The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty - Case Study Example

I. Introduction Throughout the 20th century, a changing America came to grips with the fact that racism had been built into the structure on which the country was built. Governments across the United States took steps to mitigate the effects of this structured inequality, enacting legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and affirmative action. Thinking these policies would reverse the sentiments of the past, we ignored the fact that underlying problems still existed. In the present day, the structured inequality many of these measures attempted to mend persists, if only in statistics and surveys of the prevalence of crime and poverty among once disenfranchised racial segments of our society. In the legal system in particular, there is a great deal of racial inequality afflicting a great number of people trapped in prisons. The question is frequently raised whether this racial inequality is a matter of racism, or simply a matter of economics, and whether fixing racism or fixing economic conditions for these groups is the better option (Shulman, 1984). There is a definite structure in “structured inequality” when it comes to the legal system: a structure that reflects the structure of the system itself. The legal system of the United States is centered on the roles of judges, lawyers, lawmakers, criminals, and the members of juries. Each of these players in the legal system have a certain role to play, and in some cases, contribute to the structured inequality we see reflected in the statistics of how prevalent incarceration is within African-American populations. However, the question of a single, linear cause is a mistaken one. The cause of this inequality cannot be isolated and accounted for. A more responsible model of cause in this situation is reciprocal causality: a condition in which cause and effect mutually contribute to the problem. For instance, if racist targeting by police starts a young man in the prison system, it is economics and his need to turn to crime to stay alive that keeps him in the system. There are, of course, many more causal factors than simply racism and economics that make up structured inequality, but these are the largest categories for analysis. The reinforcement of causal factors by other causal factors creates a situation in which members of particular racial groups lack the resources to escape a cycle of crime and poverty. African-Americans, in particular, statistically suffer the most from this vicious cycle. To identify the specific problems, however, one needs to look in detail at how the legal system is structured in order to pinpoint the factors involved to make the system unequal in how it enforces the law. II. Statistics related to structured inequality in the legal system Judgeship is clearly an important aspect of the legal system. Judges hear cases and hand down decisions based on testimony. As a single focus point for justice, a biased judge puts the entire legal system at risk of being biased, and beginning a vicious cycle of repeat criminal offenses. With judges, there seems to be two types of inequality: inequality in the administration of justice (how the judges rule) and inequality in the representation of justice (the number of judges of a certain racial group). In a study performed by Abrams et al. on the legal system of Cook County, Illinois, researchers found statistically significant “between-judge” variation in incarceration rates, which suggests judges differ in how they incarcerate African-American and White defendants. Judicial biases in judges represent inequality in the administration of justice, but not inequality in the representation. According to the 2000 census, approximately 83% of judges, magistrates, and other judicial workers were White, while only about 9% were African-American (Commission of Racial & Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, 2000). Perhaps equally as important to the American legal system are members of juries, and whether they too are shaped in their opinions by race. According to Citizen Action of New York, of 14,000 potential jurors surveyed, African-Americans were “substantially underrepresented, measured by their proportionate share of the population of Manhattan” (NYSTLA, 2005). A diverse and representative jury is one of the most important aspects of a jury-based legal system like that which exists in the United States, and helps limit biases in the verdict. III. Initial involvement with crime: the causes and effects When dealing with the criminal system, there is always a cause and an effect. The cause is a criminal action—where a criminal action is a behavior determined by lawmakers—and the effect is a punishment for that action, determined by judges or juries. Ideally, when there is a cause, the effect is proportionate to the cause, such as when a baseball player hits a baseball. The baseball travels a distance in proportion to the force with which the player hit it. However, statistics relating to racial representation in the American legal system fail to depict a proportionate effect to a cause. To take an example, over 70% of 2.1 million people imprisoned in this country are African-American. Putting this number into context, African-Americans comprise only 12.7% of the total American population. With White people imprisoned at a rate of 376 per every 100,000 in the general population, compared to over 2,526 per every 100,000 African-Americans, the statistics cannot simply be reflecting the fair enforcement of laws. In 1998, researchers concluded that 72% of drug users are White and 15% are African-American, which diverges sharply from the fact that African-Americans are arrested at higher rates than White people are (Defending Justice, 2005). Identifying the cause of overrepresentation by racial segments in the legal system is contingent upon finding weaknesses in this system, or places where racial biases can adversely affect honest law enforcement. As stated previously, judges and juries alike have a lack of full representation by minorities. Police officers, although not lacking in statistical significance with respect to minority representation, do subject minorities to higher levels of arrest, harsh treatment, and targeting. For example, a 2003 study concluded police are more likely to stop and conduct a search on the vehicles of Black male drivers (15.9%) compared to White male drivers (7.9%). Racial profiling accounts for a large amount of this problem (Defending Justice, 2005). This focus on minority groups in law enforcement helps contribute to the lack of proportion in the rates of arrest based on racial segments. The disparity between arrests of White people and African-Americans, and their treatment in court, gives some insight into the structured inequality that exists in the legal system. One of the most significant factors involved with the increasing incarceration and punishment of African-Americans has been the rise of harsher drug laws. The so-called “War on Drugs”, along with mandatory minimum policies, on non-violent drug-related offenses has facilitated unequal treatment and punishment of racial segments. One policy in particular, the arbitrary legal distinction between crack and cocaine, targets African-Americans. Although crack and cocaine are practically the same