Race and Crime: Discrimination vs Disproportionate Offending
The problem with racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is debatable because there is a considerable amount of evidence that addresses the fact that it is both individual and systemic biases. What is already known is that there is a relationship between race and crime, but through research we aim to find whether or not the cause of this relationship has to do with discrimination or disproportionate offending. The relationship between race and crime is a topic most generally talked about because statistics have shown that members of different races have different tendencies to why they offend. What has been found in research is that, both discrimination and disproportionate …show more content…
Though what we do not actually know is why this happening. Many people have tried to find out what the reasons for this may be, some authors such as William Wilbanks and that of Samuel Walker, Cassia Spohn and Miriam DeLone have expanded their own explanations as to why they think this happening.In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, the author William Wilbanks claims that racial discrimination within the criminal justice system is socially constructed, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Whereas the other authors oppose his insights by saying in, The Color of Justice that not only are black people not anywhere near disproportionate levels of crime that police statistics would indicate, as well as the fact that they are arrested more because they are policed discriminately. They even go further into their research by stating how crime is mostly based on social …show more content…
In a study, it was indicated that African Americans are more likely to be arrested than whites, and often are over represented when it comes to crimes that involve violence, for which they are even more likely to be arrested. “African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested in cases of robbery or murder (Walker et al., 39)”. Though many people have argued over the fact of whether police data is accurate and valid. Most of the dat that can be found on the inequality that has to do with race and crime comes from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) system. “Crime in the United States, the annual UCR report, compiles data from 16,000 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies representing more than 95% of the U.S. population (Walker et al.,
The problem with racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is debatable because there is a considerable amount of evidence that addresses the fact that it is both individual and systemic biases. What is already known is that there is a relationship between race and crime, but through research we aim to find whether or not the cause of this relationship has to do with discrimination or disproportionate offending. The relationship between race and crime is a topic most generally talked about because statistics have shown that members of different races have different tendencies to why they offend. What has been found in research is that, both discrimination and disproportionate …show more content…
Though what we do not actually know is why this happening. Many people have tried to find out what the reasons for this may be, some authors such as William Wilbanks and that of Samuel Walker, Cassia Spohn and Miriam DeLone have expanded their own explanations as to why they think this happening.In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, the author William Wilbanks claims that racial discrimination within the criminal justice system is socially constructed, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Whereas the other authors oppose his insights by saying in, The Color of Justice that not only are black people not anywhere near disproportionate levels of crime that police statistics would indicate, as well as the fact that they are arrested more because they are policed discriminately. They even go further into their research by stating how crime is mostly based on social …show more content…
In a study, it was indicated that African Americans are more likely to be arrested than whites, and often are over represented when it comes to crimes that involve violence, for which they are even more likely to be arrested. “African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested in cases of robbery or murder (Walker et al., 39)”. Though many people have argued over the fact of whether police data is accurate and valid. Most of the dat that can be found on the inequality that has to do with race and crime comes from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) system. “Crime in the United States, the annual UCR report, compiles data from 16,000 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies representing more than 95% of the U.S. population (Walker et al.,