Racial Inequalities in the US Justice System - Research Paper Example

Racial Inequalities in the U.S. Justice System From arrest to sentencing, there is an alized racial bias in the United s criminal justice system, which goes far a true reflection of crime rates. The reasons for this bias include misconceived legislation, prior economic and social exclusion, and, in some cases, overt racism. This bias continues to have a damaging impact on minority communities, in political, economic and social terms. As a 2008 report by the Sentencing Project makes clear, ‘Racial disparity challenges the basic values upon which the criminal justice system rests’ (p.2). Incarceration The current rate of total incarceration in the United States is by a significant degree the highest of any economically-developed Western nation state – around 1% of the adult population is in detention. The prison population of around 2.3 million individuals exceeds the population of some 15 American States, and prompts an Economist lead article to state, justifiably, that ‘No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free’. While the rate at which America incarcerates its citizens has more than quadrupled since 1970, there is little evidence that this approach is having the intended effect on crime rates, which are higher now than in 1970. For young black men, this figure rises to an astonishing 1 in 9 (Economist, 2010). Many of these individuals were given prison sentences or relatively minor drug offences, and so the unnecessary and apparently ineffective harshness of much American legislation has its part to play, as will be detailed below. The proportion of prison inmates from different racial groups demonstrates the blatantly racist bias in the justice system. 38% of those incarcerated in the United States are African-Americans, but the latter make up only 13% of the total population, while 19% of those in prison are Latinos, but the latter account for only 15% of the total population. This has led to the dangerous situation where a black male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of incarceration at some point, a Hispanic male has a 17% chance of being imprisoned, while a while male has only a 6% chance of incarceration (The Sentencing Project, 2008, p.2). Furthermore, while the above figures represent national averages, Human Rights Watch found that in seven States, blacks are incarcerated at more than thirteen times the rate of whites. The United States has found itself in a situation where, in every State, the proportion of blacks in prison is greater than that of whites, and in Minnesota and Iowa it is 12 times greater (Human Rights Watch, 2000). It is already obvious that such a huge disparity in incarceration rates does not merely reflect the reality of crime rates among different racial groups, but a fundamental racist bias in the American justice system. This bias begins with the nature of much legislation itself. The prominence of three-strike legislation has had a disproportionate impact on minority communities. By 1996, 25 States had passed some form of three-strike legislation, and in some States two offences were enough to justify a life sentence in jail. This legislation has also been proven to be ineffective in many cases. As the Sentencing Project (2008) concluded, such legislation has resulted in ‘the costly and excessive imprisonment of many offenders who are near or at the end of their criminal careers anyway; those consequences have fallen disproportionately on minorities’ (p.5). Unequal Treatment The Drug Policy Alliance states quite plainly in a report on the role of race in Criminal Justice System that the ‘Unequal treatment of minority groups pervades every stage of the criminal justice system’. Obama has stated, in the past, that it is a ‘fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently and often time for no cause’ (MacDonald, 2009). The President’s comments are reinforced by evidence mentioned by a 2008 report of the Sentencing Project: a study of some 13,556 traffic-stops in the Mid-west showed that minority drivers were pulled aside more often than white drivers, but were no more likely to be carrying contraband goods. Some further examples of a bias serve to illustrate the point. Latinos account for nearly half of individuals arrested for offences related to the cultivation, distribution, trade and use of marijuana, although the real proportion is surely much lower. Similarly, nearly two in three of all individuals prosecuted for criminal offences in federal courts are Native Americans, which their true proportion of the total population is considerably lower (Drug Policy Alliance). Perhaps most strikingly, African-American youths represent 17% of their age group nationally, but they account for 46% of juvenile arrests (Sentencing Project, 2008, p.2). Racial profiling, and street sweeps and buy-and-bust operations which take place primarily in what the Drug Policy Alliance terms ‘low-income communities of color’ surely constitute an unfair bias in the way crime is dealt with. MacDonald (2009) argues that racial profiling and focusing on minority neighborhoods is not inherently racist, but rather a response to the reality of crime occurrence; that ‘nearly everything the police do, especially in this age of data-driven policing, is a function of criminal behavior’. However, MacDonald is deeply misguided in such an assertion. To take drug arrests as an example, African-Americans represented 14% of drug users in 2006, but some 35% of those arrested for drug offenses, and some 53% of those convicted for drug offenses (Sentencing Project, 2008, p.6). Indeed, Human Rights Watch, in a report on drugs regulation in the United States, agreed that ‘Ostensibly color blind, the war on drugs has been waged disproportionately against black Americans’. MacDonald has also failed to consider, in her shortsighted