...Inserts His/her Name Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Customer Inserts Grade Course (06, 07, 2012) Racism in criminal justice system Introduction Justice is a term that we hear a lot in our everyday life and also accept it although many of us might have a doubt as to what it truly means. Justice is the phenomenon through which we could achieve righteousness and equality. But unfortunately racism has been a common practice in the criminal justice system. Racism is actually discrimination against a group or individual based on color, social and financial status. It is something that occurs more than we notice. Many scholars believe that racism play a more important role in targeting and sentencing process in the criminal justice system and this is something which should not happen in any country no matter what. In order to understand the role that racism plays in the criminal justice system we must, first, look at the role that it plays before the criminal reaches the day of sentencing in the court. There are various publications that speak on profiling and actuarial methods which unwillingly get people into the system. Though these are two major components of the discriminatory acts that exist within the criminal justice system, it does not actually begin with these institutionalized methods. It is the laws and crime control policies that create discrimination in the system. It has been witnessed that in some instances these laws and policies are set in favor of the white...
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...Are African American Males Victims of the Criminal Justice System? Institution Tutor Name Date Table of Contents Chapter One 3 Chapter One Introduction The United States of America is credited to have the largest criminal justice framework globally, as at 2011, seven million people were under various programs within correctional facilities and programs. Among these people, 2.2 million were incarcerated in federal, state as well as local correctional facilities. Such incarceration rates dwarf the rates of all other countries globally. However, its magnitude is not void of challenges. The criminal Justice System is ailing form a vast array of challenges. Of importance to us with regard to this context is racial disproportionality within the criminal Justice system. By definition, racism is the perception that inherent differences between various racial groups consequently lead to the superiority of certain races and discrimination of other groups. This is the perception that great men such as Booker. T. Washington, as well as Martin Luther King, fought against during the 1960’s in a bid to end racism. For years these men under the African- American Civil Rights movement advocated for equality for all leading to the ‘end’ of racist perceptions. Today, the belief that their efforts halted racism stands to be questioned, on further examination of this subject it is eminent that racism is still existent in the twenty- first century. Racism has simply found ways...
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...RACISM IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM By Nichole Griffith Advised by Professor Chris Bickel SOC 461, 462 Senior Project Social Sciences Department College of Liberal Arts CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY June, 2012 © 2012 Nichole Griffith Table of Contents Research Proposal ............................................................................................................................1 Annotated Bibliography ...................................................................................................................2 Outline..............................................................................................................................................6 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................7 Research ..........................................................................................................................................8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................29 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................31 Research Proposal The goal of my research is to expose the racism in the criminal justice system that is so hidden. I want to show how racism contributes to the huge number...
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...Felicia Mitchell English Online Dr. Logan December 12, 2013 Criminal Justice System is it "Justice" or "Just Us" Section I: Introduction I have always been intrigued with the criminal justice system every since I started working as a Correctional Officer for Solano State Prison. I also worked in the Inmate Appeals Division where inmates had the right to appeal a write up written upon them by any staff. It is not my intention to raise any more controversy on the subject but to open the eyes of people to see their is still discrimination against those of color than whites still in the 20th century. While working in this division, I noticed a lot of discrimination within this system such as the African Americans and Hispanics would receive a denial on their appeal and their property would be taken away from them whereas, if a Caucasian inmate appealed the same situation they would receive a granted appeal and get their property back. Working as an Officer, their were a lot of mistreatment in the prison system; such as if their were fights among the Blacks and Hispanics or Whites and Blacks or Whites and Hispanics, the minorities would always receive the harsher treatment by being locked down for months whereas the white inmates would just be locked down for a few days. At a presidential primary debate Senator Barack Obama charged that blacks and whites “are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, and receive very different sentences...
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...Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice Brent Weaver Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice, CJA/423 Torria Richardson 5-30-11 Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice Society has shown racial diversity among communities. Racial disparity can be found in the criminal justice system. A system designed to be fair and equal to individuals is not existent. Racial diversity can be found at the time of arrest to the time of sentencing. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the diversity in sentencing. Case studies will be discussed throughout this paper. Leaders of criminal justice are not exempt of racial diversity. Racial diversity has changed over the years, but racial diversity remains strong in sentencing minorities. Diversity is not biased of offenses. Racial diversity can be seen in the smallest of charges, such as a traffic stop to the most serious sentence of the death penalty. Most of the sentences are because profiling an individual of minority. African Americans are likely to be the targeted racial group. Hispanic individuals are likely to be another racial group profiled for harsher sentencing. Racial disparity in the criminal justice system should always be considered a violation of ideas of the forefather’s of this nation as equal treatment under the laws of the United States Constitution. Many reasons for racial disparity can be identified in the sentencing process. The sentencing process is a difficult process, and adding racial bias may create a...
