Crime And Incarceration Essay

The role of the criminal justice system is to uphold moral standards in the United States, to keep our communities safe, and to ensure that criminals are punished and rehabilitated for their crimes so they can return as a member of our society. Minority populations are disproportionately overrepresented in all areas of the criminal justice system. For them, “the law” is something that may police or punish them unfairly. In the wake of cases of police brutality, and the social movements that follow, it is important to investigate whether implicit bias in criminal justice professionals, including police, increase incarceration rates of people of color. This paper hypothesizes that implicit racial bias has an effect on incarceration rates of minority populations. First, the paper will examine discrepancies in the treatment of minorities during arrests and with police officers. Next, it will examine racial discrepancies in sentencing of minorities versus white individuals. Finally, the paper will consider the multiple theories and effects that may influence implicit racial attitudes and incarceration rates. First and foremost, there are many discrepancies in the way that police supervise white communities compared to communities of color. These …show more content…
One of those stages in sentencing. To begin, minority youth disproportionately receive harsher punishment in the criminal justice system compared to white youth (Engen et al, 2002). This means that even when white and minority youth are charged with the same crime, minority youth get a harsher punishment for said crime. In addition, black juveniles are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. In 2006, “although only 17% of the juvenile population was black, they were involved in 51% of juvenile Violent Crime Index arrests and 31% of juvenile Property Crime Index arrests,” (Snider and Sickmund,