Racial Discrimination In The Criminal Justice System Analysis

It is undeniable that racial discrimination still plagues our nation. It seems that every other day another race motivated violent crime and abuse turns up in our newsfeeds. It is no surprise that forms of racial discrimination have seeped into the American criminal justice system. In fact, racial dispraises in capital executions per capita dates back to seventeenth-century colonial America where a greater number of blacks were executed compared to white citizens. This trend continued from the 18th century to the Civil War, where not only more blacks received the death penalty but were executed for non-homicidal crimes (e.g., attempted murder, rape, unknown crimes) than their white counterparts. Moreover, the most excruciating and cruel methods …show more content…
Mandery (2011) argues that “the risk of race discrimination is capital sentencing is particularly pronounced because of the broad discretion invested in the actors – prosecutors, juries, and governors – that determine sentences.” Prosecutors have a wide discretion on whether to pursue the death penalty or seek a plea bargaining. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 94.5% of elected prosecutors in death penalty states are white. Juries have the option to impose the death penalty for any reason or for no reason at all; the only requirement juries must adhere to is finding a statutory aggravating circumstance. Governors have absolute discretion in granting clemency. Proving the aforementioned may be difficult, but, be that as it may, arguably race continues to plays a determinant factor in capital punishment cases. Not only do these discretions allow for a greater likelihood of racial injustice in capital cases but let’s consider the empirical evidence that points to patterns of racial discrepancies. In 1990, the U.S. Senate requested the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to publish the results of a study lead by David Baldus, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski that analyzed issues related to racial discrimination in the use of capital punishment in the post-Furman era. The study reviews the racial …show more content…
According to Cochran & Chamlin (2006), whites have always been significantly more supportive of the death penalty in comparison to blacks. Moreover, studies seem to suggest that the divide has a number of prominent classes of explanations across both groups such as socioeconomic status, political ideology, religious orientation, right-to-life position, social welfare and governmental spending priorities, and experiences with the criminal justice system, among others. Take socioeconomic status for example. As economic and/or levels of education attained increased so did support for capital punishment. The correlation can be explained simply because socioeconomic status is highly associated with race. The authors discuss how political ideology plays a role in the racial divide. Blacks are more likely to be Democrats (i.e., liberals); therefore, blacks are more likely to oppose the death penalty. In comparison, a greater number of whites are Republicans (i.e., conservatives) which tend to support capital punishment. The remaining factors which attempt to examine the racial divide, directly corroborate with the statistical and surveyed findings that whites are more likely to support the death penalty than