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...Today, African Americans and other minorities are over-represented in the criminal justice system, but under-represented politically in the United States of America. Since well before its inception in 1776, the United States of America has been a nation characterized by white supremacy. In fact, modern day America may not exist if not for the taking of land from the Indigenous Peoples on this very premise. Today, many Americans believe they reside in a post-racial nation, citing the abolition of slavery in the 1860s. While racism has certainly been reduced in modern America, it is still ever-present in society, and more alarmingly, the criminal justice system. Today, the American criminal justice system is used as a front for state racism,...
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...United State African Americans and Latin Americans have a highest rate of crime but, that does not mean if they were all treated equally by the law. Racism is still very much a major part of our society. Growing up in NY I always knew that there were racist people, but I never knew how the racism actually affected our society and how strongly it influences such things as government funding for education and housing developments. Racism and prejudice always seemed secondary to me. I always knew that this country had issues with racism, but I never imagined that it affected serious issues so heavily. Minorities in this country are put at a greater disadvantage than whites. Many minorities, especially those that do not speak English as their primary language, have to deal with inadequate housing, underfunded school districts and the everyday struggle of discrimination for their differences and beliefs. Most people believe that black and Hispanic people simply commit more crime; the situation is actually more complex. Research suggests crime exists across all societies; it is the type of crimes committed that varies. Those who are victimized by crime are the lower economic levels of society. I think it’s a lack of knowledge and we only focus on these two groups. White collar crimes that are committed primarily by the middle-class and whites are underreported and often not counted in official crime statistics. In our criminal justice system blacks are treated...
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...2015 The criminal justice system has caused a lot of heartache and pain due to its unfair, racist, biased opinion. Resulting in killings, shootings, and protests. There are a variety of races that make the headline stories of these events, but there is a specific race that repeatedly makes headlines of newspapers. The shootings and killing of African-Americans teenage boys have been the trending topic lately. It is hard to distinguish why these events happen. Certainly, there is no one, or race, to blame for this happening, however, understanding the root cause may help. The high incarceration rates of minorities is an examples and the killings proves how the criminal justice system is extremely flawed to this day and has always been built off of the privilege whites inherited and that blacks do not have. It has been proven time and time again that black and whites are not equal within the criminal justice system. History even says that the early conception of the criminal justice system and punishments were formed under conditions of colonialism and slavery. An example is white police offers repeatedly killing African American Males and being found not guilty; from Emmitt Till to the Ferguson case. Which is history repeating itself, the more things change, and the more they remain the same. In each generation, new tactics have been used for achieving the same goals—goals shared by the Founding Fathers (Alexander). Which is also known as institutional racism, which is systematic...
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...Racism has been a widespread epidemic in our U.S. Criminal Justice system. It is evident that racism exists in the court systems and behind prison walls. However, in the Criminal Justice system, it is covered up by rules, regulations, and the law. The writings of James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk”, (1974) exposes how the views of racist individuals can put another person in the custody of the court. Further, causing this person to be placed in the prison system as the outcome of racialism. Fonny, a black male, is falsely accused of committing a crime and he is at the mercy of the justice system. He is an example of how this racist cycle can have long- lasting effects on a human being. The struggles of a black man trying to deal with...
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...03-Banks.qxd 1/30/04 4:52 PM Page 57 3 Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System ETHICAL BACKGROUND It is generally agreed that discrimination based on ethnic origin is morally wrong and a violation of the principle of equality. The equality principle requires that those who are equal be treated equally based on similarities, and that race is not a relevant consideration in that assessment (May and Sharratt 1994: 317). In other words, it is only possible to justify treating people differently if there exists some factual difference between them that justifies such difference in treatment (Rachels 1999: 94). Equality is a nonspecific term that means nothing until applied to a particular context. Thus, in a political context, equality means equal access to public office and equal treatment under the law, and equal treatment extends to equality in terms of job hiring, promotion, and pay. Race refers to groups of persons who are relatively alike in their biological inheritance and are distinct from other groups (American Anthropological Association 1997: 2). Ethnicity is a cultural phenomenon referring to a person’s identification with a particular cultural group (Hinman 1998: 403). Race is socially constructed, and the notion that persons “belong” to a particular race was developed in the last century based on the belief that there was a biological basis for categorizing groups of people. Biologically, however, the term race has no meaning, yet society...
