Stereotypes In Criminals

When the criminal justice system was established, the main objective was to create neutrality and fairness between the sexes. Even though people might believe that there is no such thing as ‘stereotyping’ in the criminal justice system, it is quite obvious that women are constantly being look down upon because of their sex. In general, women tend to be treated like fragile objects that could break at any moment; the truth is that women can be strong and courageous just like men. Society stereotypes women and the criminal justice system is no different.

On December 1, 1955 a black seamstress, after a long and exhausting day at work, got onto a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama and sat in the back where the blacks were portioned off. A few stops following, a flock of white people boarded. They seized all the remaining seats in the front, except for one white man who was forced to stand as the seats were filled up. The bus driver ordered the four black people in the rear end of the bus to give up their seats to the white man.Three of the four stood up hesitantly. Rosa Parks, the work-weary black seamstress did not. She was arrested later that evening. She was angry at the hate and disrespect towards blacks and minorities. She had enough of the way the world has treated them and she knew that

The results yielded contradicting evidence to previous research. In previous research, eyewitness testimony credible or not has shown to influence a juror’s decision (Pozzulo & Dempsey, 2009; Whitley, 2001). In this case, we only compared discredited and credible witness. From each other, they did not show a difference on juror’s decision. In addition, black defendants are convicted more and receiver harsher punishments than white defendants (Demuth & Steffensmeier, 2004). On the other hand, a review by Sommers’s (2007) indicated the degree to which race plays a role still needs to be studied more. Although, his conclusion was that race does play some type of role in a juror’s decision. The current study supports Sommers’s review in that more research does need be conducted because of the contradicting

Previous research has revealed that many of the common physical characteristics that tend to be discriminated most have all been studied independently. The authors examine what types of studies have been conducted in the past to help them gage where they need to focus their research on. The authors have discovered that prior research has typically ignored how race, gender, and age influences sentencing decisions of criminal defendants. The authors

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found “a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty.” Moreover, the study reached the conclusion that a defendant in a capital case was much more likely to be given the death sentence if the murder victim was white. Sadly, “the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.”

Gender stereotypes leads kids to gang affiliations. Gangs are growing around the world and are consider to be a group of criminals. According to the National Institute of Justice (2011), “The federal definition of gang is: an association of three or more individuals identifying themselves with a group identity with slogans, signs, symbols, style of color of clothing, and that have a purpose to engage in criminal activity” (para.3). There are 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with 1.4 million members that are criminally active in the United States (Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2017). Gangs are related to bullying from stereotypes, assaults, thefts, and harassment. Unfortunately, a child in gangs is exposed

The Criminal Justice System as a whole is always under constant scrutiny, and nearly everyone has a different perspective regarding the subject. In 1976, a student studying criminal justice offered his own analysis of the system. He viewed said system as one that was “unfair, harsh, and biased” and that it should no longer be viewed as a Criminal Justice system, but instead a Criminal Processing System. I have sat and considered this statement for much time now, and I can only interpret it in one way. His view of the system is that criminals are treated unfairly and simply put through the judicial system similarly to the way a product is created on an assembly line.

As the District Attorney, my job consists often of evaluating the competency of our local legal system and its processes. Due to the rather high levels of incarceration in this city, and the recent increase in use of forensic evidence, it has been proposed that recent research upon the topic of bias within forensic investigators be considered. This research incorporates information about confirmation bias, and personal stereotypes within the forensic community. In the study done by Brusko and Ibrahim, they looked to examine these qualities and how they affect wrongful incarcerations. Thus, by examining the information and the results obtained in this study, we hope to gain new insight into what may affect our incarceration rates and how false convictions factor in.

Knowing the possibility of being stereotyped for ‘“Driving While Black” puts people on edge when anticipating coming into contact with a police officer. Media coverage of police officers abusing their power alters community perceptions of their local police and police motives. There has correspondingly been a steady decline in how law enforcement personnel are perceived and in the trust that black community members have in their local police. Weitzer (2002) assessed attitudes and public opinions about highly publicized incidents of police misconduct in Los Angeles and New York and found that opinions about the police differ depending on the neighborhood where a person lives, age, ethnicity, and personal experiences had with police officers.

Twenty two years after the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was constitutional, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) released a study examining the trials and sentences of 667 Murder convictions in Philadelphia between 1983 and 1993. The data shown above is a comparison of the races of the criminals and their victims.The DPIC found that around 15% of all black defendants were sentenced to the death penalty whereas, only 2.6% of white defendants were sentenced to the death penalty. That is a substantial difference that leads a reader to believe that our criminal justice system is in fact not colorblind. In our country we have a strong prejudice against the black community. The study shows that when a white person is murdered,

In our current society, gender patterns play an important role in our vision of male sex offenders, similarly as much as they do to female sex offenders. The stigma of a female sex offender usually revolves around someone in a nurturing position such as teacher who has an inappropriate relationship with a minor. These women are said seduce younger victims with their looks. Similar to men, women can also be sex offenders, despite the fact that a much smaller number of women are sexual offenders. It is not conclusive exactly how many women execute sexual crimes or how many victims exist. The stereotype of the female sex offender as an attractive nurturer who forms a romantic relationship with a minor is ambiguous, despite its portrayal in the

The Nature and Nurture debate, one of the oldest debates in the history of psychology, questions whether or not criminal behaviour is a result of the nature of a person, meaning something that lies in their genes causing a person to act in a certain way, or nurture, the environment, therefore criminal behaviour as a result of a person’s life experiences (Sincero, 2012). This essay shall look in depth and answer to how the four areas of criminal behaviour, which are biological, sociological, psychological and environmental, as part of the nature and nurture debate, can explain criminality and deviance. This will be done by discussing a number of theories and experiments that have come to the surface over time. Researching the nature and nurture debate, it is shown that the debate continues to interest people today, mainly because of what is thought will be the outcome of these findings, which is preventing people turning to criminal behaviour by understanding people’s genetics, how they were born and avoid situations that lie in the environment to stop them interacting with criminal activities.

Criminal profiling may have similar characteristics to stereotyping but overall they are two different process. Generally anybody can stereotype a person based on their own experiences and knowledge but only a few can actually do it the professional way based on facts not opinions. Criminal profiling generally help law enforcement when trying to capture or solve a case. In my opinion stereotyping is for the common person and criminal profiling is for the professionals working in our justice system.

Several characters ' stories interweave during a couple of days in Los Angeles. There is a African American detective who does not have a relationship with his mother and his criminal younger brother with a gang member; a Caucasian district attorney and his prejudice and pampered wife; a racist white police officer who dislikes his partner because he is so idealistic; an African American Hollywood director and his wife who have some problems with the racist white cop; a Persian-immigrant father who doesn 't trust others and a hardworking Hispanic family man who is a locksmith. The film different from other racial films for it is impartial compared to others. For example, the movies does not split the characters into victims and offenders.

Racism and socioeconomic class play a very large factor in considering who is executed in America. An alarming statistic shows that 70% of all executions are those in which the victim was a white person (Wade 2013). “Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants have been executed for murdering white victims, although African-Americans make up about half of all homicide victims” (Wade 2013). The old adage that ‘you get what you pay for’ unfortunately stands true when considering the representation that is provided for indigent defendants accused of murder.