The Role Of Racism In Criminal Justice

Racism is the practice of discrimination and prejudice based on a racial classification supported by the power to enforce that prejudice. Race on the other hand can be defined as a group of people who share similar and distinctive physical characteristics. The difference between racism and prejudice, is that prejudice focuses on negative attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs about an entire category of people formed without full knowledge for consideration of facts. Racial equality is a condition that would be achieved if ones’ racial identity no longer was predicted in a statistical sense. Institutional or structural racism is a form of racism in the social, economic, educational, and political forces or policies that operate to foster discriminatory

The criminal justice area deals a lot around racism regarding people of color. In the article Don’t White People Kill Each Other, Too? It discusses how “Black on Black” crime is the cause reason behind most of the African American killings that have been happening in recent history. According to the article "Blacks today are nine times more likely to be killed by other blacks than by white.” This has always been the perception, especially in urban communities. Ronan states that the fact is that, all races share similar ratios. Yet there's no outrage or racialized debate about "white on white" violence. Instead, the myth and associated fear of "black on black" crime is sold as a legitimate, mainstream descriptive and becomes American status quo. After reading this article I was stimulated to have this discussion with some of my peers. When asked what were their thoughts on potential racism that’s occurring within the criminal justice system, they agreed that there is racism within the system, but also stated that they believed that most of the deaths that has occurred within recent history has been because of “Black on Black” crime. This was not puzzling to hear, only because that’s what they are conditioned to believed from the policies and the media that we engage in. The other policy area that I would like to discuss is Education. The Education system is continuously being discriminated against regarding African American. Resmovitz states that black students has a higher rate of being suspended and expelled, do not have access to the more experienced teachers, and has lower academic performance. The article, American Schools Are STILL Racist, Government Report Finds states that Seven percent of black students attend schools where as many as 20 percent of teachers fail to meet license and certification requirements. And one in four school