Extreme Police Brutality Against Minorities - Essay Example

POLICE BRUTALITY ON MINORITIES

ABSTRACT

The criminal justice system is marred with racism and discrimination. The interactions of race, ethnicity and the criminal justice system have been topics of interest among many authors, who continue to capture the intrigues of these complicated interactions. This essay gives an array of ways and reasons as to how and why the criminal justice system hurts the African American population and other minority groups in the United States. Discrimination within the criminal justice system and police brutality have been prominent struggle points for the country.

Disparities in the treatment of whites and other minority groups can be highlighted in selective enforcement, racial profiling, police violence and brutality, differences in sentencing, prosecutorial abuse, incarceration and subsequent police killings. Federal sentencing guidelines have contributed mainly to some of the injustices that minority groups face today. The apathetic adoption of policy changes has been a significant hurdle in the fight against racism, racial prejudice, racial discrimination and police violence and killings witnesses across the United States today. Injustices within the criminal justice system, and subsequently within the policing and law enforcement agencies, have been challenges that have ailed the system since the 17th century, in the era of English colonialism and African slavery. These facts give a better understanding of the deep roots of the challenges faced today, and perhaps an explanation for the difficulty in averting this situation. It is these factors have been topics of discussion all over the United States, invoking the interest of the government, media and civil societies. The debate on this disparity and discrimination has been captured at length in the annotated bibliographies below.