While working for the American Civil Liberties Union, Michelle Alexander’s perspective changed as she gained insight on the racial bias in our criminal justice system and how it has been altered throughout time. In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindless, Alexander compares our current justice system to the Jim Crow laws of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which enforced racial segregation, by calling our system “The New Jim Crow.” Alexander describes America’s racial history in depth by covering slavery, the Civil War, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The author also explains that The War on Drugs in the 1980s was not based on correct statistics about drug use, but rather to satisfy white…
Many delegations have occurred within the last decade when it comes to how our society view African Americans. The media has portrayed images of African American men to either be rappers, criminals or professional athletes. Arguing the non-existence of racism in this text would be absurd. The case involving Trayvon Martin a 17-year-old African American that was shot by George Zimmerman a white male. That alone caused a lot of controversy amongst the African American community. After Martin's death, rallies, marches and protests were held across the nation. Along with the negativity that was surrounding the elections of Obama being that he is the first African American to ever be president. Also being questioned if he has the capabilities to…
Growing up in America, , as a black male in Philadelphia, Pa, throughout my life I have seen many of my ethnic group arrested and convicted for various crimes and offences. This has had a profound effect on my perspective of the Pennsylvania Judicial system, including police, courts and prison. Being in an environment that glorified violence, I saw young men fall victim to the delusion that we could avoid the consequences of crime. But I have also seen the unfairness of the system and the bad results of incarceration for individual and families. Since attending Community College of Philadelphia, I have taken two classes that have given me a better insight into this subject. Academic work for History 101 and English 102 have shown me the nation we live in has been built off the exploitation of lower class citizens, who as a result live in environments cut off from mainstream society. These citizens often experience discrimination as well.…
5. How would you characterize the experience of African Americans in the criminal Justice system? The way that I would characterize the experience of African Americans in the criminal justice system is by being very harsh and unfair. The reason why I say this is because they are many ways that they are treated unfairly just because they are African Americans.…
Due to the discrimination by law-enforcement, black men are significantly more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts, leading to many problems later on in life. A recent study…
In the United States most people do not see racism in the criminal justice system as a major issue. That’s because the majority of citizens in this country aren’t involved with our criminal justice system, which is a good thing. There are also a lot of people that are involved with our criminal justice system for good and bad reasons. Throughout the history of this country racism has always been a major issue, and still is today on some terms, but if you were to get law enforcement involved, I believe there would be many different opinions. When it comes to racism and any issue people in this country could go on forever with their opinions about who is right and who is wrong. The big question being asked…
This has to be the most disgusting image I have seen about individuals protesting. I do not condone destruction as a part of protesting but the specific selection of this image dose. This image highlights the criminalization of African Americans in America by connecting them to actually destroying America. I feel like the underlying message in this image dose more harm to America though its message of hate and stereotyping of African Americans with crime. This criminalization is a reason for why there is so much hate and why we have the larges prison population in the world. Who ever made this photograph should be…
in 1989 found tat more than one-fourth of all Blacks between the age of 20 and…
Today’s incarcerated youth is made up by two-fifths African-American and one fifth Hispanic. Today’s minority youth are facing stricter punishment than their white counterparts, resulting in a larger number of minority youth jailed. The article, “Preliminary Report on Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System” (Anonymous, 2012), states that “African-Americans are over represented in the prison population because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes”. This seems to be an unfair judgment due to the fact that minorities are more than two times more likely to be searched or stopped for any kind of criminal activity based on the color of their skin. For example, “among felony drug offenders, black defendants were 62% more likely to be sentenced to prison than similarly situated white defendants.” (Anonymous, 2012) Also once convicted, African-Americans were 21% more likely to receive harsher punishment compared to white offenders with a sentence that is 10% longer than white offenders that committed similar offences. Racism in our judicial system are present at different stages of our criminal justice system including but not limited to arrest, charging, conviction, and imprisonment. According to recent research, done by the Department of Education, minority students made up more than 70% of arrested youth in the 2009-2010 school year. Young African-Americans have a higher rate of youth incarceration and are more likely to be imprisoned as adults than white…
