Racial Disparities In The Criminal Justice System

While looking at the massive number of people incarcerated in the United States, it is easy to see that a major disparity presents itself when looking at the races of those incarcerated. The numbers are astonishing: “Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”, n.d.). These questions arise: Is our criminal justice system discriminatory? Or, do minorities actually engage in more crime than whites? The statistics are clear:

The existence of racial disparity and structural inequality within the criminal justice system renders the concept of true justice for all unobtainable. The statistics of convictions and prison sentences by race definitely support the concept that discrimination is a problem in the justice system as well as the insignificantly number of minority judges and lawyers. There are a multitude of circumstances that influence these statistics according to the “Central Eight” criminogenic risk factors. The need for programs and methods to effectively deter those at risk individuals has never been greater and the lack of such programs is costing society in countless ways.

“The system is not fair. Institutional racism is alive and well in the juvenile justice system as it is in the criminal justice system, due to racial disparity and bias in the court room” (Jones, Bridgett). This is a statement that plagues many people involved in the justice systems. There are huge racial disparities throughout the world. Post-Slavery: the early development of the Race/Crime Connection, Profiling: Racializing possible cause, and differential bias involvement as well as institutional racism. We can work on having better policies and procedures driven into police practices and we need to make sure people of color are not excluded from juries to stop most of the disparity.

There are large racial disparities in incarceration and related detainments for African Americans. They are more likely to be under the supervision of the Department of Corrections than any other racial or ethnic group (H.West, Sabol, & Greenman, 2010). Institutional racism is believed to be the reason why African Americans, especially males, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. On balance, the public believes that discrimination against black people is based on the prejudice of the individual person, correlates to the discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions (Pew’s Research Center, 2017). This belief is actually supported through several experimental studies that provide evidence that African Americans are to be seen as more criminal and threatening than others thus more likely to be arrested or even shot (Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003). Racism within the criminal justice system very much exists and is still relevant.

The “War on Drugs” established that the impact of incarceration would be used as a weapon to combat the illegal drug problem in this country. Unfortunately, this war against drugs has fallen disproportionately on black Americans. “Blacks constitute 62.6% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons in 1996, whereas whites constituted 36.7%. The drug offender admissions rate for black men ranges from 60 to an astonishing 1,146 per 100,000 black men. In contrast, the white rate begins at 6 and rises no higher than 139 per 100,000 white men. Drug offenses accounted for nearly two out of five of all black admissions to state prisons (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.

While both sides of this deeply entrenched controversy substantiate meaningful claims, neither of their arguments is exhaustive, although Walker, Spohn, and DeLone’s case is much more convincing. African American arrest statistics are best understood as the convergence of both a somewhat higher incidence of crime as well as racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Although higher incidence of crime may initially appear to justify higher arrest rates, there is significant evidence demonstrating that not only is African American crime exaggerated by a racially discriminatory criminal justice system (one of the products of which is disparate arrest rates), the greater crime rates in and of themselves are a result of economic inequality.

“The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison” (Alexander, 2012). The numbers tell the story better than words can: black people are more likely to go to prison than any other race in the United States, shown by the fact that more than 60% of the prison population is composed of people of color (The Sentencing Project, 2016). These statistics can be traced back to several different cause, including the Era of Jim Crow and the War on Drugs, both of which led to higher policing in minority areas.

There is a large racial disparity with unjust arrests in America. African Americans are discriminated and racially profiled more than any other race within the criminal justice system (Slate, 2015). The main goals of the criminal justice system are to prevent and control crime and to achieve justice (Crime&Justice International, 1997). However, according to the ‘American Progress’, “people of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos are unfairly targeted by the police and face harsher prison sentences compared to other races, particularly white Americans (American Progress, 2015). Although the criminal justice is to provide equal justice to all of its citizens, African Americans tend to not receive the same justice. Specifically, African

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe (Pettit, 2004). In the 1980s, U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to decrease steadily. Many urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law

There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1

To view this data, we were able to use the UCR to analyze and illustrate our data regarding total drug arrests, across a number of demographics in the United States using graphs and data rates. The demographics we were concerned with was race and sex. More specifically men, women, whites, blacks, Asians, and American Indians. We found that African Americans were arrested for drug related crimes at a much more profound rate than any of the other demographics that we compared, as well as the total for all the demographics combined. What we can take away from these results is that there is a disproportionate drug arrest totals for select races. We can see this by looking at our figure above. Knowing this we can take the next step to try to understand why these disproportionate results are happening and in what ways we can do our part to bring the disparity down. By doing this we hope to create a society that works toward unity harmony, and equality, no matter of anyone’s physical

When African Americans are arrested many of them never get to see a day in court, 3 to 5 percent of the criminal cases hardly ever go to trial instead many of them just take the plea bargained because they believe that by taking the plea, that was a better way out than standing trial (Stohr & Walsh, 390). If a black person is awaiting a felony trial they are more likely to be arrested, 33 percent more likely to be arrested than a white person awaiting for the same trial (Stohr & Walsh, 390). In many cases white people are not being arrested for crimes they have commited nor being held accountable for their actions. Alexander states, “ 75 percent of those incarcerated for drug offense were blacks and Latinos while the majority of the drug users and dealers where white” (Stohr & Walsh, 400)

In the work racial politics, racial disparities, and the war on crime, the author Tonry describes how the criminal justice and system in America has always been biased against the black Americans (Tonry, 1994). There has to be a number of studies related to the disparities in the criminal justice. As per the author, stereotyping plays a major role; however, it's also the drug policies and political corruption which leads to more black people being imprisoned (Tonry, 1994). Since the 1980s, the war on drugs encouraged incarceration. The bias against Blacks was particularly brought about by the Reagan and Bush administration, according to the author. The increasing pattern of racial disparities in American prison is evidenced by the percentage of black jail inmates.

The criminal justice system has historically been known to disenfranchise African-Americans. Johnson’s findings highlight the barriers brought up through the criminal justice system. The majority of prison populations are minorities brought in based on police officer’s own perceptions of African-Americans as criminals greatly increasing the number of unemployed African-Americans. For example, many states allow businesses to ask someone seeking employment to check whether they had been convicted of a felony. This question is not optional on the application and leads to many being rejected from these positions. The cause-and-effect relationship shown is known as ‘The Prison Industrial Complex,’ that begins when African-Americans and other minorities are children and believe that prison is their only path.Once a person has a record, they can no longer get a job and prisons in the U.S. do not readily supply education behind bars, so there is no way to prove to employers qualifications. Through the endless cycle, racial disparities continue to grow between African-Americans and White Americans.

Racial Disparities in the Criminal justice system are evident as shown by the higher statistic of one particular race or ethnicity within an institution such as jail or prison is higher than the statistic in the community. There are clear signs of racial disparity in the sentencing of criminals for similar charges (Nellis, A., 2016). For example, the war on drugs, which purpose is to eliminate all drug use within the United States, but sentencing for drugs such as cocaine and crack cocaine which chemical composition is similar are sentenced differently. The disparities become apparent when observing where the usage of each drug exists. Despite polices and procedure set by law enforcement agencies racial disparities are present within policing. Some officers use racial bias policing or excessive force when patrolling their jurisdiction. The uses of racial bias policing are due to prejudices help by the officers or bigotry.