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There can be differential involvement, individual racism, and/or institutional racism. First and foremost African-Americans and Hispanics are differentially involved in crimes and they tend to commit more crimes. Their criminality is tied to the fact that these groups more often suffer from poverty and unemployment. Second, some of the disparities are due to the individual opinions or prejudices of individual police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, probation officers, parole officers, and parole board members. This individual racism consists of prejudicial beliefs and the discriminatory behavior of individual criminal justice authorities against African Americans and other minority group members. Third, part of the disparities can be attributed to institutional racism. This type of racism occurs whenever there are statutes, classifications, and practices that have an unequal impact on certain
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These are acknowledgement of the cumulative nature of racial disparities, encouragement of communication across the key players in all steps of the system, knowing what works at one step of the system may not always work in another, and working together towards a systemic change. The issue of racial disparity builds at each stage of the criminal justice system from arrest through prosecution and sentencing rather than the actions of one particular level of the system. In order to tackle the unwarranted disparity there are strategies that are needed in order to tackle the problem at each individual level of the system and this will need to be done in a coordinated and strategic way. Without a systemic approach to the problem gains in one level may be offset by reversals of another level. Each decision point and area of the system requires their own unique strategies depending upon the degrees of disparity and the specific population in which is affected by the actions of that level. System wide changes are near impossible without properly informed criminal justice leaders who must be willing and able to commit their personal and agency resources to measuring and addressing racial disparity at every level of the criminal justice system resulting in a system wide
These are acknowledgement of the cumulative nature of racial disparities, encouragement of communication across the key players in all steps of the system, knowing what works at one step of the system may not always work in another, and working together towards a systemic change. The issue of racial disparity builds at each stage of the criminal justice system from arrest through prosecution and sentencing rather than the actions of one particular level of the system. In order to tackle the unwarranted disparity there are strategies that are needed in order to tackle the problem at each individual level of the system and this will need to be done in a coordinated and strategic way. Without a systemic approach to the problem gains in one level may be offset by reversals of another level. Each decision point and area of the system requires their own unique strategies depending upon the degrees of disparity and the specific population in which is affected by the actions of that level. System wide changes are near impossible without properly informed criminal justice leaders who must be willing and able to commit their personal and agency resources to measuring and addressing racial disparity at every level of the criminal justice system resulting in a system wide