Racial Disparity in Criminal Justice System Essay

IntroductionTwenty-five percentage of the worlds prison population, 2.5 million people, ar held in American penal institutions. (ACLU, 2008). lx percent of those incarcerated ar racial and ethnic minorities. These figures mean that 2.3% of each(prenominal) African Americans are incarcerated. The percentage of sinlessnesss admitted to prison is 0.4% of whites and Hispanics, 0.7%. (Associated Press, 2007 Bonczar, 2003 Mauer & King, 2007 ACLU, 2008 Bridges & Sheen, 1998). One of the primary contri andors to this taxation disproportion of incarceration of blacks is the result of the struggle on medicines and tough on nuisance initiatives that were established in the 80s. The aggressive law enforcement strategies of The Anti-Drug Ab drill comprise of 1986, disproportionately holded, convicted, and incarcerated millions of blacks for relatively minor nonviolent drug offenses as compared to white wrongdoers.The melodramatic escalation of incarceration for drug offenses was ac companied by profound racial disparities. Blacks were incarcerated at a grossly disproportionate rate to white Americans and blacks veritable much harsher and prolonged sentences, 14.5% longer, creating racial diversity deep down the wretched evaluator corpse (Alexander, 2010 Austin, et al. Georges-Abeyie, 2006 Gonzlez & Chang, 2011 Lynch & William, 1997 Mauer, 2007 Mauer & King, 2007 Spohn, 2000 (Alexander, 2010, Associated Press, 2007, Mauer M. 2009 Mauer M., 2008 Spohn, 2000) Mass incarceration functions more like a caste clay than a placement of wickedness prevention serves the similar purpose as pre-Civil War slavery and the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws to obligate a racial caste ashes a dodging knowing to keep a racial group locked into an inferior position by law and customs. (Alexander, 2010)While scholars suck up long analyzed the connection amongst festinate and Americas evil judge system, argue that our exploitation penal system, with its black ting e, constitutes nothing less than a new regulate of Jim Crow. on that point are writers that feel the analogys myopic focusing on the War on Drugs diverts us from discussing violent crimean relapse when discussing mass interaction in the coupled terra firmas. (James Forman) There is no divergence as to the extent of the escalation in viciousization and incarceration in the join cites in the 40-year war on drugs. That violent offenders make up a plurality ofthe prison population, but research has shown that the unequal enforcement of mandatory policies in place, black males received longer terms than whites for similar drug offenses, 14.5% longer, this creates the train of mass incarceration that racial disagreement at heart the criminal referee system. ). Look at accedes in there Midwest and northeast draw the greatest black-to-white disparity in incarceration.So when call downs as Iowa, the 10th safest state in the US, 91.3% of the population is ashen (88.7% non-His panic),and 2.9% is Black or African American, how is it for every(prenominal) 100,000 people Iowa incarce pass judgment 309 white and 4200 are black, imprisoning black at 13 multiplication the rate of whites. The unequal enforcement of mandatory policies in place, black males received longer terms than whites for similar drug offenses, 14.5% longer, this creates the level of mass incarceration that racial disparity inside the criminal nicety system. Supporting information shows the wonderful increases in several states of nonwhite drug offenders committed to prison receiving harsher sentences for similar drug offences. (Alexander, 2010 Tonry, 1994 (ACLU, 2008 Alexander, 2010 Green, 2012Lacey, 2010 Bonczar, 2003 Glaze & Herberman, 2010 Mauer, 2009 Mauer, 2008 M Mauer and King (2007)Russell-Brown, 2008 Mauer & King 2007 The Institute for political economy and Peace, 2012 Petersilia,1983 Loury, 2010 Russell-Brown, 2008).There energise been studies in theoretical foundation and met hodological sophistication to judge the disproportionality in incarceration of racial minorities. Research has dispelled the assertion that blacks are disproportionality sentenced and incarcerated collectable solely to contrastingial crime commission rates. All histrions deep down the criminal rightness system are to a lower place the delusion, or pretense, of objectivity in the criminal justice system. (Spohn, 2000 Russell-Brown, 2008) In response to this gap in literature, the watercourse bring forget focus exclusively on the consistent patterns indicating that offender cannonball along operates directly by dint of other factors, dispeling officer, prior record, grammatical case of crime, pretrial status or type of disposition, or interacts with other variables that are themselves related to racial disparity. I will also attempt to observe why these disproportionalities exist by examining the criminal justice system policies and practices that cave in contributed in recent decades to the disproportionate overrepresentation of minorities in the criminal justice system. literary productions ReviewCriminologist and favorable-political geographer Daniel E. Georges-Abeyie introduced the concept and theory of petit apartheid in criminal justice and new-fangled justice in 1990 to describe discriminatory, discretionary acts by law enforcement, punitive officers, and jurists that advantage or disadvantage an individual, or individuals, on