Poor and Minorities in the Criminal Justice System - Essay Example

190). Observations and importance: For a considerably long time, in the US two different types of criminal justice systems are active. One is for the white and rich people and the other one is for the poor minority people. These were the findings of judges, attorneys, and law professors. They have found that there are inequalities, disparities, and injustices in the treatment of crimes according to races and social, political, and financial power. Different government criminal agencies, courts, and police are highly biased in respect to justice.

Sometimes courts take only few minutes to finish the hearing of the case for the minority people, without even considering all the possible aspects and witnesses’ statements. Sometimes the hearing of a poor black person is attended by a white jury, who is naturally supposed to be highly biased against the black community (Cole, 1999, p. 190). All these affect negatively the large number of poor and minority people living in the country. But the most striking feature of the problem is that the law of the US does not allow court and police to be biased against any race and community.

This has been rather a social tradition that has been going on and on for a long time. The problem is immensely serious in the sense that these decisions of invoking bias in the criminal justice systems are creating anger and passion for revenge and feelings of social discrimination among the poor and minor people living there. This is also violating the social peace in the country. Evidence shows that a black judge has announced punishment for a white without even completing the hearing, just because the judge has in mind the history of justice system regarding the bias for whites (Banks, 2004, p. 60). It is also shown that for the same crime a black gets more punishment compared to a white.

Sometimes the racial discriminations become larger than the financial discriminations. There are also some evidences that reveal that discriminations are available in questions like who will be arrested and who will enter into the system, but not in the judgment of terms of sentencing. There are lots of informal sources of discriminations like police and local courts. In the presence of these informal sources it is evident that the African Americans are the most discriminated ethnic society living in the US.

The dangerousness or the seriousness of the crime gets more importance for the blacks than for the whites (Bank, 2004, pp. 60-61). Discriminations are also shown in case of the jury selection (Bank, 2004, p. 62) and giving death penalty (Bank, 2004, p. 67). The massacre of 9/11 has created new disparities for the Muslims around the world, especially for the Asian Muslims. Even American people think that there are discriminations against poor and minorities (Greenhouse, 1999). Reasons: There are various reasons for discriminations in criminal justice systems in the US.

Most of the reasons are completely social and conventional and have least or no resemblance with the law or the rules and regulations of the system. For instance, the police may arrest a person completely based on the kind of respect the person shows to the police. A lower respect for the police increases the probability of getting