Is The Criminal Justice System Racist?

America’s Justice System The justice system in America is not racially biased, but results from crimes committed and unequal incarceration rates. According to the article What It’s Like to Be Black in the Criminal Justice System, African Americans are more likely to have their vehicles searched, serve longer sentences and be arrested for drug use. However, no evidence is apparent from these claims and no statistics prove these statements to be true. In the article Is the Criminal Justice System Racist?, the authors give court cases, studies, and dates to prove their claims about the justice system to be found true. These statements are used to support one’s idea that the criminal justice system is not racially biased. A common idea that people uphold is “cops over-arrest blacks and ignore white criminals.” This idea comes from the fact that one in every thirty-three black men were in prison as of 2006 opposed to one in every two hundred five white men and one in every seventy-nine Hispanic men. However, the rest of the idea claims white criminals are being ignored and not arrested for crimes. Policemen and criminal investigators can only arrest people who are reported committing a crime (with evidence) and cannot arrest someone who was not reported or caught. Logically, policemen cannot over-arrest blacks if there are more …show more content…
In 1997, Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen, criminologists, said “large racial differences in criminal offending” was the reason behind why there might be more of one race in prisons than others. A case analysis from 1987 reveals felons in Georgia that are blacks usually receive lenient punishments. Surveys of felony cases from 1994 showed blacks have a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than other races. Although, blacks were found likely to receive a prison sentence after a