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...United States Justice System in the 1960s “The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to 400 years of the conscious racism of the American Whites.”- (Malcolm X). This quote describes the African- Americans in the 1960s. African-Americans were treated unfairly for centuries due to the Jim Crow laws and slavery. As a result, the African Americans had, enough of the way they were treated and fought back, by using physical and silent protests. The main reason behind the racism thrown at the African Americans was because of the people in the South, who had their property, “African-Americans,” taken away from their plantations and household; thus, the people in the South have been outrageous...
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...Unfair Incarceration: Minorities’ Plight in the U.S. Judicial System DeVry University Cultural Diversity in the Professions SOCS 350N Spring 2013 Abstract The United States is well known as the Land of Opportunity, but if you’re a minority that opportunity maybe a greater chance of being incarcerated in the state and federal penal systems. Civil rights battles have raged for the greater part of the last century in this country. With milestone victories in the early and mid 1960’s equality under the law seemed to be a foregone conclusion. There are numerous laws, policies and even a Constitutional Amendment that address the matter that race should never be a factor. With this is all in play and in mind, you would think that statistics of the U.S. penal systems racial analysis has to be completed with a huge margin in error because it is not near equality. In a cursory search of this topic one can find a deluge of graphs, tables, and statistical analysis. The one thing you cannot find is a quantitative or qualitative consensus of why this has occurred or why it is still occurring. A preponderance of the evidence is anecdotal and offers suggestions of policies and attitudes that have led to this epidemic in contemporary American society. In this review, an endeavor to gather the gist of the issue and attempt to answer why or how this came about and the numerical extent. Followed by the consequences to the affected groups and the whole of society. Finally...
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...and Recidivism Racism in this country directly impacts incarceration and recidivism; specifically for African American males. This is an age old issue in our country that continues to propagate itself. Our society strips away the rights of felons and they become life-long criminals. The implications of incarceration, recidivism and race directly creates quality of life issues for a large percentage of people in the country. There are several sociological concepts that apply to this theory. Poverty leads to higher crime rates. People with lower social classes are more likely to be targeted by the police. The Drug Policy Alliance (n.d) explains in the article “Race and the Drug War” that law enforcement has a “focus on urban areas, on lower-income communities and on communities of color” (para. 1). This type of targeting creates a negative view and disrespect for authority; as a result, it is more likely for crime to be committed. Macionis (2010) states that “race is closely related to social standing, which as already explained, affects the likelihood of engaging in street crimes. Many poor people living in the midst of wealth come to perceive society as unjust and are therefore more likely to turn to crime to get their share.” (p. 232). Higher crime rates in lower income neighborhoods leads to the next sociological concept which is the arrest rate for African Americans in the United States. There is a higher arrest rate for African Americans in the United States...
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...meaning lack of similarity and or inequality. Even though, in the criminal justice sytsem these words have diffenet meanings. These two terms have been evaluated within the criminal justice system, the dicrimination and disparity of ethic and racial groups have been recognized for a long time by some. At sometime or other disparity maybe the result of discrimination within the justice system in some situations. Disparity refers to the inequality in all aspects within the criminal justice system, for certain groups of individuals it conists og arrest to sentencing; this nearly will always refer back to ethic and racial disparity. Racial disparity is present within the criminal justice system as the porportion of an ethic or racial group is within the control of the system are greater than the the porportion of such groups within the general population ( The Sentencing Project,2008). Even though, it may not always be a relation to intentional discrimination racial disparity has been definately established within our justice system. Discrimination is defined as a distinction based on personal characteristics of an individual resulting in some degree of disadvantage to the indiviudual ( Law Encyclopedia, 2011). In order for us to better understand the similarities and differences between these two terms researchers have recently created the discrimination/disparity continuum in regards to the criminal justice system processes. Five elements consist on this spectrum, ranging from...
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...Analysis of Racial Profiling In the Criminal Justice System Police officers today face many challenges. Some concerns include dangers or safety concerns related to being a police officer, questions of the use of force and the public’s perception of officers being corrupt. Additionally, with cases of deaths and accusations that have come to the forefront about police throughout the United Stated, questions about police racial profiling have also come to light. Today’s police are considered to be corrupt and prejudice against minorities. Their image has been tarnished and police are now seen as the enemy. Many compare today’s law enforcement officers to the police officers that were prejudice and brutalized blacks during the civil rights movement. If police are to change the public’s perception of them so they can get back to the business of protecting and serving, they must address issues of racial profiling, police brutality and the criminal just system must partner with the community to reduce crime rates and recidivism rates among minorities. First, racial profiling is defined as “any police action initiated on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin of a suspect; rather than on the behavior of the individual or on information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged in criminal activity (Ramirez, 2008, p.3). Originally, racial profiling was used to combat the issue of drugs and assist with...
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