Racial disparity in the American criminal justice system

Racial Equality

Race is used in this country to exploit and use people's emotions to eventually control their actions. Race is something that we are born with and is assigned to us in a completely mysterious way. Somehow this quirk in life has been used to divide and conquer huge masses of people. Although slavery and racial tensions are not unique to America, it appears that these issues still reverberates throughout the discussions in this country.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how cultural diversity, and race specifically, plays a role of institutional control. This essay will examine the racial disparity between blacks, whites, and Latinos in terms of justice, law and lawmaking. This essay will give some background information on the subject before exposing some new approaches to this problem while trying to comprehend its true purpose.

Background Information

Fewer than half of 1% of Americans are in state and federal prisons. That sounds like a small number. But when the U.S. prison population is examined by race, we find that the effects of the criminal justice system in the United States are unequally distributed in society. While whites make up 64% of the U.S. population, they make up 31% of the incarcerated population. In contrast, Blacks represent 14% of society but 36% of prisoners. Similarly, Hispanics represent 16% of the U.S. population, but 24% of the prison population (The Sentencing Project, 2013).

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. African-Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.

While it is simple to merely call this "racist" behavior, there is something much more revealing when considering the circumstances of this development. Some may attribute this to the war on drugs. More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.

Racial disparity in the criminal justice system exists when the proportion of a racial or ethnic group within the control of the system is greater than the proportion of such groups in the general population. The causes of such disparity are varied and can include differing levels of criminal activity, law enforcement emphasis on particular communities, legislative policies, and/or decision making by criminal justice practitioners who exercise broad discretion in the justice process at one or more stages in the system.

Kerby (2012) agreed when she wrote "today people of color continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. Further, racial disparities in the criminal-justice system threaten communities of color -- disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more. In light of these disparities, it is imperative that criminal-justice reform evolves as the civil rights issue of the 21st century."

Maurer (2010) profoundly suggested that justice cannot be attained in this manner. He wrote " despite changes in leadership and growing attention to issues of racial and ethnic disparity in recent years, these disparities in criminal justice decision making still persist at every level of the criminal justice system. This does not necessarily suggest that these outcomes represent conscious efforts to discriminate, but they nonetheless contribute to excessive rates of imprisonment for some groups." Racial disparity challenges the basic values upon which the criminal justice system rests. To the extent that such disparity is a result of racism (that is, discrimination based on race), it represents an outright rejection of the principle of equal justice.

A commitment to values of justice, fairness and public safety compels professionals to vigorously address disparate treatment when and where it exists. A sense that the criminal justice system is fair is essential to the functioning of a democratic society.

Inequality Does not Seem to Be The Problem

Diversity is often overlooked as a benefit. It appears the need to quickly label and document ideas with no real purpose has left a society full of confused people who are being told to always join the crowd and do as your masters say. In reality, inequality is the basis of nature and natural processes. When we are hungry we eat, when we are out of breath we breath in and fill our lungs. Eating and breathing are pleasurable and necessary activities to maintain natural life and are both based on inequality of resources. Instead, we are force feeding our beliefs to a body that does not need them or in reality want them.

The only way to truly eliminate racism is to look at both sides of race. How can we escape this mess if we are constantly throwing new piles of trash on top of old ones? If we amend the Constitution for every way in which folks are different (i.e., unequal), the document is going to get cluttered, if it has not already reached this point. Race needs to be embraced and celebrated. One must consider what is the purpose of having many races on earth. To me, each race, when looked at from a macrocosmic perspective has both gifts and troubles to offer the rest of society. To me it is quite hypocritical to celebrate Black History Month and then ignore the negative aspects of the black race. Each race has its own pluses and negatives as new ones are created every day. Race is an expanding and fluid measurement and new forms and combinations are rapidly increasing each day. Instead of singling people out for their race we should simply treat it as hair or eye color.