drug, with no more significant risks involved with use, a fixed minimum five-year sentence for simple possession is mandated for a person holding 10 grams of crack whereas for simple cocaine powder it is 1,000 grams (or 1 kilogram). While the two drugs are indistinguishable, crack is typically regarded as a drug used primarily by African-Americans, and cocaine powder is more expensive. A study found that even though roughly two-thirds of crack cocaine users are not African-American, a vast majority (85%) of those convicted on charges of possessing crack are African-American. The War on Drugs, despite lacking any meaningful measure of effectiveness, has had a disproportionately strong effect on African-Americans, and has done nothing but harm these communities politically, socially, and economically. Although Blacks and Whites use and sell drugs at approximately the same rate, African-Americans are 35% of those who are arrested for drug possession, 55% of those who are convicted, and ultimately 74% of those who are imprisoned on these charges (ACLU, 2006). Not only have these policies adversely affected individuals with incarceration and the disadvantages that come along with that, but they have also made African-Americans scapegoats for the drug problems within the United States. This has had the effect of skewing attention away from objective drug enforcement, and toward one based on race and profiling. Much of the structured inequality we see today in the legal system, in addition to the economic circumstances of young African-Americans, is based on racially motivated drug policies that serve to fuel the notion that the “drug problem” is an exclusively Black one. IV. Capital punishment: case study in African-American overrepresentation The institution of capital punishment, which statistically affects African-Americans in far greater numbers, also exemplifies structured inequality. On the national average, there is a 3-to-1 ratio of Blacks on death row to Blacks in the state population, with that ratio going as high as 5-to-1 in California’s prisons. In California, approximately 24% of people arrested for homicide are Black, but make up nearly 36% of the current death row population. In contrast, 46% of those Latinos arrested of homicide make up only 20% of death row inmates. These disparities, and the numbers behind them, extend from inequality in the judicial process. The variables associated with these criminal prosecutions extend primarily from the rates of murders of Whites by minorities. In death sentences handed down to defendants belonging to all ethnic groups, about 60% have involved at least one White victim, whereas only about 22% of homicide victims are White. In Sacramento Country, California, four out of five death sentences handed down to African-Americans involved at least one White victim. This kind of ethno-centric use of the death penalty demonstrates some kind of bias on the part of the legal system, not only of Sacramento County or California, but also of the United States in general. The death penalty has always been accused of being discriminatory against Blacks who are far more likely to be sentenced with capital punishment. Because the decision on when and where to use the death penalty in murder trials is subjective in nature, without a real objective basis in law, factors such as geography and politics often come into play. However, as Justice Harry Blackmun put it in a 1994 decision in Callins v. Collins, “Even under the most sophisticated death penalty statutes, race continues to play a major role in determining who shall live and who shall die” (Blackmun, 1994). The racial bias we see represented in the American legal system plays a crucial role in deciding who lives or dies in murder cases. Prosecutors, jurors, and judges who can all rely on biases to reach a judgment, which goes against the interests of society and obviously the defendant, can make such decisions. Equal justice under the law, which is a guaranteed right to all citizens, is not reflected in a system that has no inherent system, besides personal sentiments, for deciding the fate of convicted murderers. V. Prescriptions and Conclusions While it is difficult to understand what exactly the causes of these racial divides are, the effects are quite clear. The effects of overrepresentation of racial segments in prison populations present special social, economic, and political consequences. One such disadvantage is disenfranchisement due to felony conviction. In seven U.S. states, one in four African-American men is permanently disenfranchised and therefore will not be allowed to vote for their public officials. In two states, Alabama and Florida, nearly one out of three African-American males are disenfranchised (Kline & Fellner, 1998). In addition to its political effects, felony convictions make life outside of crime and prison difficult because of an increasingly competitive job market. According to one study, one property crime arrest leads to an average of 7% decline in income (Defending Justice, 2005). If African-Americans are targeted particularly often by law enforcement, the economic effects will disproportionately affect that racial segment: compounding the economic conditions already affecting members of these communities. As a result, these convicted felons have no choice but resort to crime, unable to get legitimate work that pays enough. The vicious cycle is started, fueled by the punishments of the legal system. The overrepresentation of minorities in prisons and the underrepresentation of Blacks in the criminal justice system should inform the critical-minded that there is an underlying, structural problem involved in our modern-day system. Divides still exist which facilitate institutional racism that disproportionately disadvantages African-Americans. Racism and prejudice is allowed to exist at various levels of the law enforcement process: lawmaking, police work, judges in criminal cases, lawyers and prosecutors, all of which have been addressed here. The variables involved in what causes the disadvantage for these communities are varied and complex. However, many feel the effects of these biases and practices every day. African-Americas in particular are hardest hit, as they form a disproportionate percentage of prison populations and convictions for drug charges. Measures to completely reduce structured inequality are likely to fail, due to their deeply rooted presence in the legal system itself. However, measures to limit minorities’ exposure to racist prosecution and targeting must start from the most basic level and work their way up from there. African-American involvement in crime is truly an example of reinforcing causality, where race plays an important factor, in addition to economics and social factors. However, it is not simply that race causes these adverse effects, for these adverse effects also cause racial profiling and discrimination. Measures to work against these variables must address them as parts of a whole, and not as individual parts. Bibliography Abrams, D. S., Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (n.d.). Do Judges Vary in Their Treatment of Race? Retrieved 2009, from University of Chicago: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/papers/115_Mullainathan_Judges_and_Race.pdf ACLU. (2006). 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