Our country is in the process of getting tared apart. Our justice system is discriminating against our african-american citizens and this needs to stop! We have to stop the shootings of african-americans that has occured all over our country so that we once again can be proud to call ourselfs Americans.…
The criminal justice system in America is what helps to keep the population safe from harm, but it seems to be driven by racial biases. With over 2.2 billion people behind bars, mass incarceration is an issues facing the correctional system in America (Smith, 2015). These individuals have been sentenced to non-violent drug crimes and are mostly people of color. It is estimated that the likelihood of a black felon being sentenced to prison is 26 percent higher than that white individual found guilty of a felony (Sutton, 2013). Sentencing disparities in America are a fundamental issue in the criminal justice system. It is a real problem that affects the black population. Racial threat theory and social disorganization theory can be used to help…
The incarceration rate for African Americans in the United States are extremely high. African Americans make up the majority of prisoners in the United States. According to American Journal of Sociology, “ In 2009, African Americans were nearly six times more likely to be in prisoned than whites.” Admittedly, we as 21st century Americans are starting to be reacquainted with the injustice of the law as a whole because it seems as if almost every news story is centered around an African American being wrongly accused and arrested. “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime” ( Sophia Kerby, Center for American Progress).…
The U.S. prison population over the past twenty-five years has been broadly discussed. Many studies over the years consider the changes in the social inequality in imprisonment. I chose this inequality because of the major increase in crime and using prison as a form of punishment in society. It is important to study the inequality in incarceration and mass imprisonment because of the many reoccurring incidents in today's news and the growth in the number of prisons being made. The author Melanie Reid says “locking them up and throwing away the key isn’t a humane or workable solution for society” in which I agree with. By estimating lifetime risks of imprisonment for black and white men at different levels of education we can see the many disadvantages…
Is the justice system really racist? I do don't think so and here's why. In the 1950’s,60’s,and 70’s the criminal justice system was a little racist. But now a days from the mid 80’s to present i don't think the justice system is racist. If a white and black man commits the same crime. Let's say murder,both men are going to prison, but however the crimes could have been committed differently. The white man killed someone, then admitted to it the next day. The black man killed someone and runs from law enforcement for three months after the crime was committed. In court the white man would then get 25 years with a chance for parole. While the black man would get life without parole. And this would be vice versa if the white man committed the crime like the black man did same thing would happen to him. It also depends on how he acts in court if he’s respect and tell the full truth to…
As long as minorities have lived in America, they have faced different forms of institutional or structural racism. Now, that same structural racism takes form in the American prison system. The justice system in America is one that locks the poor and minorities up with abandon, while it lacks to help them upon their release back into society. A large percentage of US prisoners are put into jail for nonviolent drug crimes, which targets largely Black and Latino males. These men and women who are committed of nonviolent drug crimes come mostly from urban areas, where drug crimes are committed out of desperation and strong economic need (Kurtzleben). Furthermore, the laws that are put into place seem to protect one race of people, while it hinders another. An example of this disparity is the crack/cocaine law. “Although approximately two thirds of crack cocaine users are white or Hispanic, a large percentage of people convicted of possession of crack cocaine in federal courts in 2004 were black” (Kurtzleben). Possession of crack can carry the same sentence as the possession of a quantity of cocaine that is 100 times larger (Kurtzleben). Although crack and cocaine is virtually the same drug, cocaine is a purer, more expensive form of the drug, making it one that attracts upper class Caucasians, while crack is more prevalent in low class minority communities. With the combination of severe and unbalanced drug possession laws, along with the rates of conviction in terms of race, the judicial system has created a huge racial disparity. Another example of the unjust racial disparities in the American Justice System is the Stop and Frisk law that was recently put into place in New York. “Last year, New York City police stopped nearly 700,000 people, 84 percent of them black or Latino. (Only 12 percent of those encounters resulted in arrests)”…