The Racial Stereotyping Of Minority Groups Is A Prevalent

Although the United States composes a mere five percent of the world’s population, it holds twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners (13th 0:01-0:05). In recent years, mass incarceration, or the practice of arresting vast amounts of people, has become a relevant issue within the United States. As rising amounts of individuals, primarily minorities, are arrested, for both serious and petty crimes, government spending on jails and inmates has undergone a drastic increase as well. The large sum of money that has been directed toward correctional facilities has initiated a great amount of controversy, as many believe that it should be used to cover the rising cost of education instead. Since the majority of inmates are currently minorities,

To dig deeper into this overrepresentation of black criminality, we have to look at the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment, which allowed slavery as a form of punishment in the prison system. The policymakers recognized the opportunities to acquire forced labor through mass incarceration and made use of the perpetuating cycle of racial formation, where representations and the actions of the institution often reinforce each other. The structural institution, or the policymakers in this case, used overrepresentation of black criminality to racialize crime. The overrepresentation of racialized crime then validates the need of criminal laws and their unequal application across racial groups. In the end, the institution created the false representation that justifies its actions which further feed the representation. The vicious cycle introduced racial discrimination into the justice system and guided the process of mass incarceration.

Without a doubt, black men in the United States continue to be excessively “incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts (Kerby 2).” Portrayals in the media have depicted black men as thugs and common criminals; these negative stereotypes demoralize men of color and allow society to believe and internalize this destructive thinking. The racial disparities that exist in the criminal justice system are an indirect consequence of the portrayals of African American men that circulate in society. Because of racial disparities that occur in the United States it consequently threatens communities of color by “disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more (Kerby 2).”

In 1982 the crack epidemic started, which shortly after Ronald Reagan expanded the war on drugs that Nixon started, one of his top aides admitted that the war on drugs was used to “target African Americans and hippies”. The number of incarcerations before the war on drugs was expanded in 1980 was four thousand seven hundred forty-nine for drug related crimes, in 1990 that number increased to twenty-four thousand two hundred ninety-seven, sixty percent of those incarcerations were African Americans (sentencingproject.org). If you were caught with one gram of crack you got the same sentencing as someone found with eighteen grams of cocaine, it was policies like these that targeted lower income black communities because crack was much cheaper than cocaine and was more likely for a white person to have cocaine.

American people identified the War on Drugs was launched to combat the crack crisis. However, Alexander claims that the crack crisis emerged some years after the War on Drugs was launched. She argues that negative racial stereotypes surrounding the crack crisis were widely dispersed on media. Reagan administration intensified a campaign to gain public and legislative support to the drug war in 1985. Suddenly media was saturated with images of black “crack whores” “crack dealers” and “crack babies” (p.5). There was a widespread discourse that crack crisis was a problem of the poor black neighborhoods. Thus, it was created and constantly reinforced the idea that African American people are drug addicts and dangerous. It is not surprising to know white people that is scared of black people. Moreover, in case you argue to someone that is scared of black people that s/he is being racist, they will claim that statistics prove that many African American are in prison due to drug issues.

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.

The people of a minority group who are at a greater risk of being subjected to the criminal justice system are the African Americans and Hispanics. It is not surprising these two groups are more prone, yet throughout the remainder of this paper, certain concepts/themes will be further analyzed from a chosen film to portray the reality minorities face with and in the criminal justice system and society.

Another common negative stereotype, establishes the African American male as intellectually inferior. Studies directed by psychologist Claude Stale, indicate that African American teenagers are aware that they are stigmatized as being intellectually inferior and the go to school bearing what psychologist Claude has called a “burden of suspicion” Such burden can affect their attitudes and achievements. These shadows hang over stigmatized people no matter their status or accomplishments. These stigmas have the potential to roll them of their individually and debilitate their attempts to break out of the stereotypical roles. Blacks are the repository for the American fear of crime. Ask anyone, of any race, to picture a criminal and the image will have a black face. The linked between blackness and criminality it’s routinized by terms such a “black-on-black crimes” or “black crimes”.