grounds of their identicalness characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, sexual activity, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, or nationality Georges-Abeyie Petit Apartheid affable length cruelness Scale to predict criminal justice process outcomes when the identity characteristics of those making discretionary purposes and those impacted are similar or dissimilar. Petit Apartheid Social Distance Severity Scale. His frank interview with Justice Bruce Wright confirmed that each actor brings his person-to-p erson prepossession into his duties in the criminal justice system.New York State Supreme Court Justice the Honorable McM. Bruce Wright, author of Black Robes, White Justice (1992), a criminal justice advocate, believed that a judge should consciously be Black, Hispanic, female, working class, et cetera, while adjudicating. taste Wright believed that all judges manifested their social, cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and social class biases while adjudicating. We are all impacted by action experiences. He gave an example, a specific judge, who would regularly, with pride and pomposity, proclaimed that he speedily sized-up a defendant as the defendant was led into the court in chains, by noting the demeanor, gait, body-language, and general physical appearance of the defendant before the defendants attorney, or the defendant, uttered a single word.What appalled Judge Wright was not the scrutinizing of that defendant but the denial of the phenomenologically filtered judgment, which accompanied that observation. (Georges-Abeyie, 2006) Multi factors economic, personal bias and what are considered subtle bias, offender age and gender, are major factors in the level of racial disparity within the criminal justice system. (Georges-Abeyie, 2006 Austin, et al., 2012Bonczar, 2003 beer maker & Heitzeg Glaze & Herberman, 2012 Green, 2012 Lacey,2010 Gonzlez & Chang, 2011 Lee & Vukich, 2001Loury, 2010)Mauer & King, 2007 Petersilia, 1983 Spohn, 2000 Tonry, 1994Marc Mauer has been stateing on racial disparity since 1975 tarradiddle on racial disparity and mass incarceration in the criminal justice system. His 1995 report led the New York Times to editorialize that the report should set off alarm bells from the White House to city halls and ease reverse the notion that we can incarcerate our way out of sound social problems. Finding evidence of direct disagreement against minorities in the intention of race, prediction, and discretion in the criminal justice sy stem (Baradaran, 2013 Mauer M. 2009) Research has be that the prototypal point of discrimination that afflicts the system is contact with the police. practice of law arrest black defendants more often for crimes than white defendants. (Mauer & King, 2007) Spohn in his report, Thirty long time of prison house Reform the race for a neutralizing sentence process, found that a certain type of minority offenders, perhaps because they are perceived as being more dangerous, are singled out for arrest and harsher treatment.These markers are Blacks and Hispanics who are young, male, and unemployed are particularly more likely than their white counterparts to be sentenced to prison and in some jurisdictions, they also receive longer sentences or differential benefits from guideline departures. There is also evidence that minorities convicted of drug offenses, those with longer prior criminal records, those who victimize whites, and those who refuse to plead guilty or are unable to secure p retrial release are penalise more severely than similarly situated whites. (Spohn, 2000) horror rates, law enforcement priorities, sentencing lawmaking and other factors play a role in creating racial disparities in incarceration. (Roth, 2001).The prosecutors, more than anyother formalizeds in the criminal justice system, have the most direct impact on racial disparities, and thus, must concede the most responsibility in remedying them. (Davis, 1998) laundry (and in particular racial stereotypes) plays a role in the judgments and decision making by all of the participants within the criminal justice system. The deviate of an individuals bias is subtle and often undetectable in any given case, but its effects are significant and observable over time. When policymakers determine policy, when official actors exercise discretion, and when citizens proffer testimony or jury-service, bias often plays a role. (Georges-Abeyie, 2006).In January of 2000, 19-year-old Jason Williams was convicted of selling a total of 1/8 oz. of cocaine on four separate occasions. Although he had no prior convictions, the Texas early days was sentenced to 45 years in prison under a state law provision that increases penalties for drug sales that occur within 1,000 feet of a school or park. As it turns out, roughly half of Williams hometown of Tulia falls within these drug-free z stars. Williams was just champion of 46 Tulians including more than 10 percent of the towns black population caught up in a law-enforcement sweep initiated by a single undercover officer who claimed that he had bought drugs from each of them. Half faced enhanced prison terms under the drug-free zone statute, and many pled guilty in order to lift Williams fate. In the months that followed sentencing, it became clear that the evidence apply to convict Williams and the other defendants had been assumed by Tom Coleman, the undercover ofcer.The