When People Start To Acknowledge Individuals For Their

Education is an integral part of society, School helps children learn social norms as well as teach them to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. In West Trenton Central High School was only 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. These school have lower test scores and high dropout rates. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often form low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial factors to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and

For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused

Has the criminal justice system always been unfair to minorities? Lauryn Hill, a famous songwriter talks about several things that opened the eyes of citizens everywhere across this nation in her album MTV Unplugged No. 2.0. In her song, “Mystery of Iniquity” she exposes the unjust court system and how everyone plays a part. The word iniquity means immoral unfair behavior. In the song Lauryn is trying to understand the meaning of the unfair behavior by the criminal justice system. She released this album in 2001, and she was not wrong for publicizing her views on this masterpiece of an album. We tend to forget that under President Clinton’s term, he enforced the 3 strikes and you're out policy, which placed more African American men in person for using crack cocaine than ever before. In the early 2000s, African Americans made up nearly 80% of a prison's population due to the federal crack cocaine laws and they also served more time in prison for drug offenses than their white counterparts. However, during this time period more than 67% (⅔) of crack cocaine users were either white or Hispanic.

Mandatory minimum laws, which set different minimum sentences for crack and powder cocaine possession, are policies that are inflexible, “one-size-fits-all” sentencing laws that undermine the constitutional principle that the punishment should fit the crime and undermine the judicial power to punish an individual in context of the specific circumstances. Similarly, 3-strikes laws also ignores judicial discretion. Truth-in-sentencing policies refer to policies created to have a convict serve the full sentence, regardless of good behavior or other deterrent. These policies are created to only incapacitate people—more specifically minorities—not to rehabilitate them. More people in jail and longer sentences are not helping ensure public safety.

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe (Pettit, 2004). In the 1980s, U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to decrease steadily. Many urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law

In the article, “Heroin addiction sent me to prison. White privilege got me out and to the Ivy League” author Keri Blakinger shares her experience after she was arrested for possession of heroin. Blakinger served a 2 ½ year sentence, returned to school, graduated, and got a job at a newspaper, all after committing a crime that has a max 10 year jail sentence. Blanking explains how white privilege allowed for all of that to happen, and that people of color would not have had the same luck (Blakinger 2015, pg.1). Blakinger states something that really opened my eyes, she says, “While blacks represent just 13.2 percent of the New York State population, they are nearly half of the state’s prison population” (Blakinger 2015, pg.1). It is also stated

The criminal justice system in the United States promotes the mass incarceration of blacks can be seen through the high number of African-Americans going to jail for drugs compared to any other race. According to www.naacp.org “about 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug”; if someone was to calculate this that means five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans.

In 1950, 70 percent of whites were imprisoned and in 1990 it flipped to 70 percent of African Americans and Latinos imprisoned. In 2008 a study showed that 68 percent of those in prison were African Americans and among drug offenders who were released, 92 percent were black (Vogel, 2016). Nearly 14 million whites and approximately 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug (Criminal, 2016). In 1980 whites were more likely to sell drugs than blacks by 45 percent. In 2012, 6.6 percent of whites sold drugs compared to just 5 percent of blacks. However, blacks are 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession of drugs. (Rothwell, 2014). Blacks make up 12 percent of the total population of drug users, but 38 percent are arrested for drug offenses. African Americans essentially serve as much time for drug offenses as whites do for violent offenses. Yet blacks are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites (Criminal, 2016). “Jerome Miller analyzed arrest statistics from several American cities to determine the impact of the War on Drugs on policing. He found striking racial disparities in how drug arrests were made. In many jurisdictions, African American men account for over eighty percent of total drug arrests. In

Racial profiling has been and will continue to be a problem in the United States. Many believe that racial profiling is more prevalent in today’s society; however, this issue has been a part of our society since slavery. Moreover, African American males are mostly the targets of racial profiling, especially in larger cities like New York City and Los Angeles. Racial profiling is becoming a huge problem within the police departments. Police officers are conducting more traffic stops on African Americans males than on any other racial group, for the reason that many police officers believe African Americans males are most likely to be engaged in some sort of criminal activity. Thus, racial

Prior to studying sociology and public policy, I was very uninformed and oblivious to the injustices that black people were facing in regards to drug charges. These injustices were disguised under President Reagan’s War on Drugs, but were used disproportionately to discriminate against African Americans and label them as felons, thus revoking them of any ability to receive government assistance, find adequate housing, or to be a suitable candidate for many jobs. These forms of social control, while legal, are very reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws that existed post-Reconstruction.

African Americans constitute 12% of the U.S. population, 13% of the drug using population and fully 74% of the people sent to prison for drug possession. Studies have shown that minorities are subject to disparate treatment at arrest, bail, charging, plea bargaining, trial, sentencing, and every other stage of the criminal process. These disparities accumulate so that African Americans are represented in prison at seven times their rate in the general population; rates of crime in African American communities is often high, but not high enough to justify the disparity. The resentment destabilizes communities and demeans the entire nation. (Justice, 2004)

Although saying the criminal justice system is racist is a controversial statement, there is evidence and statistics that prove it to be true. Research and evidence validate the issue of racism to be undeniable. Equality and justice are out of reach with the racism that takes place in our criminal justice system and our country. Racial discrimination is prevalent amongst the African American culture in issues regarding drug use, and incarceration which creates unfair inequality for this race. I will use peer reviewed articles to verify the racial disparity in the criminal justice system.

The “War on Drugs” established that the impact of incarceration would be used as a weapon to combat the illegal drug problem in this country. Unfortunately, this war against drugs has fallen disproportionately on black Americans. “Blacks constitute 62.6% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons in 1996, whereas whites constituted 36.7%. The drug offender admissions rate for black men ranges from 60 to an astonishing 1,146 per 100,000 black men. In contrast, the white rate begins at 6 and rises no higher than 139 per 100,000 white men. Drug offenses accounted for nearly two out of five of all black admissions to state prisons (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.

African Americans are targeted by law enforcement more often than any other race (Toth, Crews & Burton, 2008). Because of this the term racial profiling was created to explain the process of targeting people for criminal activity because of race not evidence (Toth et al, 2008). African Americans are over represented in the criminal justice system based on their population amount compared to whites (Toth et al, 2008). African American males are incarcerated at a rate 9 times that of white males in most states, in others that number may be as high as 12 to 26 times more (Toth et al, 2008). Nationwide statistics show in most states 1 in 20 over the age of 18 are in prison, while 5 other states report 1 in 13 or 14 compared to the 1 in 180

First before I could even start to begin to speak of the challenges in inner city schools, I must define “what an inner city school is.” An inner city school is located in the central area of a major city, where most people live in townhouses or apartment buildings. Sometimes when people hear the word “inner city” the first thought that comes to mind is a lower income area. You may also think of the people who live in the inner city. This population can be quite diverse, with racial groups such as African American, Hispanics, and so on. The biggest issue facing the inner city is the schools that lay in these areas. Since many people in these areas are minority and live below the poverty line, this has caused issues with financing area schools. Schools receive their funding from the federal government, but mostly from their local and state government which is also responsible for collecting property, sales, and other taxes that fund