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
In the introduction, Michelle Alexander (2010) introduces herself and expresses her passion about the topic of how the criminal justice system accomplishes racial hierarchy here in the United States.
Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is known as one of the most important books of out time. This is a book that makes the reader appreciate the magnitude of the crisis faced by communities of color as a result of mass incarceration. As noted, this book is not for everyone. It’s for people who are interested in seeing the injustice that many people of color have to face in the United States. In this book, we will see many similarities about our criminal justice system and something that looks and feels like the era of Jim Crow, an era we supposedly left behind. The New Jim Crow is an account of a caste-like system, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied
Bernie Sanders, a prominent social justice defender and U.S. presidential candidate, tweeted “Mass incarceration harms our society, pulls families apart. #JusticeNot4Sale Act will begin to turn that around,” introducing his initiative to rehabilitate America’s criminal justice system and reduce the nation’s prison population. In an interview with NBC, Sanders discussed the overwhelming disparity in the African American prison population relative to other ethnic groups. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, African Americans make up 13% of the United States population, and account for 60% of those in prisons. One in every 15 African American men are incarcerated, compared to every one and 106 white men.
This novel written by Michelle Alexander presents research on the issue of colorblindness and mass incarceration of minorities in African American and latino racial groups which is a result of bias judgment. The author’s research indicates that people of African American and Latino ethnicity are more likely to be searched and imprisoned than white Americans although the crime rate of African Americans and Hispanics are roughly at the same rate or slightly lower than the white American crime rate. This is important to the criminal justice system in general because it shows that the government is encouraging an issue great civil rights activists have worked hard and gave their life fighting to improve.
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.
Racial and ethnicity discrimination in the justice system have been around since the beginning of this country against “Negroid” . Writing this research paper brings me back to the first book I ever read; “The Emmett Till Story;” which should be a reminder how awful our justice system can be. The problem we are having today in America is that Emmett Till’s story is still going on in 2017. The story goes like this per emmetttillmurder.com “While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier.” Now this is we their system have fail, and continued to nose-dive the Negroid around in America. With all the evidence at hands, and witnesses like Moses’ Wright on September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of “not guilty,”
The New Jim Crow When looking for a book about racial perception I wanted to find a book that looks at racial perception from a different perspective that I had not thought of. This information would need to be new and fresh and be able to open me up to new
We live in a wonderful society nowadays compared to what it was like, say 50 years ago. Blacks can walk down the street and get arrested merely for having a hood up! I mean it we are talking about the early 19th and 20th century, that's nothing compared to be being killed for just simply being black! Gladly we don't live in a society like Jesse Washington did; otherwise all blacks would constantly be strung up on poles and burned alive for crimes there was no proof they committed. Thank god we don't live in a society where lynching of blacks was a regular thing, and part of a white man's daily entertainment. I mean sure 91% of the people killed by police in Chicago in 2012 were black (“How Often”); sure blacks are incarcerated at nearly six
Many judges who evaluate whether prosecutors are illegally excluding black and brown potential jurors are former prosecutors who engaged in the same racially restricted jury selection tactics before coming onto the bench; they therefore tolerate a lot of racial bias and discrimination in jury selection” (Stevenson 210). The fate of Walter is in the hands of the jury and this jury is bias. Once Walter was accused of murder, he knew that he would not be getting out of prison soon. It was his word against a white person’s word. The almost white jury sentenced him to life in prison and the judge overruled with the death penalty. If our Justice system followed the rule of law for every race and treated everyone equally, our society would not be in such chaos. Discrimination has been around for centuries and is still strong
In recent discussions of racial discrimination in the justice court system, a controversial issue has been whether there is racism in courts. On one hand, some may argue that the courts treats everyone fairly and get the punishment they deserve. On the other hand, however, others argue that it goes against the law by giving a bigger jail sentence to colored people than white. In summary, the issue is whether we should treat everyone fairly in the court. Many trials in the past have caused many people to suspect racism in the court and causing rallies, some unfair trials have caused innocent black men go on death sentence.
The American dream at one point was what drew people to American; the right to life, liberty, and the happiness. The American dream is the hope to acquire currency, large homes, raise a middle-class family, and pursue what brings people joy in life. But in the year 2016, the American dream becomes hard to believe in. The American dream may still exist, but it is not equally accessible to all Americans. This is true because the American dream is not affordable for everyone, it is not available to everyone from different degrees of education, and race and ethnicity creates large social barriers.
What if the world was still the same as it was back during the great depression. What if this was the truth. In To Kill a Mockingbird readers can see how prejudice affected people of color back then, and how it’s not so different from today. In the novel readers will find unfairness in court, hate crimes, and segregation. Today readers can still find these same issues, but in different forms. Prejudice towards race has changed very little from back then to now.
Racism is defined as the poor treatment of people based on color. For as long as humans lived, millions of people have been treated poorly because of their skin color. Racism has carried throughout the many years of American history. Since the abolishment of slavery, a huge spike of racial discrimination flourished the United States and it still does. Stereotypes, racial profiling, and discrimination are signs of racism that still are shown to many people today. Many people have tried stopping such acts with protest. Various movements have been established to achieve equal rights for everyone and stop racism. Even though the many tries, racism still strives and can still be seen today. Racism is still in America because the media’s affect,