ipl-logo

Disparities In Criminal Justice Essay

618 Words3 Pages

Courts are a major evaluative stage of the criminal justice system and we rely on these courts to determine our outcomes based on the crime that was committed. Today, there is more diversity of leadership in the court system but, race still plays a role in the outcome of the offender. This could range from petty crimes being committed like traffic infractions or facing the death penalty based on the race of the offender or victim. This paper will examine the three types of disparities that cause biased sentencing in the courts. The three types of disparities are race, social class, and gender and these all play a huge factor when making a decision based off an offender. The role of race plays a critical role in the criminal justice system because the anticipation of a racially discriminatory process violates the laws of the system. So, if there a sentencing difference based off whether you are white, Hispanic, or black then there is a problem with the criminal justice system at evaluating offenders fairly. For example; "some studies, however, have reported that Hispanic adult offenders are punished more harshly than both Blacks and Whites, although Blacks are typically sentenced more severely than Whites" (Johnson, 2003; Kramer & Ulmer, 2002; Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2000, 2001). This …show more content…

Race, social class, or gender are disparities that determine the outcome of being sentenced to jail or prison. In reality, there are some measures we can take to reduce biased sentencing towards offenders. From my point of view, a solution would be to offer the offender determinate sentencing schemes which is, a judge will sentence an offender to a punishment for an X number of months or years of incarnation, probation, and so forth. This would help reduce biased sentencing, recidivism, and help the offenders rehabilitate the offender of the

Show More
Related

  • Essay On Disparity In Sentencing

    1248 Words  | 5 Pages

    Women convicted of “other property offenses” – a category of crimes that includes arson, receiving stolen property and breaking and entering — received shorter prison sentences. • Black female defendants were, in some ways, treated differently than white female defendants. Black women were assigned higher bond amounts and were more likely to be sent to prison than white women. Women of both races were equally likely to be released prior to

    Read More

  • Summary Of Life Sentence By Christopher Shea

    497 Words  | 2 Pages

    There should not be any special treatment for anyone based on color, income or sexuallity. If you did the same crime as someone else, you should get the same treatment. For example, let’s say a white man and a black man killed someone else. So because they both committed a homicide, they should face the same charges. Sadly, this doesn’t always happen, what tends to happen is that the police can assume the black person was involved in a gang and sentence him to 5 more years..

    Read More

  • Baldus Case

    661 Words  | 3 Pages

    The biggest disparity that was found was when a death penalty case involved a white victim and a black defendant. After reviewing the death penalty cases, there was an indication that “twenty-two percent of cases received the death penalty when a black defendant and white victim were involved….compared to only three percent when there was a black victim and white defendant involved.” The study broke this data down further and looked at the percentages of when a prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The study found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in “seventy percent of cases that involved white victims and black defendants and only nineteen percent when the roles were reversed.”

    Read More

  • Black-On-Latino Crime

    111 Words  | 1 Pages

    A study by the California Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts found that the justice system gives little attention or resources to investigating crimes against minorities and that minority defendants receive harsh treatment compared to white defendants in similar circumstances. The study also found that black-on-black crime or Latino-on-Latino crime is not taken as seriously as crimes against whites. Judges seem to believe that violence is more "acceptable" to black women because they are viewed as coming from violent communities. Minorities were judged by white, middle-class values in family law matters, and were the victims of racial and cultural stereotypes, which affects the courts '

    Read More

  • 1960s Dbq Essay

    918 Words  | 4 Pages

    Source A argues that disparities between blacks and whites have been appalling in court. According to Source A, “If a black person kills a white person, they are twice as likely to receive the death sentence as white person who kills a black person” (2). This reveals that a black person has a higher rate of receiving the death sentence when tried for murdering a white person. If a white person is tried for a killing of a black person they have a 50% chance of getting the death sentence, then that means that a black person would receive a 100% chance of getting the death sentence for killing a white person.

    Read More

  • Essay On Gender Disparities In The Criminal Justice System

    570 Words  | 3 Pages

    To support my claims I will be talking about incarceration, pullover rates & situations and police training in great detail. When it comes to the sentencing of convicted criminals, there are racial, ethnic and gender disparities. In 1984 the Sentencing Guidelines and Policy Statements of the Sentencing Reform Act, or short for SRA, was designed to eliminate sentencing disparities and states clearly that race, gender, ethnicity, and

    Read More

  • Examples Of Discrimination In Law Enforcement

    1414 Words  | 6 Pages

    These policies do not directly involve race. An example of this is more African Americans are sentenced to jail than Whites. This type of discrimination results from past practices that are put into law. In pure justice, all people would be sentenced based on the crimes committed, no matter the race even if there were extenuating circumstances, like self-defense. The person would still be sentenced for what they did.

