime rates among African Americans, which is consistent with dominant racial accounts going back to slavery. African Americans, are exposed to tactics and practices that would result in public outrage and scandal if committed in middle-class white neighborhoods, resulting in jaw-dropping figures of African Americans and Latinos filling the nation’s prisons and jails every
Is it fair that an African American man is sentenced up to life in prison for possession of drugs when Brock Turner is sentenced to only 14 years, later to be reduced to six months for sexually assaulting an unconscious women. The judiciary system are believed to have a high african american incarceration rate as a result of discrimination. At a presidential debate on Martin Luther King Day, President Barack Obama said that “Blacks and whites are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, and receive very different sentences… for the same crime.” Hillary Clinton said the “disgrace of a criminal-justice system that incarcerates so many more african americans proportionately than whites.”
The presence of this hidden practice of the police is also prevalent in African American communities and has shaped African Americans’ perception of the police. One quote that explains the temperament of African Americans towards the police is, “One of the most reliable findings in research on attitudes toward police is that citizen distrust is more widespread among African-Americans than whites” (Brunson 2007:73). “African Americans have had to deal with aggressive policing associated with racial profiling and other direct experiences with racial discrimination that lead to lasting adverse effects on individual perceptions of the police. For example, in predominantly black neighborhoods they are always pat down for drugs no matter where they go” (Brunson 2007:76). “If they see us every five
Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.
The negative Perception that minorities the American toward law enforcement is a deep rooted perception that stem back to slavery. were laws put in the place strictly known as slave law that can be enforced by law officials or ordinary civilians this particular set of law immediately stigmatize African America as second class citizen. The fact that the legal order not only countenanced but sustained slavery, segregation, and discrimination for most of our Nation's history-and the fact that the police were bound to uphold that order-set a pattern for police behavior and attitudes toward minority communities that has persisted until the present day. (Williams and Murphy 1990,p.2) it is because of the unjust laws toward minority communities that
I believe that the defiance theory is aimed towards African American offenders. Lawrence Sherman theory believes that the increase of future offending against the community is caused by proud, and shameless reaction (Regoli, 2017). According to the theory regarding African Americans development in society is that they experiment more racism and racial stereotype more than any other race and that they’re easy to commit crimes and have a greater delinquency involvement in any juvenile and criminal justice system. I personally think that this theory was wrongful studied regarding African Americans.
The family structure has been ruined therefore this have been the cause of detainment isolation inside the African American race. Drugs and crime have poorly affected the African American people which caused them to be put in jail for drug offenses normally where they get to be noticeably dangerous to the point of slaughtering another. These African American men 's circumstance is not scrutinized for accomplishment but instead disappointment with life in jail until death. The criminal equity framework is building more remedial offices and prisons to house them as opposed to defensive measures like reclamation, work planning ventures to help them change in accordance with society. African American folks have been profiled more than any race in all encroachment from movement references to capital murder cases and solution charges where they are getting more open door for split than powdered cocaine.
As African Americans we have a target on our backs one rooted in hate. However, it is our job to continue fighting for our right and our place in the world to be known. Many white officers do not receive any type of sentencing in court especially in cases that include the lost lives of one of our own. They live in fear of the threat that we pose especially when during slavery times we talked in letters or through songs rather than disobeying master. Additionally, this behavior is what we have tried to overcome, but we are constantly being judged because of the color of our skin.
There are a lot of things that influence African Americans lives, but jail incarceration and poverty seems to be at the root. I am mentioning poverty because unjust jail incarceration is linked adjacent to it. According to the State of Working America in a 2013 study, African Americans, poverty rates are the highest at 27%. According to the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.”
