Essay On Racial Disparity In Criminal Justice

Superior Essays
Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System
African American men are facing hard factors when it comes to law enforcement. Police officers and black male relationships have reached their peak of who is more afraid of the other. Racial disparities have been found in the criminal justice system and to this day are still widespread in pretrial incarceration, stop and frisk, charging, jury selection, arrests, court processing, probation, and incarceration in prison and jails.
One of every three black males born today will go to prison in their lifetime. According to Alfred Blumstein, “80 percent of racial disparity is explained by the greater involvement in crime”(51). According to Michael Tunry, “Only 61 percent of the black incarceration rate is explained by engagement in criminal behavior”(51). African American males’ most visible prosecutions are for drug offenses.The rates are high for incarceration because most males are caught up in the selling of contraband. The involvement in drug wars are seen in African American men as the steady rise of them ending up in prison and jails estimating from 40,000 to 500,000 in 2010 (Tunry 52). In 2005 African American males’ were 14 percent of persons arrested for that charge. Blacks convicted of a harsher crime receive far more trouble than whites who committed the same crime(54). General law enforcement perform drug policing in communities of color. Racial profiling by law enforcement officials is not seen by all officers to a degree. Whites when convicted of a drug crime were tried for what was seen to be a “black” crime (Ted Chiricos). Disparities in the processing of an African American male have been seen in law enforcement. Disparities in the system make up the interrelationship between race and class. According to DMC, “African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but make up 28 percent of arrests, 40 percent held in prison and jails, and 42 percent on death row”(2). Black males’ incarceration rates are extremely high and they receive harder punishment for their crimes as seen in the system. African Americans arrested are 2.5 times more frequently to be arrested than whites. They are also arrested 6 times higher than whites. Blacks are more likely to be sentenced to probation than whites. New admissions to prison for African Americans is 6 times higher than whites. Nationwide incarcerations in the state prison are 6 times higher than whites and in local jails almost 5 times higher. Death row was at a steady rate of 5 times higher for African American males. African Americans have the most wide ranged and largest disparity compared to whites(DMC 2). According to Norman Reimer,“the criminal justice system is a window into a society’s soul if this is true, what are we to make of harsher outcomes for people of color at every stage of the criminal justice system: from arrest to decisions about bail and pretrial detention and from adjudication to sentencing?
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What is the role of prosecutors, defenders, judges, and police in propagating racial disparities in the system, even if unintentionally? More important, what can system actors do to reduce or eliminate disparities”(8). Stops and frisk are mostly in black communities or cities with blacks. 684,330 stops by police in 2011 were 87 percent black and 9 percent white. Surveys by the U.S. Department of Justice found that African Americans are more susceptible to traffic stops and more likely to be searched than whites. Targeting minority communities for drug enforcement is the drive for racial disparities. According to Professor Jones Brown, “he disagrees with the proposition that policing strategies must differ between neighborhoods. “High crime” …show more content…
Using racial statements to aid in the consequences of criminal justice policies to be able to see the effect of sentencing on racial incarceration. Stop and frisk policing done to black males are based entirely off their attire from baggy pants and or a hoodie. Discrimination against a person wearing baggy pants and or a hoodie is unacceptable anyone can wear that attire and not be pursued clothing does not make a person if those are the only clothes they have to wear it is like going after a homeless person when all they have on their back are baggy clothes you cannot judge a book by a cover because you have not read and dissected that

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