Race's Role In The Criminal Justice System

Race seemingly plays a role in the criminal justice system. Statistics can express this disparity, and it seems like societies answer to this new-age segregation is by ignoring the issue. Several Laws have been passed that legalized racial segregation, all through the criminal justice system. These tactics have been utilized since the establishment of this country, putting laws into place that keep certain individuals under immense pressure and under control, in this case, African Americans. For example, looking at the establishment of the 13th amendment, we could really see the birth of the abuse of the criminal justice system, where police would jail African Americans for doing petty crimes such as loitering. When put into these camp, they
Smith, Sellin, and Alexander identify the role in which geography plays, and despite an equal crime rate in most areas, police focus on dense (mostly African American) urban centers. Alexander identifies the chances of an African American succeeding vs. them being subject to the criminal justice system and found that African American men are subject to a significant disadvantage when it comes to the criminal justice system, and geography and housing play a large role in this. Alexander argues that police are more active and focus more attention on urban centers were African American populations are high, “In many large urban areas in the United States, the majority of working-age African American men have criminal records. In fact, it was reported in 2002 that, in the Chicago area, if you take into account prisoners, the figure is nearly 80%.” Geography is utilized by the system to perpetuate this racism, as despite likely equal crime rates, the focus is entirely on the urban centers were African Americans
Laws and policies such as the War on Drugs and Mandatory Minimums assure that the Jim Crow era which we once experiences, is perpetuated today and continues on. We do not live in a progressive era where ‘all men are created equally,’ but a society in which values segregation that is simply masked by the system that is designed to “protect and serve.” Petit and Sykes identified several ‘loopholes’ that are used to ensure that people of color remain unvoiced and unheard. Pieces of legislation such as The Civil Rights Act, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and The Voting Rights Act were all put into place seemingly to maintain racial equality, but they found that these policies failed to mention exclusions. These bills required data to be collected each year to ensure that all were treated equally, all people of color had equal access to voting right and the right to voice their opinions, and all people of color had access to a public education. They failed to mention exclusions in these mandatory data collections, which allowed the federal government to essentially cherry pick the neighborhoods they pleased when collecting this data. Rather than collecting data from a disadvantaged neighborhood that is suffering, they will collect data that makes it look as if these bills are ensuring racial equality, when in reality they are not (Petit and