Disparity In The Criminal Justice System

The Mass Incarceration in the United States is a major topic of discussion in our society and has raised many questions about our criminal justice system. There are few topics disputed as much in criminal justice as the relationship between race, ethnicity, and criminal outcomes. Specifically, the large disparities that minorities face regarding incarceration in our country. Minorities such as Hispanics and African Americans are sentenced at far higher rates than their white counterparts. There are multiple factors that influence this such as the judicial system, racial profiling by law enforcement, and historical biases (Kamula, Clark-Coulson, Kamula, 2010). Additionally, the defendants race was found to be highly associated with either a jail or prison sentence; with the “odds increasing 29 percent for black defendants, and 44 percent for Hispanic defendants” (King, Johnson, McGeever, 2010).

The debate over police officers using excessive force against the public has been long debated issue in America. First, there are police officers that have seen to be corrupted. Katie Nodjimbadem a magazine editor and news reporter said, A deadly riot occurring 1967 in New York police officers disastrously battering John Smith a cab driver that was black at a traffic stop (Nodjimbadem 5). This evidence tells of the corrupted police officers' actions were back then in the treatment of police excessive force. Next, the segregation by police with violent actions.

Mass incarceration the United States has pervasive effects on minority populations. Having disproportionately high rates of minorities in prison has negatively affected the communities that are left behind. “After moderately stable rates for most of the twentieth century, the number of Americans in prison or jail accelerated so rapidly starting in the 1970s that legal scholars widely use the phrase mass incarceration to describe its scale,” . The effects span across generations and are largely unstudied. The long-term implications of mass incarcerations cannot be fully understood because we still have a large population of prisoners in the United States compared to other countries.

Racial inequality is growing. Our criminal laws, while facially neutral, are enforced in a manner that is massively and pervasively biased. My research will examine the U.S. criminal justice policies and how it has the most adverse effect on minorities. According to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, out of a total population of 1,976,019 incarcerated in adult facilities, 1,239,946 or 63 percent are

The existence of racial disparity and structural inequality within the criminal justice system renders the concept of true justice for all unobtainable. The statistics of convictions and prison sentences by race definitely support the concept that discrimination is a problem in the justice system as well as the insignificantly number of minority judges and lawyers. There are a multitude of circumstances that influence these statistics according to the “Central Eight” criminogenic risk factors. The need for programs and methods to effectively deter those at risk individuals has never been greater and the lack of such programs is costing society in countless ways.

“The system is not fair. Institutional racism is alive and well in the juvenile justice system as it is in the criminal justice system, due to racial disparity and bias in the court room” (Jones, Bridgett). This is a statement that plagues many people involved in the justice systems. There are huge racial disparities throughout the world. Post-Slavery: the early development of the Race/Crime Connection, Profiling: Racializing possible cause, and differential bias involvement as well as institutional racism. We can work on having better policies and procedures driven into police practices and we need to make sure people of color are not excluded from juries to stop most of the disparity.

According to the U.S. census bureau, 76.9% of the American population is white, yet according to the chart, they make up just over 50% of the prison population. These findings highlight a current racial bias in the prison system that is continually perpetuated through generational path dependence and other factors. This disparity represents a failure of the criminal justice system to adequately rehabilitate individuals. The systemic racism that is rooted in the criminal justice system is a major ethical debate calling for a change in the policy surrounding incarceration.

Recent sociological studies have focused on pressing social issues such as urban crime and mass incarceration, and examining the invisible link between urban crime, poverty and race. Research indicates that mass incarceration has always worked to the detriment of African Americans, especially the low-income earners (Western, 2006). The aftermath of this trend is that the employment prospects of former felons are significantly diminished (Pager, 2007). Felon disfranchisement in turn distorts the local and national politics of the county (Uggen, 2006). This paper focuses on addressing the contemporary trends and ramifications of mass incarceration of African Americans, and elucidating on the criminal justice policy and the factors contributing to the intangible but real racial divide.

Social issues are dealt with every day, everywhere in our society. Issues like immigration all the way to climate change. As our world evolves the number of social issues only continue to accumulate. Racial disparity is something that is in every aspect of our society. A repetitive social issue is minorities being targeted in the criminal justice system. Minorities, in specific African Americans receive unequal treatment and punishment in the criminal justice system this causes a split in our society, racist outburst, and million of unjustified incarcerations affecting the environment millennials grow in, and the economy as money is being spent where there should be no need for it.

The inequality or equality of black Americans in the criminal justice system have been rigged for a long time.Therefore, I think there is injustice in police killings of blacks, and the sentencing of blacks, and how they are put there, while waiting for trial.

The question of fairness and equality in the criminal justice system has its original roots dating back to the Magna Carta in 1215 AD. The latest document to define the criminal justice is the United States Constitution which specifically in the 14th amendment which states ”no state can make or enforce laws on its citizens, nor shall they deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor will they deny equal protection of the laws”. Section one of the fourteenth amendment means that the states cannot make any laws or enforce them on any person without due process and makes it illegal to deny equal protection. The founding fathers envisioned a justice system that is blind as evidenced by the

The population at large in the United Stated is very different than the population of the prison system. Racial inequality in the criminal justice system is often ignored because it does not affect most people. If there is to be a change in racial inequality, this issue is one that must be addressed. According to Inequality and Incarceration, “497 out of 100,000 Americans are imprisoned.” This means there is “less than one percent of people” in the United States that are imprisoned. This may seem like an insignificant amount.

The criminal justice system is a set of organizations and procedures set up by governments to control wrongdoing and force punishments on the individuals who disregard the laws. The main frameworks are state and federal. The state criminal justice systems handle wrongdoings perpetrated inside their state limits and government, the federal criminal system handles violations carried out on federal property or in more than one state. This system is supposed to be equal yet the nature of offenses, differential policing policies and practices, sentencing laws and biases are possible contributors to disparities in the system. The severity of the offense, prior record, age and education level are also taking into account when a decision is being made. Our prison system today varies immensely with ascending numbers of minority groups jailed within the system. Racial and ethnic imbalances continue in the United States and no disparity is more evident than that found in the criminal justice system. Disparity usually refers to a difference that is unfair, disparity in the criminal justice system stems from racial disparity which concludes that the proportion of a racial ethnic group within the control of the system is greater than the population of that group outside that control.

The rate of incarceration of black people specifically males has been a constant increase. The United States of America mass incarceration began in the 1970s and it now holds the highest number of inmates in the world. There has been a racial and ethnic disproportionality within the Justice system, as 35% of African-American males are represented of all inmates, that is 3,119 per 100,000 a year (Gjelsvik, Dora, Dumont & Nunn, 2013, p. 1). The mass imprisonment of black males has major effects on their family development and the communities in which they come from. This has brought upon many social activist and agencies to demand strategic reforms to minimize the disproportionality in black inmates.

Racial inequality in the American criminal justice system has a strong effect of many realms of society such as the family life, and employment. Education and race seem to be the most decisive factors when deciding who goes to jail and what age cohort has the greatest percentage chance of incarceration. Going to prison no longer affects just the individual who committed the crime. Instead, the family and community left behind gain a new burden by one individual's actions. The United States still has a large disparity between Whites and Blacks and now a growing Hispanic population. This racial disparity in the educational