Black Americans And The Criminal Justice System

There is a large racial disparity with unjust arrests in America. African Americans are discriminated and racially profiled more than any other race within the criminal justice system (Slate, 2015). The main goals of the criminal justice system are to prevent and control crime and to achieve justice (Crime&Justice International, 1997). However, according to the ‘American Progress’, “people of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos are unfairly targeted by the police and face harsher prison sentences compared to other races, particularly white Americans (American Progress, 2015). Although the criminal justice is to provide equal justice to all of its citizens, African Americans tend to not receive the same justice. Specifically, African

The following piece of work will discuss racism within the criminal justice system by viewing the Black Lives Matter movement, the roles of law enforcement and how that effects citizens, and potential solutions to the problems in the system. Within our criminal justice system, it is evident that there is a problem by the ratio of blacks in prison, and the number of police brutality cases in the country.

There are more than two million people incarcerated in the U.S, whether it is in jails, prisons, or immigration detentions and the race with the highest percentage of imprisoned people are blacks. For many years, black men have always been at top of the list for going to prison during their lifetime. Following black men would be the Latino males, than white males, and so forth. Minorities are usually arrested more than whites. This is because they get off way easier with police officers and the law. Blacks have it the hardest where they get pulled over for any and everything. Most of the time they get killed for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Everyone is supposed to be treated fair, but police officers have their own motto for that. “Once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to face stiff sentences.” (Knafo, 2014). Police find anything to arrest people for, especially blacks, just to be able

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

The main race being incarcerated and targeted is African Americans. For years, poor neighborhoods have been targeted by police, whose main purpose was to find drugs by any means

There are large racial disparities in incarceration and related detainments for African Americans. They are more likely to be under the supervision of the Department of Corrections than any other racial or ethnic group (H.West, Sabol, & Greenman, 2010). Institutional racism is believed to be the reason why African Americans, especially males, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. On balance, the public believes that discrimination against black people is based on the prejudice of the individual person, correlates to the discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions (Pew’s Research Center, 2017). This belief is actually supported through several experimental studies that provide evidence that African Americans are to be seen as more criminal and threatening than others thus more likely to be arrested or even shot (Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003). Racism within the criminal justice system very much exists and is still relevant.

In today’s society, discrimination continues to affect millions of minorities from inappropriate name calling to being shot by a law enforcement officer because you were perceived to be dangerous. The underlying effects of racial discrimination are seen in all aspects of our society, especially in our social institutions. These social institutions range from the educational system to our government, yet racial discrimination is more evident in the criminal justice system. When analyzing how the criminal justice system discriminates against minorities we are able to do so through the visible disparities within the system. Unfortunately, these disparities display African Americans having the highest population rates in the criminal justice system, therefore, we can immediately conclude this disparity in population is due to the injustices conducted by the system. Thus, there is a need for urgent change not just within the criminal justice system but within all social institutions beginning with our government. This change should create greater opportunities for minorities to enter the political field in our government as well as promoting higher participating in voting. Yet, the criminal justice system within all its aspects practices discrimination due to its deeply interwoven prejudice, institutional racism, and socioeconomic status.

The past quarter century has seen an enormous growth in the American incarceration rate. Importantly, some scholars have suggested that the rate of prison growth has little to do with the theme of crime itself, but it is the end result of particular U.S. policy choices. Clear (2007) posits that "these policy choices have had well-defined implications for the way prison populations have come to replicate a concentrated occurrence among specified subgroups in the United States population in particular young black men from deprived communities" (p. 49).

Black male and Latino defendants in U.S. criminal cases receive much longer prison sentences than white men do. “In too many places, black boys and black men, and Latino boys and Latino men, experience being treated different under the law," Obama told the group. "Mass incarceration makes our country worse off and we need to do something about it."( Tom LoBianco).There have been criminals since the beginning of time and the crime rate seems to increase with every year. Criminals do not always

A problem that has risen over the past decade or so is the criminal justice system being against African Americans, but to be more specific is the criminal justice system being against African American males. The incarceration rate and the number of police brutality cases have been at all time high rises and the overall treatment African Americans receive from the criminal justice system. There have been numerous amounts of cases that have come to face dealing with African Americans and law enforcement. The types of cases that have caught the eye of the media and the people of the United States are the ones were law enforcement uses excessive force on an African American or killing an African American teen or adult. Other cases that have

In 2009 the imprisonment ratio for African American men in state and federal jails was 6.7 times more than the ratio for white men (4,749 versus 708, respectively, per 100,000). The imprisonment rate for Hispanic American men was 2.6 times higher than for white men (1,822 per 100,000). There were likewise variations in the imprisonment of white and African American females, however not as terrific when it comes to males (BJS, 2010).

There are at least nineteen official crime categories in the United States and a single criminal justice system exists to address them all.  One design alone handles the theft of a bicycle and the murder of a child.  It was made to punish and to keep order while simultaneously treating every person equally.  Without it, there would be no consequences as every and anything would be allowed.  While the system seems to work very efficiently on the outside, it has many critics about its internal workings.  One of the major observations that is brought up is the acclaimed racism in nearly every aspect of the criminal justice system.  People claim that more people of color are the recipients of overly violent police treatment, are arrested unfairly,

In the book The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, she highlights one of many problems that plague our legal system here in the U.S. “Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind (Alexander, 2).” She argues that even though the U.S. got rid of the Jim Crow Laws back along with slavery, does not mean we have solved the problem of racism. In the

In the U.S. criminal justice system African-Americans are targeted and ridiculed more than white people. Some people believe racial discrimination is not prominent in the United States. Greg Jones, the author of “Sorry, Everyone, America isn’t that Racist”, says, “racism in America is not as bad as it used to be, people should be happy with the Civil Rights Act and move on”(Jones 3). Saying the justice system is biased would be very controversial but

Last but not least, there is a higher number of arrests among blacks than whites. African Americans are being arrested at nearly six times the rate of whites (NAACP).As a matter of fact, “African Americans use or sell drugs about the same rate as whites, but they are 2.8 to 5.5 times more likely to be arrested for drugs than whites” (Hudson).Blacks and whites both do the crime, but blacks are the main one who gets caught and