The American criminal justice system has, for a long time, been described as one of the government institutions that have been acting in ways that generally promote discrimination and bias towards African Americans. These are conclusions made from an analysis of the past rulings against black offenders and the continued aggressiveness portrayed by law enforcement officers and criminal justice system officials while dealing with African American offenders. The general conduct of different segments of the system reveals the existence of racial and ethnic disparities promoted to the continued oppression of minority races by the government systems. As a criminal justice working for a bipartisan think tank, I am responsible for exploring the issue of racial and ethnic disparities as they manifest in the American criminal justice system.
This information booklet is meant for the public. It will primarily analyze data and address the ethnic disparities in the American criminal justice system with particular emphasis on information that provides evidence to prove that the differences are driven by ethnic and racial discrimination. While crime has been common in the United States, there is undeniable evidence that the criminal justice system has been primarily subjecting African-Americans to prejudice and discrimination in how they are handled as suspects and the ruling of their cases. Most of the twentieth century was characterized by punishment and crime-related occurrences that provided credible evidence of the racial discrimination perpetrated by the American criminal justice system (Davis, 2007). Some of the simple acts that showed this divide include lynching, chain-gang style penal practices, and prosecutorial and judicial bigotry, which were mainly perpetrated on the African American offenders and suspects. Besides, racial minorities, especially the blacks, were tried by all-white juries in all white courtroom. This significantly influenced the outcomes with the rulings in many cases favoring the whites. For instance, in 1910, African Americans comprised 11% of the American population, and 31% of the incarcerated offenders were African Americans.
Moreover, 405 out of the 455 rape executions carried out between 1930 and 1972 were perpetrated on African Americans (Davis, 2007). During this time, the laws set discriminated against African Americans as the harshest sentences and sanctions were given to black people who victimized or offended the whites. This reveals that racial disparity evident in the U.S judiciary system started a long time ago.
The past 50 years have been characterized by the rise of civil rights movements contesting the conduct of the criminal justice system regarding how it treats the African American population. This led to the implementation of major reforms meant to make the system fair, especially to minority races. They were also meant to protect the minority races from the abuse of power by criminal justice agencies such as law enforcement and the judiciary. According to the reforms, minority defendants were no longer going to be denied bail or charged indiscriminately, without legal or punished proportionally severe way (Healey, Stepnick, & O’Brien, 2019). However, even after these changes, the criminal justice system has continued to portray large racial disparities, evidenced by recent statistics regarding incarcerations in the nation. Statistics released by the government in 2015 indicated that out of the incarcerated people, 61% were white, while the Latinos were 17.6% and African Americans 13.3%. However, an analysis of the people sentenced in the same year showed that 33.8% were whites, 21.6% were Latino, while African Americans comprised 35.4% (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). This is a clear indication that the American government has been trying to cover the racial disparity in criminal justice by attempting to convince the public that the Minority races were now being treated better.
Despite the several measures taken to reform the criminal justice system, the minority races remain overrepresented in delinquency, offending, and victimization. This occurs in all the justice process stages, which entails arrest, pretrial, detention, and sentencing. Innocent black people are still getting unfairly tried and getting convicted for crimes they did not commit. The criminal justice system still seems to be operating based on perceptions created during the colonial era in which the black people were considered inferiors of the white people. While this minority has its rights now enshrined in the constitution, the government has resulted in using systems such as the criminal system to oppress this race (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2016). Besides, even when it comes to general crime statistics and arrests, it is evident that the black people still are highly represented compared to other races which raise the question on whether the system is biased or it is just targeting the black community instead of focusing on serving justice indiscriminately among the people of America. In this regard, we must focus on exploring the causes of the bias portrayed by the criminal justice systems and its overall impact on the affected individuals. This will give insight into why the black population has, for a long time, been subjected to race-based segregation by American governmental systems such as the criminal justice system.
The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. First, one of the main factors leading to such a disparity is the high crime rates among African American neighborhoods. Ideally, criminal justice statistics show that there are relatively high rates of main crimes such as violence and drug trafficking within the black neighborhoods, which increases the law enforcement focus on these regions. This is an issue that can be attributed to the high rates of unemployment and poverty, which is brought by the discrimination of these minority neighborhood members by other governmental systems such as the education and employment department (Anderson, 2016). This has left these people poor and helpless making them more predisposed to crime. According to analysts, the United States operates two criminal justice systems whereby one is for the wealthy while the other is for the poor. The people of color, such as the black community, are served by the criminal justice system for low-income individuals, making them victims of laws and judiciary procedures. They receive poor representation and biased ruling that ends in them being incarcerated even for crimes they did not commit. These double standards are also promoted by the colorblind and class blind judicial system, which vows to protect everyone’s rights (Healey et al., 2019). However, the white population’s rights are prioritized than those of black people, and this is used to sentence black offenders unfairly in the name of protecting the rights of American citizens. The judiciary uses the constitution to justify the criminal justice system’s results to show its fairness despised its biased ruling against the black offenders.
Another factor contributing to the disparity is increased mass incarceration among the black community, which is brought by increased contact between the black people and the law enforcement officers. The police are more likely to venture into African-American neighborhoods searching for offenders compared to white neighborhoods. The rise of mass incarceration begins with disproportionate levels of police contact with African Americans. African Americans end up being arrested or offenses such as drug possession, which are common among all other races. Besides, the stop and frisk order used by the law-enforcement forces mainly target the black population because the police believe that they are likely to be involved in crime compared to other races. More resources are allocated to African American neighborhoods to ensure that high crime rates are reduced (Healey et al., 2019). The American government’s move to curb crime by all measures is yet another factor leading to increased racial disparity in the criminal justices as a crackdown on crimes such as drug trafficking primarily targets the African American population. Therefore, it is a crime control practices such as “Broken Windows” and “Stop, Question, and Frisk” mainly target African Americans. They end up being arrested and incarcerated for crimes that would not be detected. Was it not for the increased contact with the police?
The outcomes of this disparity include increased rates of incarceration among African-Americans compared to other races. This has also contributed to the development of a conflict between the police and the black people who believe that the police are targeting them. Besides, more than a third of workers in the U.S require an occupational license to get considered for employment in different firms and governmental agencies. People with criminal records cannot acquire such certification, and they end up losing job opportunities because they were incarcerated (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2017). Moreover, in sectors that no licensing is required, the employers are less likely to consider an individual with a criminal history and, in most cases, never contacted after an interview, which is quite different from white applicants who are considered despite having a criminal history. An in-depth analysis of the employment market reveals that even African Americans with better qualifications will be disqualified based on their criminal history. That job will be given to a less qualified white individual (Pager & Shepherd, 2008). This generally reveals that white criminal records receive favorable treatment compared to African Americans who also face discrimination when it comes to rental and access to government services such as housing.
Overall, African Americans have been facing extensive discrimination from the U.S criminal justice system. Despite the many reforms implemented, the system’s initiatives seem to be specifically targeting the race, which makes it more likely to be involved in procedures such as arrests and sentencing. Effective policies must be implemented to protect the members of the race from the criminal justice system’s discriminatory approaches.
One of the interventions will be to use a more appropriate approach in handling the war on drugs instead of targeting a given race. Another approach would be to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences like the ones place for drug possession and trafficking. Lastly, it would be essential for the government to come up with training programs to reduce racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. This would effectively improve the U.S criminal justice system and eradicate discrimination, which has been a great challenge.