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Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system
Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system
The effects of racial profiling within the legal system essay
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Being Black In the Criminal Justice System Being in the criminal justice system racism, Blacks were treated differently from whites. Blacks were treated as they were convicted of crimes, and can shut them away in prison warehouse. A door is easy to repair, compared to a broken family. In calculating the human cost of our the criminal justice system.
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.
Affirmative Action Reader pg. 244 “ those many in our society that are darker, poorer, more identifiably foreign will continue to suffer the poverty, marginalization, immersion and incarceration.” Statistics are staggering Racial Disparities in Incarceration African Americans constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, they are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, what’s shocking is that one in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001 and if the trends continues one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. I am for affirmative action, as I believe that when the late President John F Kennedy signed the affirmative action on March 6th 1961,
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.”
To summarize the article “Racial Profiling is Morally Wrong and Based on False Assumptions”, by James A. Kowalski, he argues that racial profiling is by no means effective, or good. It solves no problems, and causes people to fear law enforcement. Racial profiling is when an individual is suspected of a crime by law enforcement because of their race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. For example, “all blacks are gang members”. In addition to Kowalski’s arguments, he references the Zimmerman case from 2012 as an example of racial profiling gone wrong.
Profiling come from stereotypes and bias within the law enforcement personal on duty at the time. Profiling is morally wrong. Most of the time the person that is stop and or question and detain did not do anything wrong. Innocent people get targets for they appearance, because it matches statistical data not for doing anything wrong. certain ethnicities may be treated unfairly by dew enforcement because of certain perceptron’s of different ethnicities bared off the officers.
1.The theory/concept of intersectionality is a theory centered around oppression, domination and discrimination through various mediums from the social and cultural elements of society. The theory can be applied in many ways toward women as well as their involvement in the criminal justice system. Some forms of discrimination that is more prevalent in perceiving the individual is using a woman's status, race, sexual orientation, ability and age, however there can be more added to this list. The wiki article said “The theory proposes that we should think of each element or trait of a person as inextricably linked with all of the other elements in order to fully understand one's identity.”
Racial profiling can cause feelings of humiliation and worthlessness and lead to self-esteem problems. (Racial Profiling) Something that may not seem as a big deal to some may be it for others. Nobody deserves to have to be humiliated by something they couldn 't
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
Biased juries are usually influenced because of racial discrimination. Adding on to diverse juries, “It has been nearly impossible to be clear, according to advocates of increasing the jury's diversity” (Emmanual). There is racial prejudice causing unfair issues that African Americans experience with the police (Bryant). Juries with no diversity are prominently seen in court, which causes doubted trials. Characterized by Lee, the society shows that, “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Lee 117).
Taking all of the studies, background knowledge, and statistics into consideration, I do believe that there is an unproportionate amount of black men serving time in the criminal justice system. It has been proven that men of color are particularly likely to be imprisoned, in comparison to their non black counterparts. “African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)” The sentencing of black men is commonly dealt with in a harsher manner, than with other races.
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.
Have you ever been racially profiled ? Racial profiling is a very big national problem. Even though supposably the United States has entered a “post-racial era.” It happens every day in cities across the country. Law enforcement and private securities tend to target people of color mainly for embarrassing or scary reasons.
One of the greatest challenges law enforcement are facing is providing effective policing for minority communities. Some factors that prevent minorities from gaining access to justice or being taken advantage of certain criminal justice services are language barriers, racial stereotyping, and cultural differences. Since the 30 's and 40 's, and even during the 60 's, civil rights activists damaged the police-minority relations in the United States, believing that police only interest are protecting white communities. A big explanation of why there 's a poor police-minority relations in the United States is racism on the part of the individual officers. Many minorities in the United States have continued to complain about being treated more harshly than whites and the Department of Justice believes that racial profiling and police discrimination will continue to be a big problem.
Racial profiling is a very important issue that individuals in society face every day. This problem occurs in low income or poverty-stricken areas throughout cities and communities across the nation. Hundreds of anecdotal testimonials allege that law enforcement officials at all levels of government are infringing upon the constitutional rights and civil liberties of racial and ethnic minorities through a practice called “racial profiling” (Ward, 2002). So what is racial profiling? According to the National Institute of Justice, racial profiling by law enforcement is commonly defined as a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin (National Institute of Justice, 2013).
