Murder In America By Karen Sternheimer Summary

The Baldus study itself was a combination of two studies. Both studies reviewed over 2,000 cases in the state of Georgia during the 1970’s. The study’s main focus was to evaluate the influence of racial factors in the death sentencing phase. In most aspects of the study, the findings were not surprising except for one outcome. The study concluded that there was a racial disparity in the sentencing process. 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.” However, despite all of the racial disparities found, there was one conclusion that was quite surprising and contradicting. The figures from the cases reviewed suggested that there is a reverse racial disparity in the sentencing process. After

Everyday growing up as a young black male we have a target on our back. Society was set out for black males not to succeed in life. I would always hear my dad talk about how police in his younger days would roam around the town looking for people to arrest or get into an altercation with. As a young boy growing up I couldn’t believe some of the things he said was happening. However as I got older I would frequently hear about someone getting killed by the police force. It still didn’t click but I knew what was happening. Growing up police brutality wasn’t broadcasted as much as it should’ve have been. This then made me think about how to improve police brutality not only dealing with African Americans but also with other colored skinned people.

Buehler, J. W. (2017). Racial/ethnic disparities in the use of lethal force by US police, 2010-2014. American Journal of Public Health, 107 (2), 295-297.

Taking all of the studies, background knowledge, and statistics into consideration, I do believe that there is an unproportionate amount of black men serving time in the criminal justice system. It has been proven that men of color are particularly likely to be imprisoned, in comparison to their non black counterparts. “African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)” The sentencing of black men is commonly dealt with in a harsher manner, than with other races. There are specific laws and stereotypes that continue to be upheld by society, which specifically work against the favor of black men. The issue of predominantly black areas

The skin is the largest organ of the human body and can display a range of different colors depending on the amount of melanin, a protein produced by special skin cells, that is in the skin. The more melanin that is created, the darker the skin tone. Despite the fact skin color is such a minor physiological difference, many have decided that it is enough of a reason to hate and discriminate against the minorities who possess a little more melanin than they do. This prejudice has managed to extensively infiltrate the justice system and law enforcement, causing black men to face multiple injustices such as being more likely to be convicted and given longer prison sentences than white men for the same crimes, having higher chances of being shot

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

Not only is this stereotype and exclusion prevalent in primetime television, but, much more seriously, in our newspapers and television newscasts as well. Authors Steinhorn and Diggs – Brown state that “Even though most violent crimes are committed by people the same race as their victims, one 1994 study of local TV newscasts in Chicago found that the majority of perpetrators portrayed in the news were black or persons of color, while the majority of victims shown were white.” (154). This leads one to maybe see a causal effect of the wide-spread panic about black males being criminals that need to be feared and bewared whenever they are come into contact with. They also sited a different study that “found that the percentage of blacks

In America, “there’s a whole culture that promotes this idea of aggressive young black men” (Kristof, 2). The budding generation of African Americans is led to believe what social media, television, and literature portrays them to be murderers, drug dealers, and gangsters, are what their inheritance in society is. To rid of this stereotype that black men are dangerous, social media, video games, and literature should stop illustrating Blacks as the antagonists. Seeing that the media has a strong influence as what Blacks are depicted as, they can change the whole country’s opinion about Blacks, and shift the population’s views of Blacks to a more positive perspective. By exposing in media that other races can be criminals, Blacks would not be in the limelight for being criminals. This exposure would increase what Blacks could achieve in their life, since they are no longer identified as

The American journalist Charles Blow in his scandal article The Whole System Failed Trayvon Martin illuminated such deep problems of current society as the credibility of self-defense, the imperfection of the U.S. criminal justice system, criticism of gun culture, and race relationships. This paper focuses on the Trayvon Martin case and explores the stereotypes that created the motive for the homicide.

At the beginning of his essay, Dave Grossman talks about the two main elements that are helping to mantain the killing rates down. The two points that Grossman designed were the enhanced arrest of violent criminals and the progress of medical technology.This caused Grossman to spread contradictions throughout his essay, causing it to be unclear as a whole. In the fallowing paragraph, “Today, both our assault rate and murder rate are at phenomenally high levels.” (Paragraph 6) is an opposing expression in the essay. This point is an example of the contradictions Grossman makes and also a point in which causes the reader question the author’s credibility in the essay. Subsequently in the essay, Grossman mentions a mental response which incite

The strengths are that this reference does mention some very useful statistics and also the point of view of a black officer regarding racial profiling and traffic stops. A weakness is that an attorney is quoted, making a general statement that all police are racist, which is not accurate, however, it is prevalent. The main points are that Latinos and blacks are far more prone to injury/death at the hands of police in one particular coroner's office. Black leaders feel police should be able to carry out their jobs without violence. They feel it is not in their job description. It comes right out and states that police do use statistics that say which race is more likely to commit certain crimes, and they will look for those things when conducting traffic stops, which one black officer says he has no problem with. However, there's a point at which it becomes an abuse of power. Gail B Stewart, the author, received her undergraduate degree from Gustavus Adolphus College, and completed her

From looking at this article in a sociological perspective, the only critic is the lack of much more scientific data to support this epidemic of African Americans killing each other. Since there is such a big number in the amount of African American who are killed every year, we should know the percentage of how many of the murderers and victims were African Americans. Other concepts such as social conflict theory could have been used in this essay to support the authors claims. If he had used the social conflict theory, he could have shown the conflict between the dominant group(whites) and minority group(blacks). Society clearly caters to the dominant group and that social inequality arises due to to race, sex, class and age. He could have shown the incarceration rates among white people and compared with those of

Much of the twentieth century, crime and punishment has provided some of the most powerful signs of the racial split in America (Rosich,2007). For example, African Americans accounted for 89 percent of the prison population executed for rape between the years of 1930 and 1972 (U.S. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000). The question that has been raised is not who, what, when but is why? Could the answer possibly be that, though criminal activity has no face, no gender, race, or ethnic background that people are always looking for a scapegoat of some sort to make sure someone pays the dues of the crime that has been committed? Possibly, for example a young women in Stillwater, North Dakota was publicly arrested by 3 US

A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial By Suzanne Lebsock ((New York: W.W. Norton, 2003)

Ronald Carlson wanted nothing more but justice for his sister who had been murdered. Ronald talks about how he would have killed the man with his own hands if he would have gotten the chance but his mind quickly changed after he seen his sister's murder being executed, he has a new view on the situation now. He talks about how watching the execution left him full of horror and emptiness. Ronald asks a question that should be addressed he said, “Our justice system should not be dictated by vengeance.” He asked, “As a society, shouldn’t we be more civilized than the murderers we condemn?” We should be more civilized, we shouldn't have the right to sentence people to death for three reasons, it puts innocent lives at risk, it's extremely costly