You Characterize The Experience Of African Americans In The Criminal Justice System

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. There are statistics that show that a large amount of incarcerated are African Americans. “According to data collected every year from the FBI’s Crime Report shows that blacks account for 28 percent of arrest, even though they are only 12 percent of the nation’s population.” (Schaefer, Robert “African Americans Today” Racial and Ethnic Groups Ed 14 2014 pg. 198) This gives you a bit of an insight as to them being characterized unfairly due to them
having a low economic status so they are targeted to convicting more crimes and being sentenced from years to life in prison for a certain crime. An example to this is the Netflix documentary film 13th where they show a large amount of real life examples and situations that lead to how blacks are treated very harsh in the criminal justice system.
They show how they are treated in jail by other inmates and the guards. Another thing that is shown is how since they do not have the money for a good lawyer their case wouldn’t be prioritized and may be sitting behind bars for something they didn’t do for years before they even go through trial. Others often just plead guilty just because they rather just get sentenced to a certain amount of years than waiting to go on trial which may take them forever or even longer than their sentence. This is so wrong because some blacks have been accused of things that they didn’t do and just because they are black they often seem to misjudge them just because of their background. Another reason why I would characterize the experience of African Americans in the criminal justice system as harsh and unfair is because since most of the concerns goes towards the African Americans their trial is treated very harsh since they are the ones that usually convict crimes. Where the system uses “victim discounting, or the tendency to view crime as less socially significant if the victim is
viewed less worthy” (Schaefer, Robert “African Americans Today” Racial and Ethnic Groups Ed 14 2014 pg. 199) This is something that I find to be very unfair because they do not announce when a black youngster was shot in his hood just because he isn’t as worthy as a middle class white young men whom goes and kills a whole bunch of white kids and teachers in school in a suborn area. Such as the example of the columbine where it was a huge alert for the whole nation and news. This is something that shows the great deal that worthiness is a big part of the criminal justice system. Also, that when it comes to blacks they are less likely to get away with things rather than a white youngster whom would often get agreements of mental health help or easier sentencing than if it was a black committing the crime. This is how I view and characterize the experience of African Americans in the criminal justice system.

6. What is meant by “medical apartheid”? what is meant by medical apartheid is “to refer to the separate and unequal healthcare system in the united states that often has and continues to characterize healthcare for African Americans as well as Latinos. “Schaefer, Robert “African Americans Today” Racial and Ethnic Groups Ed 14 2014 pg. 201). This all refers to the unfairness of how African Americans are treated in the healthcare system. They are often underestimated so they are left unattended by medical professionals. Also as research has been done they have found studies that would use African Americans as experiments in their production of progression of a certain type of medicine to treat syphilis. This was one of the studies that was uncovered to be found that used African Americans as experiments to show the effectiveness of a treatment. This very unequal because they would automatically assume that they are less worthy so they can be used without them even knowing they are being tested. So, there were other studies where African Americans were being used as experiments but they were not aware of the situations. Also, medical apartheid is when they would right away target and say that African Americans suffered from high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, etc. from the stress they have from racism and inequality of their groups. Also, when studies and research are being done they would automatically assume that because you have a low income and are African American you would be at risk for these diseases and illnesses because of your environment and daily intake of non- healthy choice of foods because you aren’t able to afford healthy food. This is something that defines medical apartheid because it separates how unequal is the system and how a white would be attended faster than a black when in an emergency. I find this to be very sad because since African Americans and other subordinate groups aren’t aware of certain sickness or treatments they are not provided with information to help them be aware. Since not a large population of American Americans or Latinos are in the medical society they are left unknown to the findings that they m