analysis, that the actions of police forces in targeting such communities may result in their further marginalization and disaffection, and that some Fig. 1. State Incarceration Rates by Race for 1988 and 1996 fundamental factors, notably the relative poverty of many of these communities, are key factors in causing higher levels of crime to occur there. Until a concerted effort is made to deal with such root causes, little progress may be made in eliminating the racialist biases of much police activity. While the greater police presence in minority neighborhoods often stems from the higher rates of crime reportage in those districts. However, this means than minority individuals are more likely to be arrested than middle-class whites committing offenses in areas without such a large police presence. Furthermore, once an individual has experienced some early involvement with the Criminal Justice System, statistics have proven that it is much more likely that they will also be involved in the Criminal Justice System later in life. As to whether minority individuals are more likely to have committed a criminal offense than a while individual, the most reliable statistics are sourced from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report (UCR). However, as a 2008 report by the Sentencing Project points out, even these figures omit those individuals who were found to have committed an offense but were not arrested, while true crime rates cannot be accurately gauged by any set of statistics (p.5). The fact that economic background has a definite impact on the likelihood that an individual will be involved in criminal activity should be taken into account. As the Sentencing Project (2008) puts it, ‘low-income individuals are generally over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice system, and it is widely acknowledged that people of color are disproportionately low-income’ (p.5). Economic background is also important given that available resources determine how a community deals with early signs of delinquent behavior. If the children of middle-class parents engage in antisocial behavior, their parents are able to consult private professionals, and seek an early resolution to this issue, which does not involve the Criminal Justice System. However, for low-income families, this simply isn’t an option. The racialist bias of the criminal justice system extends to every level, far above the initial monitoring and arrest of suspected criminals on the street. The figures for charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing plainly show a general bias against individuals of minority backgrounds. The Sentencing Project (2008) commented on ‘the cumulative impact of racial disparity through each decision point in the criminal justice system’ (p.2). For example, because a greater proportion of minorities than Whites were refused bail, they were disadvantaged at trial because they had enjoyed less access to professional legal counsel and the support and resources of their family and community. As a result, they were more likely to be given harsher sentences, and to be incarcerated. This notion of a cumulative racial bias is supported by the findings of other studies. Bishop and Frazier (1996), in their study of decision-making processes in the juvenile justice system, began by stating quite plainly that the ‘Overrepresentation of minorities in the juvenile justice system is well-established’ (p. 312). However, they also found that transfer decisions and sentencing procedures discriminated against minorities at every stage: ‘among those referred for delinquent acts, a greater proportion of minorities than whites received the more severe disposition at each successive stage in Fig. 2. Male Incarceration Rates by Race processing’. For example, 31% of nonwhite youths were incarcerated or transferred, compared with just 18% of white youths. They could therefore conclude that ‘the racial composition of the cohort becomes increasingly nonwhite as it moves through the system (Bishop and Frazier, 1996, p.401). There is some evidence of an overt and active racial bias in the justice system, which may be based on simple racism, but perhaps also on general misconceptions about the realities of crime occurrence. The Drug Policy Alliance highlights such ‘empirically false’ misconceptions, notably that the majority of crimes are actually committed by minority individuals, which result in the focus of law and order agencies being directed towards such individuals. Human Right Watch also highlighted the role of such misconceptions in biasing police activities, asserting that despite actual user patterns, ‘the image of a drug offender that has dominated media stories is a black man standing in an alleyway, not a white man in his house’. There are also some examples of an overt racism at work. As the Sentencing Project (2008)asserted, ‘So long as racism exists within society at large, it will be found within the criminal justice system’ (p.9). For example, in 2000, the Supreme Court overturned a death penalty delivered by a State court in Texas. In this astounding case, the offender’s Hispanic origin had been used as evidence in court, as an indicator of likely ‘future dangerousness’ (Sentencing Project, 2008, p.9). Background of Personnel In order to gain an impression of the racial composition of Criminal Justice personnel in the United States, the composition of the Supreme Court, the highest legal authority in the country, might serve as a useful indicator. If this is the case, the evidence points to as much of a racial bias as at other levels in the Criminal Justice System. The Supreme Court was established in 1789, and for the first 180 or so years of its existence, Supreme Court Justices were almost always white, male and Protestant. The first African-American to be appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court was Thurgood Marshall, and Sonia Sotomayor became the first Hispanic Justice when she was appointed just last year. Effects on Minority Communities It is worth considering the deeply negative effects that the racialist bias in the criminal justice system is having on minority communities. As Marc Mauer asks, in a 2008 report produced by the Sentencing Project, ‘What does it mean to a [African-American] community…to know that three out of ten boys growing up will spend time in prison?’ (p.iii) The Sentencing Project (2008) made their opinion on the dangers presented by allowing the current racial disparity in the criminal justice system to continue, by beginning their report with a quote from Leonard Noisette, a former director of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, New York: ‘We cannot run society for the privileged and allow a significant proportion of the population to be marginalized. It impacts the quality of life for all of us if we have ‘throw away’ people. A justice system which tolerates injustice is doomed to collapse’ (p.iii). Greenhouse (2010) approached the issue of the damaging effects of a racist justice system from the perspective of voting rights. She was writing a time of discussion over whether the denial of the franchise to prisoners in 48 States should remain in place. All States except Maine and Vermont currently deny the franchise to incarcerated individuals. Given the disproportionate representation of individuals from minority backgrounds in the incarcerated population, in every State, the denial of the franchise had a deeply disproportionate effect on African-American communities. However, even with this mind, as Greenhouse (2010) puts it, ‘the numbers are startling, with disturbing implications for civil life in a democracy’. Taking the State of Virginia as a case study, 6.8% of the total population are disenfranchised due to legal convictions, but an astonishing 20% of African-Americans in Virginia are denied the right to vote. In Texas, a similar pattern prevails, with 9.3% of African-Americans disenfranchised, compared to 3.3% of the total population of the State. In New York, likewise, a worrying 80% of disenfranchised individuals are Black or Hispanic. As the right to vote represents one of the fundamental tenets of a citizen’s participation in American democracy, one is left wondering how devastating the effects of this figures must be on the psychology of low-income minority communities with a large proportion of their members unable to participate in the democratic process. One can assume there is a great degree of disaffection and social exclusion. In a practical sense, the denial of the franchise to a significant proportion of African-Americans has also weakened the political influence of such communities, which were insignificant in terms of their ability to wield political power to begin with. Michelle Alexander, a professor at Ohio State University, is certainly of this view, and has penned a new book with the revealing title, The New Jim Crow. She warns that ‘We have allowed ourselves to be willfully blind to the emergence of a new castle system…a system of social excommunication that has denied millions of African-Americans basic human dignity’. As well as the political exclusion faced by minority convicts, we might think about their reduced economic prospects also. A criminal record immediately reduced the employability and thus income prospects of a released convict, and also increases the probability of future offending. Finally, we should consider the impact on the social life of minority, low-income communities. Human Rights Watch (2000) made the situation quite clear in this respect: ‘In inner city black neighborhoods, the high rate at which men are removed to prison may undermine those communities and contribute to perpetuating cycles of crime’. The current President of the Untied States has also asserted that there is an urgent need to ‘improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias’ (MacDonald, 2009). There is undeniably a pressing need to act on this issue, given the danger of losing another generation of minority communities so a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty, crime and disaffection. In order for any solution to be effective, it would also need to tackle the roots of crime in many poor, urban neighborhoods. Among these must be counted poverty and the relatively poor provision of education and other public services. Bibliography Bishop, D. M. and Frazier, C. E. (1996). “Race Effects in Juvenile Justice Decision-Making: Findings of a Statewide Analysis”, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86.2: 892-414. Greenhouse, L. (2010). “Voting Behind Bars”. New York: The New York Times. MacDonald, H. (2009). “The Reality of Black Crime”. National Review. Retrieved from: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/184848/reality-black-crime/heather-mac-donald (Accessed August 3 2010). Mauer, M. (1997). Intended and Unintended Consequences: State Racial Disparities in Imprisonment. Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project. Drug Policy Alliance, “Race and the Criminal Justice System”. Retrieved from: http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/criminaljust/ (Accessed August 3 2010). The Sentencing Project (2008). Redressing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System: A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers. Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project. “Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs” (2000), Human Rights Watch 12.2. Retrieved from: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/ (Accessed August 3 2010). “Rough Justice: American locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal” (2010), The Economist. Retrieved from: http://www.economist.com/node/16640389 (Accessed August 3 2010). Read More