It sad to see that more than half of the young men in our American cities are under the control of the criminal justice system. Where’s the justice when our system automatically demotes them to a permanent second-class status, and challenges their chances of happiness and freedom. When minorities from the justice system are released, they are harshly discriminated against. This discrimination does nothing but regenerates a cycle of imprisonment. With the world at their backs, the result usually ends up with repeated behaviors that places them back into the system. Is this the role of race in criminal justice system? Is it really designed to entrap, discriminate, arrest, and imprison a mass number of the minority. To be stereotyped and “tagged” as a criminal, degrades the young community and hinders their chances of progression.
America’s criminal justice system is marred by a startling and unfair impact on marginalized communities. People of color are arrested, sentenced and incarcerated when compared to white people accused of similar
Throughout history, the rate of incarceration among African American men has been significantly higher than that of other races. Since the 1970’s, it seems that serving time in jail is the rite of passage for an African American male. One of the contributing factors lies in the disparities of sentencing in the Criminal Justice System, especially during the drug war.
Racism is an ongoing issue which had been taking place for centuries. Racism can take various forms, direct, indirect, individual or institutional. Institutional racism however, has been questioned frequently recently in light of criminal justice system, especially and more noticeably in the US now, where many believe the police is treating/handling black people unfairly comparing to other ethnic groups. According to Macpherson (1999) institutional racism is where organisation does not provide appropriate service due to someone’s colour, culture or ethnic origin, and can take form of racial discrimination in forms of attitudes, behaviours and processes. Macpherson developed this definition when undertaking an inquiry of Stephen Lawrence, a black child who was murdered
If found guilty the sentencing phase is addressed. One of the main functions of criminal sanctions is to offer offenders rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation, there have been discussions that regard the possibility of differential treatment of groups and the overrepresentation of males and Blacks within the criminal justice system (McNamara, & Burns, 2009). It has been suggested in early research that sentencing and the severity of sentencing for minorities showed signs of discrimination, with more recent research the findings are conflicting. Socioeconomics status influences incarceration for those of the minority
African Americans have been placed on a path that their fates have been set throughout history. The criminal justice system has also taken it upon itself to make sure that they do not move away from this path and continue to go forward with it. So many parts of the system have played its role and it continues to play it by keeping African incarcerated. Not only do they target African Americans, but they target those who have a disadvantage when fighting against the system. The system has its history with African Americans so one can figure that this would continue to lead on in the future.
One case that relates to this flaw in the criminal justice system would be the Floyd v. City of New York. The date that this case was filed was on January 31, 2008 by David Floyd, David Ourlicht, Lalit Clarkson and Deon Dennis. This case challenged the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) practices of racial profiling and seeing whether or not the stop and frisk policy is unconstitutional. The clients represents thousands of black and Hispanic New Yorkers who have been stopped for no reason (according to the clients).
Michelle Alexander proceeds with another rhetorical question to allow the audience to further reflect on the current situation and stress the corruption of the justice system “If McCleskey’s evidence was not enough to prove discrimination in the absence of some kind of racist utterance, what would be?” (Alexander 67). She uses facts and statistics prior to this “the researchers found that defendants charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive a death sentence than defendants charged with killing blacks” (Dissenting 321; referenced by Alexander 67) to assert evidence of the racial profiling present in the American justice system. The persuasive technique is used to assert her opinion towards the audience by relating
Racism is something that is still ongoing and has even gotten worse in recent years. No matter what efforts are taken to try and get something to change, equal representation in the justice system is something we may never get. The justice system was and still is racist. From the racial profiling, harsher sentencing for people of color, and the over-representation of people of color in the criminal justice system. According to the NAACP “If Black and Hispanic people were incarcerated at the same rate as White people, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 percent.
This piece of work is mainly about the social analysts position to the issue of racism and mass incarceration and also how the various principles of distributive justice can be applied to different positions in our issue of focus. It is quite evident that the main work of the social policy analysts is to identify current problems, evaluating them and coming up with solutions regarding to it. Once they discover the problem they try to check for the causes that may leading to that problem and also other problems that may be related to it. However, different social policy analysis’s have differing views regarding a certain problem and also
Policing in today’s society has been impacted through a multitude of influences including social, political, and economical to name a few. One factor that has, in more recent years, left its imprint within policing is race. Race, brings up the subtopics of ethics, corruption, accountability, and public views on policing. The following paper will discuss these subtopics to help further understand why and how race plays such a significant role in current day society and policing.
Although, most witnesses are reluctant to stand up and testify against a prosecutor in any case, it is the fear of one’s safety and witness intimidation which is the reason many are hesitant to take action. An individual witness a violent crime in the neighborhood, and is able to identify the perpetrator, he should contact the authorities and testify against the criminal. Whenever someone is a witness to a crime, one’s should feel guilty if it is not reported. The witness of any crime should have integrity and do what is right and not fear what may happen because their rights are protected by the law. If you’ve witnessed a crime you should report it because you could potentially save someone’s life, and help put away a dangerous threat to
According to the text the criminal justice system is racist, because Martin Luther King day, for instance ,senator Barack Obama charged that blacks and whites “are arrested at very different rates and receive very different sentenced.” A example for this would be the book we are currenting A lesson before dying . A black man went to the store with two of his black friends and they shot a white man the boy name jefferson didn't do anything but by him being a black man and a white man is dead he is going to get charged with murder and a death sentence. If it was the other way around and a white man killed black mans he would of been let go and not charged but if they do charge him he would not get that much time. Our justice system is just messed up but that's just how things are today.
1.The theory/concept of intersectionality is a theory centered around oppression, domination and discrimination through various mediums from the social and cultural elements of society. The theory can be applied in many ways toward women as well as their involvement in the criminal justice system. Some forms of discrimination that is more prevalent in perceiving the individual is using a woman's status, race, sexual orientation, ability and age, however there can be more added to this list. The wiki article said “The theory proposes that we should think of each element or trait of a person as inextricably linked with all of the other elements in order to fully understand one's identity.”
Coker gives great evidence that supports racial injustice in the criminal justice system. She discusses on the Supreme Court’s rulings and accusations of racial preference in the system. This article is helpful because it supports my thesis on race playing a role on the system of criminal justice. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1997). Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes.
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.