The Role Of Blacks In The Criminal Justice System

According to a report by the state of Washington, the answer seems to be no. For those convicted in trafficking drugs, offenders are almost always charged with the most serious (in the case of multiple charges). Usually, in order to facilitate a plea, the charges will be reduced. Whether or not the defendant pleads guilty at the trial is one of the most important elements in sentencing. Circumstances of the arrest are just as important.

Dick Rowland (African American) was being tried for attack and attempted rape of a white woman named Sarah page. On the day of May 31, of 1921, Ms. Page opened the elevator and Mr. Rowland went to enter the elevator. He tripped because the elevator did not stop moving the way it should have, and so he grabbed what there was so he did not fall; and that happened to be Ms. Page’s arm. She let out a sharp scream and a clerk from not too far away Saw Mr. Rowland run out of the building and Later he was tried and as some white believe he did try to rape her as on the other hand African Americans did not believe in what was said what so ever.

Being Black In the Criminal Justice System Being in the criminal justice system racism, Blacks were treated differently from whites. Blacks were treated as they were convicted of crimes, and can shut them away in prison warehouse. A door is easy to repair, compared to a broken family. In calculating the human cost of our the criminal justice system.

Most people tend to turn a blind eye to fact because they believe stereotype is a quick and easy way to distinguish between ethnicities. According to Alexander, “racial caste systems do not require racial hostility or overt bigotry to thrive” (14). Even though the overt racial hostility of the Jim Crow era no longer really exists, the indifference, apathy, and denial of the American people regarding the treatment of the black members of their country are absolutely sufficient to prop up the system of marginalization. People find it easy to believe in stereotypes rather than take the time to investigate their validity, and they content themselves by thinking that people are in jail because they did something legitimately wrong. They ignore that statistics that trouble them and continue on in a nonchalant approach, and of course it is a very dangerous fashion.

African Americans have been placed on a path that their fates have been set throughout history. The criminal justice system has also taken it upon itself to make sure that they do not move away from this path and continue to go forward with it. So many parts of the system have played its role and it continues to play it by keeping African incarcerated. Not only do they target African Americans, but they target those who have a disadvantage when fighting against the system. The system has its history with African Americans so one can figure that this would continue to lead on in the future.

Historically, African Americans have faced discrimination in the criminal justice systems. During the early 1800’s, the system has formed laws to discriminate against African Americans. These laws are recognized as the Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws were regulations passed after slavery that created different guidelines for African Americans and Caucasians (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2016) These decrees were purposely put in place to hinder African Americans from interacting with Caucasians.

Inbalance in the Criminal Justice System Racial Disparity in the criminal justice system is when a certain ethnic group that does not represent the majority of the population is in charge or holds more power within the system than other ethnic groups. A misrepresentation of ethnicity with the Criminal Justice System. This misrepresentation can lead to the assumption that people of different ethnic backgrounds and the same crime will be treated differently within the criminal justice system.

Racism is an ongoing issue which had been taking place for centuries. Racism can take various forms, direct, indirect, individual or institutional. Institutional racism however, has been questioned frequently recently in light of criminal justice system, especially and more noticeably in the US now, where many believe the police is treating/handling black people unfairly comparing to other ethnic groups. According to Macpherson (1999) institutional racism is where organisation does not provide appropriate service due to someone’s colour, culture or ethnic origin, and can take form of racial discrimination in forms of attitudes, behaviours and processes. Macpherson developed this definition when undertaking an inquiry of Stephen Lawrence, a black child who was murdered

Prison is the last place Bigger dreamed he would end up. The road to this prison was paved by the side effects of the racism he had dealt with in his life. The psychological effects of racism on African Americans consistently pave a road that ends in incarceration. Bigger shows that these effects can affect his self – worth, inhibit social interactions, and change the way he sees himself. The book foreshadowed the consequences of racism on Bigger 's psyche from the beginning with the apartment scene.

As a nation, America has made vast progress in improving the rights of non-white individuals. Does that mean that we are liberated from our guilty participation in inflicting pain and trauma upon millions of peoples in order to become the exceptional nation that we claim to be today? Of course not. We should never forget that we stole and colonized land that was already peacefully inhabited by the Native Peoples in order to achieve Manifest Destiny. We should never forget that we brutally snatched, traumatized, and enslaved hundreds of thousands of Africans in order to profit from and cultivate our own economic desires.

The year is 1965, one year after the Civil Rights act of 1964. The African American civil rights movement is shaking the United States out of its white supremacist comatose that has strategically disregarded and oppressed the rights of an entire race for centuries. No matter your race, color, gender, religious views, or origin, minorities have been granted ‘equal rights’. But what are “equal rights”? Can rights ever be truly equal when one race has kept all others below them for hundreds, if not thousands of years?

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.