Criminal Equity Framework

Imagine being a child who has not seen their father in years. Not being able to celebrate holidays with a loved one and being a fatherless child. Especially being a black child of an incarceration black male there are many stereotypes that set you aside from other people. For many years in the criminal justice system in America it has been undergoing a massive growth. According the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) there are over two million black men in jail and most of them stay there for a life time. This fact puts a load on the black community because many families are left with no father in a single parent home, the unemployment rate for black male has increased and now it seems like going to jail is a

Indeed, minorities represent a far greater population of prisoners than majorities. Currently, people of color make up 60% of the United States prison system, though they represent only 12% of the total population (Hagler). The mass incarceration of minorities is a crisis sweeping the nation, tearing multitudes of minorities from their homes and jobs. “More than two million African Americans are currently under the control of the criminal-justice system—in prison or jail, on probation or parole. During the past few decades, millions more have cycled in and out of the system; indeed, nearly 70 percent of people released from prison are rearrested within three years” ( Alexander). Minorities are also much more likely to be arrested, experts estimate that at the rate of current trends 1 in 3 black men will be arrested in their lifetime compared to 1 in 17 white men (Hagler). The obvious disparities in these statistics reveal just how far deep racial discrimination runs in the criminal justice system. Minorities are discriminated against in every stage of their prosecution: from stop-and-frisk, to arrest, to sentencing and

In the eyes of Martin Luther King Jr., Justice within a society is achieved through the implementation of just laws. Furthermore, “just laws are regulations that have been created by man that follow the laws of God for man” (“Clergymen’s Letter”). Any law that does not correspond with the ideals of God and morality are considered to be unjust or a form of injustice. King identifies that injustice is clearly evident within the justice system. This injustice can truly be seen through the misconduct imposed toward the African American community. Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S.

“African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.” The majority group of this statistic are people who come from african american backgrounds. The fact that black people are to make up nearly half of the prison population alone, really conveys the rate at which they are being arrested. Black men are often victims of racial profiling by police. They are targeted by police officers, and security guards, and are accused of crimes unrelated to them, simply on the basis of their skin color. Racial profiling plays a major role in the amount of black men and boys being sent to

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world with about 2.3 million people in prison. According to Vitanna.org’s statistics, an estimated one million of these prisoners are African American. 12.3 percent of the population is black, yet over 43 percent of America’s prisoners are black. This disparity is certainly unnatural, seeing as how African Americans are no more likely to be criminals than whites. Black men are overrepresented in prisons because of the unfortunately common stereotype that they are all remorseless criminals. This stereotype makes it easier for those in the justice system to see all black men as people who need to be locked up. Racism (whether conscious or subconscious) makes jurors especially willing to put minorities behind bars by overpowering their doubt and blinding them to the

In her book, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander who was a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar, reveals many of America’s harsh truths regarding race within the criminal justice system. Though the Jim Crow laws have long been abolished, a new form has surfaced, a contemporary system of racial control through mass incarceration. In this book, mass incarceration not only refers to the criminal justice system, but also a bigger picture, which controls criminals both in and out of prison through laws, rules, policies and customs. The New Jim Crow that Alexander speaks of has redesigned the racial caste system, by putting millions of mainly blacks, as well as Hispanics and some whites, behind bars

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New

There are more African Americans in prison now, than there were enslaved in 1850. These individuals are not in prison because they are committing more crimes than their white counterparts, but because of a discriminatory system that targets african americans. Blacks can commit the same crimes as whites, but are more likely to be imprisoned and or receive a steeper sentence. This disproportionate racial sentencing has been a growing issue the United States for four decades, and started with the Reagan Administration's War On Drugs. Private prison organizations lobby for harsher punishments, and profit from the influx of inmates. With more African Americans in jail, this has had a crippling effect on the black community. The children of these inmates grow up without one of their parents, they to do poorly in school and have negative view on police officers and the law.

As these men are released from prison not only are their limited skills diminished but they no longer have the right to vote in any elections. With over 1 million African American males currently under the control of the criminal justice system, the voting roles of the African American community are being decimated by this prison epidemic. Some might even argue that the schemes of elitists are oriented around the construction of more prisons to ensure African Americans could not effectively participate in the political process. The incarceration of African American males leads to homes without a father figure involved with the family and the financial provider is gone in most cases. That doesn 't mean kids without fathers will end up doing terrible in life. But, there seems to be an issue regarding households being fatherless because of incarceration

African Americans who were born in the 1970s and grew up during the American prison boom, the chances they are going to serve time in state federal prison if they dropped out of high school is about 70%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Currently, 1.2 million (1 in 9) African American children have a parent who is incarcerated, and there’s evidence that kids who experience parental incarceration have behavioral problems and low achievement. This creates the risk that incarceration becomes an inherited trait, and recidivism induces.The underlying issue is how the U.S. criminal justice system marginalizes African Americans relative to other ethnic groups. There has been an incredible increase in arrests and incarceration over the past four decades, mostly from the war on drugs. There is no difference between whites and blacks using or dealing drugs, however blacks are four to eleven times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses, according to the Human Rights Watch. This is a repetition of history, as African American communities are yet again disproportionally

Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow is a truly thought provoking book attempting to show the enduring issues of racial inequalities in our Criminal Justice system. Racial inequality in America is a huge and controversial topic, especially in reference to America’s system of Criminal justice. In “The New Jim Crow” Alexander focuses on the racial undertones of America’s “War on drugs”. Alexander uses the chapters of her book to take us on a journey through America’s racial history and argues that the federal drug policy unjustly targets black communities.

Fast forward to the present day, we have the Ferguson, Mike Brown of Emmitt Till’s still occurring in our justice system. A person must view the criminal justice threw a godly telescope to see the inequalities that exit, and need to come to the forefront of our government, and the population worldwide. Sentencingproject.org statistically show that African American men, women, and juvenile are arrested more often than any other races across the nations. This report will prove, and argues that racial disparity in the justice system is at large in our system. This research paper will further explain, and presents evidence that display the presence of racial bias in the criminal justice system in America.

Do you believe there is a new Jim Crow in America 's justice system? Well, in the book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Alexander believes that America 's criminal justice system is racially biased. Furthermore, she believes that the legal system is trying to punish African Americans. There are many people that believe Alexander statements is very bold and not true. Adam Gopnik who wrote the article How We Misunderstand And Mass Incarceration believes that America criminal justice system is not racially biased, but the system has political motives. America’s criminal justice system is racially biased and influenced due to the fact that the punishment a person gets is not related to the crime that 's done, funds that help African

It can be argued that mass incarceration is related to slavery because blacks are still being treated unfairly and without equal justice. Slavery is related to mass incarceration today because the majority of African Americans are unable to obtain political power, and social and economic equality (Alexander 30). Innocent blacks are still being denied their rights to fair and just treatment in the criminal justice system. African Americans are human just as everyone else in today’s society and they should be treated with equally and without discrimination in the criminal justice

Though they are no longer trapped in a literal sense, many ex-convicts are held from moving forward and changing their lives for the better. The new level in the social hierarchy, the undercaste, is one that is seemingly inescapable. In the undercaste, the ladder of opportunity is non-existent due to the laws, rules, and regulations that prohibit them from moving past their time incarcerated. The system authorizes discrimination against those released from prisons in voting, employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service. The inability to escape the “undercaste,” the prison label, and the demonization of the Black man has stopped the American dream from being realized for Black Americans. Mass incarceration is just another tool of the white men in power to suppress the lives of Black people in America, by way of the American judicial system, just like the old Jim Crow