Racial disproportionality of United States prison populations have been a controversy for several years. It is not entirely evident that the racial disproprtionality is cause to discrimination; however it does contribute to the conditions are the prisons. The criminal involvement of blacks and other minorities seems to be linked to the racial disproportionality of the prison populations. The types of crimes that are committed especially in the black community are addressed in the journal. The differences in the involvement of black offenders as it relates to more serious crimes as robberies and homicides which is a major contributor to the larger percentage of the prison system. The more serious crimes also tend to account for more of the disproportionality between black and white incarceration rates.

Mass incarceration has become a youth phenomenon in Black and Latino Communities. Ninety-five percent of all juveniles sent to adult court are youth of color (Rios, 2006). This disproportionate number of incarcerated youth starts with the policing, surveillance, and targeting of these groups by law enforcement. The issue that will be discussed in this paper is the high rate at which young people of color are assumed to be associated with crime and gang activity within the city of Chicago. There are several effects that drive and produce this misconstrued image of young people of color. Beginning with the discretional judgment of police officers, to the false outcries of the media, these negative views of colored youth have seemingly become ubiquitous in our society. Even when these young people are not committing crime or participating in gang activity they are wrongfully targeted by law enforcement (Skolnick, 2007). This form of policing that involves stopping or targeting an individual based primarily on rather than any individualized suspicion is racial profiling.

In our society, there are many stereotypes for every race and ethnicity, but one of the most prevalent throughout most cultures, even among African Americans, is that most black men are criminals. This is something that, although I understand is not true, has become so ingrained in our society that it made me act differently unintentionally. Even if only in insignificant situation, such as keeping a watchful eye on my belongings when a black person was around or by simply being fearful when a black man was walking behind me, I knew my actions were prejudiced. It’s difficult to break a stereotype when statistics seem to prove it correct. The documentary The 13th and Michelle Alexander describe how mass incarceration, partly resulting from the

For decades, Americans have been associating young black men with stereotypes that affiliate them with violence. These stereotypes, which are based purely off of appearances, have caused many young black males to face violent, unnecessary, as well as unjust encounters with white police officers. As the number of deaths among young black men increase because of police brutality, society should change how they perceive these men in order to prevent inflicting more harm to them. Specific cases, such as the cases of Freddie Gray, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, and several others, will be presented in order to display how the distortion of the stereotypes can cause incredible harm to young black men due to police violence in addition to how stereotypes affect society’s perception of all young black men.

It has been proven across this country that the ratio of minorities to whites in jails and prisons is overwhelming. In 2010, African-American males were 6 times more likely than white males to be in jails and prisons as there were 678 white male inmates per 100,000 and 4,347 black male males per 100,000 locked away (Drake, 2013). This is up from 1960, when black males were 5 times more likely to be incarcerated (Drake, 2013). The ratio in the juvenile criminal justice system is not any better as in 2011, “African-American youths were 160% more likely to have been referred to juvenile court for a delinquent offense, 13% more likely to have been petitioned for formal case processing, 8% less likely to have been adjudicated, and 11% more likely to have had their petitioned cases waived to the adult system for criminal prosecution” (Howell & Hutto, 2012). These high ratios have caused a blame game across this country.

Stereotypes allow us to simplify and categorize information. When people are categorized, racial stereotypes often becomes used and can influence our behavior (Warren et. al, 2006, p. 130). The use of racial stereotypes in the criminal justice system wrongfully targets minorities which in turn decreases trust between police and the minority community they serve and breaches the Fourth Amendment law of “equal protection of the law”. Both prosecutors and judges use stereotypes to investigate the accountability of victims and criminals.

It may seem that incarceration rates are high for minorities at the federal level, but the rates are even higher at the state levels. African Americans are 5.6 times, and Hispanics are 1.8 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Young African American and Hispanic males are leading incarceration rates for robbery, drug offenses, followed by murder and nonnegligent manslaughter. Whites show a significant lower number than of the Hispanics and blacks for the violent crimes, but lead incarceration rates for rape and sexual abuse. Whites also exceeded minorities in property crime (108,560), compared to blacks (78,197) and Hispanics (38,264) (E. Ann Carson and Daniela Golinelli, 2013). The demographics show that young minority males are being incarcerated at higher rates for majority of the main crimes