    Read More

  • The Effect Of Mandatory Minimums On African Americans

    279 Words  | 2 Pages

    Statistics prove that Mandatory Minimums affect minorities disproportionately. In fact, African Americans are over 10 times more likely to enter prison for drug offenses than their Caucasian counterparts despite both racial groups using drugs in equal amounts. This shows the racial bias of the Justice System at work by using Mandatory Minimums to punish minorities with harsher sentences. Blacks and Hispanics make up 74.4 percent of the people convicted of drug charges while only making up less than 30 percent of the population. Indicative of this widespread problem, 39.4 percent of convictions in 2011 involved Mandatory Minimum Sentencing (United States Sentencing Commission 148).

    Read More

  • Comparison Between Bartollas And Siegel

    492 Words  | 2 Pages

    As indicated by Bartollas and Siegel, there is evidence which lends to the widely perceived view by many that a correlation exists between an individual’s social class and the type of justice and consequently the sentence an individual receives. As lower socio-economic offenders are less likely to afford quality legal representation, often enduring to suffer the consequences of the overworked public defender and be compelled into accepting a plea or are unable to secure to make bail, thus, as Bartollas states, “lower-class offenders have typically expected to receive longer prison sentences than higher class defendants” (2013). While justice should be blind to the gender of the offender, Bartollas states “women receive more favorable outcomes

    Read More

  • Poverty And The Justice System In Just Mercy By Bryan Stevenson

    832 Words  | 4 Pages

    The justice system bases the punishment of a person off the status of their race and

    Read More

  • Corruption In The Book 'Just Mercy'

    970 Words  | 4 Pages

    The system that is meant to be equal represents a gap between people viewed as superior and imfeorior. From Marc Mauer’s, “Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System Need to Be Addressed” article, a statistic “In 2005, African Americans represented 14 percent of current drug users, yet they constituted 33.9 percent of persons arrested for a drug offense and 53 percent of persons sentenced to prison for a drug offense.” this confirms that the many arrests that do not correspond with the percentage that actually commit the crimes are unfairly convicted. Like this statistic, the active one actually participating in these crimes are not caught and convicted but the people who are, are minorities or poverty stricken individuals are profiled for crimes they never committed due to fitting the picture of people who carry out those crimes. Instead of decreasing the number of crimes like drug use, the Justice System fails to apprehend people who have issues with drug use which further increases the frequency of the crime.

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography: The New Jim Crow

    1343 Words  | 6 Pages

    This report is helpful because it highlights how race is influenced on the death penalty. It will help me see if the death penalty is racially neutral. Coker, D. (2003). Addressing the real world of racial injustice in the criminal justice system. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

    Read More

  • What Is Sentencing Disparity

    590 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the book Corrections The Essentials by Mary K. Stohr and Anthony Walsh, a sentencing disparity occurs when there is a wide variation in sentences received by different offender that may be legitimate or discriminatory. A disparity is legitimate if it is based on crime seriousness and/ or prior record. If it is not then it is considered discriminatory. Sentencing guidelines can help attempts to address these disparities by determining how long a person should go to jail for each crime they committed.

    Read More

  • Gender Disparities In The Criminal Justice System

    1377 Words  | 6 Pages

    There are many indicators of the huge impact in disparities in sentencing women as compared to men and more so when it revolves around minorities ( race and class). Though there are lower crime rates among women as compared to men, there are significant disparities which tend to show favouritism to women. Research has shown that men get 63 per cent longer custodial sentences than women. In addition, it is twice more likely to have women get non custodial sentences even after conviction. However, as mentioned the disparities are more profound when issues of race and class are intertwined in the sentencing.

    Read More

  • Police Brutality In Native Son By Richard Wright

    1493 Words  | 6 Pages

    At a glance, the judicial system appears to have been set up to make sure that every one is punished fairly and equally no matter what your race is, your gender or your beliefs. But, once you begin to delve into the judicial systems background and trends you will begin to notice things that continuously happen to specific groups of people. You will begin to see that clearly some races are treated way different than other races which is not how the judicial system should be set up. Racism in the judicial system has been around since the beginning of the judicial system´s existence. It is a prime example of out many that showcase how the social justice of minorities are infringed upon.

    Read More

More about Disparities In Criminal Justice Essay

Open Document