Of the 2.3 million people currently incarcerated in America 's federal, state, and local jails and prisons, over 1 million of them are African Americans. With that comes the fact that African-American males, born today, have a one-in-three chance of going to prison during their life. According to studies conducted by many major institutions, the American justice system is statistically biased against African-Americans and other minorities at all levels of the judicial system. Nanya Springer discusses this when she writes in her article about how white defendants usually fair better in trials over black defendants for the same types of crimes. (Springer 1) Also in her article, she talks about another major reason why African Americans are being
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As written in the article Pervasive Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System, “Numerous studies show that students of color are suspended or otherwise reprimanded at higher rates than white students for the same of similar infractions.” (Springer 1). This tells a lot about the state of the education system in this country. By exposing elementary and high school minority students to this biased behavior at such a young age, they begin to believe that the system will always be unfair towards them and with that what do they have to lose. Another author, Nick Chiles, backs up Springer’s statements by writing “Sixteen percent of the overall student population is African- American but they account for thirty-seven percent of students who face out-of-school suspension and they also consist of thirty-one percent of students who are referred to law enforcement.” An example that is seemingly matches those statistics is the case of Dontadrian Bruce. He was suspended from his high school in Mississippi for five months because he allegedly flashed a gang sign in a picture he took with one of his friends. The supposed gang sign turned out to be his football jersey number. This is one of the …show more content…
One of those laws is the mandatory minimum sentencing guideline that gets rid of the judge’s opinion when it comes to sentencing for drug offences. The author of the book Inequities of the Justice System, David Hunter, writes that the mandatory minimums put into law discriminate against African-Americans and Hispanics because there are different sentences for possession of cocaine over crack-cocaine (Hunter 60). This can be considered discriminatory because cocaine is considered an expensive, casual drug for white men and women in the suburbs of major cities while crack is mainly used by poor, minority citizens living in the inner-city. With that in mind, possession of five grams of crack will get you a five-year prison sentence while it would take upwards of five-hundred grams of cocaine to get that same sentence (Hunter 61). Since crack is cheaper and more readily available in the cities, many African-Americans and Hispanics will choose crack over cocaine. The other set of laws enforced in many states that systematically discriminate against minorities are the three strikes guidelines. These laws call for anyone who has committed three misdemeanors in a set period of time to face life in prison on the third offence. Most of the
As written in the article Pervasive Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System, “Numerous studies show that students of color are suspended or otherwise reprimanded at higher rates than white students for the same of similar infractions.” (Springer 1). This tells a lot about the state of the education system in this country. By exposing elementary and high school minority students to this biased behavior at such a young age, they begin to believe that the system will always be unfair towards them and with that what do they have to lose. Another author, Nick Chiles, backs up Springer’s statements by writing “Sixteen percent of the overall student population is African- American but they account for thirty-seven percent of students who face out-of-school suspension and they also consist of thirty-one percent of students who are referred to law enforcement.” An example that is seemingly matches those statistics is the case of Dontadrian Bruce. He was suspended from his high school in Mississippi for five months because he allegedly flashed a gang sign in a picture he took with one of his friends. The supposed gang sign turned out to be his football jersey number. This is one of the …show more content…
One of those laws is the mandatory minimum sentencing guideline that gets rid of the judge’s opinion when it comes to sentencing for drug offences. The author of the book Inequities of the Justice System, David Hunter, writes that the mandatory minimums put into law discriminate against African-Americans and Hispanics because there are different sentences for possession of cocaine over crack-cocaine (Hunter 60). This can be considered discriminatory because cocaine is considered an expensive, casual drug for white men and women in the suburbs of major cities while crack is mainly used by poor, minority citizens living in the inner-city. With that in mind, possession of five grams of crack will get you a five-year prison sentence while it would take upwards of five-hundred grams of cocaine to get that same sentence (Hunter 61). Since crack is cheaper and more readily available in the cities, many African-Americans and Hispanics will choose crack over cocaine. The other set of laws enforced in many states that systematically discriminate against minorities are the three strikes guidelines. These laws call for anyone who has committed three misdemeanors in a set period of time to face life in prison on the third offence. Most of the