The criminal justice system in the United States has increasingly targeted people of color, more specifically African Americans, for crimes that they may have not committed. A huge number of incarcerated African Americans have been wrongfully convicted within the past 20 years. Through the creation of the national police force in 1893, African Americans have had a target on their back. Ever since the establishment of Jim Crows Laws in the 1890s through “separate but equal,” racism has been prominent in society. Through systematic racism, many Americans assume that Africans Americans are more likely to be engaging in criminal activity. By locking up African Americans in prisons, the criminal justice system justifies their racism and discrimination.
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In 1994, Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. From the beginning, the investigation had been focused on Simpson. When the police had first issued a warrant for his arrest, Simpson lead the LAPD on a televised police chase in his Bronco for several hours after he had written a suicide note. In the note he expressed his sorrow of his ex-wife’s murder and how he could not live in a world where everyone had claimed he murdered her. Even though this focus on this case was on the celebrities it involved, I focused mostly on the defenses use of the race …show more content…
Panics arise through images of welfare, immigrations, and more importantly, crime. When the center of this panic is scapegoated onto African Americans and other minorities, myths become more of a reality to them. Whites have historically been a dominant social group in America and have a major hold on the media. The media likes to perceive minorities as a major contributor to crime when a majority of guilty convicts are white. Street crimes are covered more by the media than white-collar crimes because whites mostly commit white-collar crimes. Racial bias or racial tendencies become apart of society when the only image of a criminal is African American. A fundamental component of racial profiling is the targeted application of law enforcement resources to communities of color when whites engage in similar behaviors but do not receive similar scrutiny (Glover, 2009, p.93). Unconscious bias is active even when law enforcement tries not to discriminate because of their racial
In 1994, Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. From the beginning, the investigation had been focused on Simpson. When the police had first issued a warrant for his arrest, Simpson lead the LAPD on a televised police chase in his Bronco for several hours after he had written a suicide note. In the note he expressed his sorrow of his ex-wife’s murder and how he could not live in a world where everyone had claimed he murdered her. Even though this focus on this case was on the celebrities it involved, I focused mostly on the defenses use of the race …show more content…
Panics arise through images of welfare, immigrations, and more importantly, crime. When the center of this panic is scapegoated onto African Americans and other minorities, myths become more of a reality to them. Whites have historically been a dominant social group in America and have a major hold on the media. The media likes to perceive minorities as a major contributor to crime when a majority of guilty convicts are white. Street crimes are covered more by the media than white-collar crimes because whites mostly commit white-collar crimes. Racial bias or racial tendencies become apart of society when the only image of a criminal is African American. A fundamental component of racial profiling is the targeted application of law enforcement resources to communities of color when whites engage in similar behaviors but do not receive similar scrutiny (Glover, 2009, p.93). Unconscious bias is active even when law enforcement tries not to discriminate because of their racial