Kamalu, Ngozi Caleb, Margery Coulson-Clark, and Nkechi Margaret Kamalu. "Racial Disparities in Sentencing: Implications for the Criminal Justice System and the African American Community." African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies: AJCJS 4.1 (2010): 1-31. ProQuest. 6 Nov. 2017
The disparity in African American representation in the prison system on the choice of incarceration as a sole remedy to social problems such as unemployment, single-parent households, and limited male role models in life and upbringing. The fourteenth amendment guarantees the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses and protects against unreasonable search and seizure. According to the JPI study, many factors are responsible for the over-representation
Sentencing disparity within the American Judicial system is a problem that exists across the nation. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, disparity means the markedly distinct in quality or character. Many times, disparity is used in conjunction with discrimination as if the two words mean the same, but they do not. Disparity will include a difference in treatment or outcome but is not based on an opinion, bias or prejudice.
This racial discrimination has led to a discriminatory manner that punishes blacks who victimized whites more severely compared to whites who victimize blacks. Even though race has been abolished as a legally relevant factor in capital sentencings, there are still variations in capital sentencing patterns along racial lines. The author tries to answer the question of how a system that tries to design itself as a racially neutral system can still have racial variations in capital sentencing. The author argues that there is a link between race and empathy in mitigation. The author conducted a study that focused on juror race and receptivity to mitigation and defendant race.
Introduction In the article “Black Judges are Tougher on Black and White Offenders”, Dr. Darrell Steffensmeier did exclusive research on prison sentencing and treatment given to both black and white offenders by black and white judges. Steffensmeier provides details that support his finding of how black judges and white judges sentence their defendants differently. Through his study at Penn State University, Steffensmeier gives information that describes the harsher treatment that black defendants may face more than white defendants when it comes to having black judges instead of white judges. In the end, Steffensmeier gives a synopsis of how black judges' emotional state can be an issue while sentencing their defendants and whether the race factor matters in the justice system and the courtroom.
Prosecution & Sentencing Issues Wrongful Convictions Mateusz Konieczkowski CRM 420-01 Professor Rivolta 5 May 2015 Central Connecticut State University #1 There has been many times where the tough-on-crime approach has characterized our Criminal Justice System since the early 1980’s. One of these policies is the Sentencing guideline. Many times, when judges following the sentencing polices, they are too soft on the criminals. Some criminals get away with the crime that they have done. Even in the book illustrates how “a second problem was the recognition of racial disparities” (Mays & Ruddel, 2015).
Ana DuVernay’s documentary, “13th” explores and brings light to how the 13th amendment makes it unconstitutional to be held a slave with the exception of being labeled as a criminal. The documentary explains that due to the language used in the 13th amendment, the rights that black people fought to have during the Civil War can be stripped away from them once labeled a criminal. The film states that 1 in every 17 white males are incarcerated during their lifetime, while 1 in every 3 black males are incarcerated during their lifetime. Statistics like these act as evidence for the racial injustice and inequity that is still found in our police and prison system today. Once labeled a criminal, your rights to vote, get a job, take out loans, etc.
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
African-American males are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white males and 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic males. If such trends continues, one of every three black American males born today will expect to go to prison once or more in his lifetime. The prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black. Because, most of the defendants cannot afford the bail neither their families, due to the socio economic they are in.
Affirmative Action Reader pg. 244 “ those many in our society that are darker, poorer, more identifiably foreign will continue to suffer the poverty, marginalization, immersion and incarceration.” Statistics are staggering Racial Disparities in Incarceration African Americans constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, they are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, what’s shocking is that one in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001 and if the trends continues one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. I am for affirmative action, as I believe that when the late President John F Kennedy signed the affirmative action on March 6th 1961,
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. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.
There have been many controversial discussions concerning the disfranchisement of felons, especially in African-American community. African-Americans are twice as likely to be convicted of a felony higher than any other race in the American population. African-Americans felons are also twice as likely to return to prison higher than any other race. The discussion about the recidivist’s rate of African-Americans often place blame on the individual’s behavior and/or being a product of one’s own environmental. Although this may be true but taking deeper into cause of African-Americans recidivism, would reveal the main factor being laws that have been put into place to keep convicted felon at a disadvantage, hence felony disenfranchisement.
A study conducted by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services undertaking claims of sentencing disparities studies the felony sentencing outcomes particularly in New York courts between the years 1990 and 1992. Astonishingly, the study concluded that approximately one-third of minorities sentenced to prison would have received a shorter sentence with the possibility of a non-incarcerative penalty if they had been treated similarly to their white counterparts. Consequently, other sentencing data is consistent with the results of this study’s findings. On a national scale, black males specifically, who were convicted of drug felonies in state courts 52 percent of the time, while white males typically receive prison sentencing approximately 34 percent of the time. In addition, these figures are not constrained to gender given the similar ratio among black and white women as well.
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in a 2010 study, African Americans offenders receive sentences that are 10% longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project, a research team that analyzes prison sentences,
Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.
One of the main arguments against life sentences is that they are unfair since they disproportionately affect people of color, who make up over 66% of those currently serving them in the US(Lichtenberg). From this, it indicates that individuals of color, who make up more than two-thirds of those serving life sentences in the United States, are unfairly affected by
This research proposal is purposed at investigating the disparities and the variables that contribute to the gaps in sentencing men and women