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Essay On Gender Disparities In The Criminal Justice System

570 Words3 Pages

Is our justice system corrupted, racist or is it perfect? Did you know African Americans now constitute for nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population? This is probably the case because Blacks are incarcerated six times the rate of whites. African Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people. I believe race, ethnicity and gender disparities play a large role in how our system is executed. 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 …show more content…

The purpose of the United States Sentencing Commission is to “establish sentencing policies and practices for the federal criminal justice system that will assure the ends of justice by promulgating detailed guidelines prescribing the appropriate sentences for offenders convicted of federal crimes.” (Mustard 289) When it comes to the sentencing process, data is collected about the individual’s offense and criminal records to determine the offense level and criminal history score. Once they find those two scores that then indicate a range of sentence lengths. With certain circumstances, the judge can depart from the guidelines and issue a sentence that either exceeds the maximum or falls short of the minimum required by the guidelines. Once the sentencing range is determined, courts must adhere to the following constraints: “In determination of the sentence to impose within the guideline range, or whether a departure from the guidelines is warranted, the court may consider, without

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