wrongfully convicted Tulians were par through with(p)d by Gov ernor writhe Perry in August 2003, but the incident remains a realistic example of the dangerous excesses of the nations increasingly unpopular war on drugs. These systems operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race. And while the size of the system alone might suggest that it would touch the lives of most Americans, racial disparities in the US prison system have been increasing throughout the stick up third of the twentieth century (Alexander, 2010 Tonry, 1994). We have to look at the first point of contact for the defendant and follow his journey through the criminal justice system through the maze of racial bias and discrimination and focus on answering why these disproportionalities exist.The problem of racial disparity is one which builds at each stage of the criminal justice continuum from arrest through parole, rather than the result of the actions at any single stage. How race, ethnicity, class, and gender influence decisions virtually individuals being processed through the criminal justice system. (Georges-Abeyie, 2006 Marc Mauer 2009 Lynch & Sabol, 1997). Statistics show the cumulative impact of decisions made through personal bias at one level contributes to racial disparities at posterior levels in the criminal justice system. Race-based differences in individual treatment are some of the most apparent in American society at once and these bias based decisions challenge the principle that the criminal justice system is fair, effective and just.MethodologyStudy PurposeThis study explores the extent of racial disparity within the criminal justice system and where it exists. The criminal justice system involves numerous actorssuch as police officers, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and eyewitnesseswhose decisions and judgments have a significant impact on the conviction and punishment of criminal defendants this study will demonstrate how how race significantly affects the decisions and judgments of th ose at various levels within the criminal system. (Blumstein et al. 1983, 72 Lee & Vukich, 2001). Does racial disparity exist within the criminal justice system?Does the perceptions of race affect their response to offenders? meditation racial disparity exist within the criminal justice system?Null HypothesisRacial disparity does not exist within the criminal justice system.Research DesignThis study will use a longitudinal design that will collect data through pursuitionnaire structured interviews, observations and analysis of documents. SamplingUsing secondary data from the global Social Survey go oned by the National Opinion Research effect at the University of Chicago in connection with the Implicit Association rivulet (IAT), which measures reaction measure in response to certain visual stimuli. (Gonzlez & Chang, 2011). The exemplification frame will represent all actors in the criminal justice system.This study uses a research design that simultaneously collects quantitat ive and soft data through the use of various survey instruments, observations and questionnaires by which to conduct bivariate comparisons of incarceration rates for whites and racial minorities and methodologically more crocked multivariate analyses designed to identify direct race and indirect race effects and for interaction between race and other predictions of arrest,sentencing and adjudication. A assort between discrimination and disproportionality using multi-variate organizational, environmental, contextual and individual factors with police manner and research on the effects of pre-trial decision making (Mauer & King, 2007). The intent of this start out is to gain a broader perspective than would be otherwise achieved from only one data collection method (Small, 2011).Moreover, this mixed-methods approach for the collection and analyses of data will be utilized to increase the validity of the research and the reliability of the findings by using the results of both me thods to support each other (Bachman & Schutt, 2007 Creswell, 2013). Quantitative data using a survey and school database will be used to obtain an overview of the research questions I will use qualitative methodology through semi structured focus groups, giving studies the opportunity to read their personal encounter with the criminal justice system so that a fuller understanding of factors involved with racial/ethnic disparity.Issues of validly and reliabilityValidity methodologies include test subjects while measuring cardiovascular response, micro-facial movements, or neurological activity when viewing. As another example, police officers in one experiment exhibited a tendency to associate Black (as opposed to White) faces with criminality. In yet another experiment, both police and probation officers exhibited a significant influence of race on their judgments of culpability and decisions to arrest and to charge. Much of this research is done in connection with the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures reaction times in response to certain visual stimuli.71 Other methodologies include testing subjects while measuring cardiovascular response, micro-facial movements, or neurological activity (Gonzlez & Chang, 2011) LimitationsWhat tends to be expressed may not provide good data about true attitudes, especially when people wish to conceal their motives or if they have unconscious biases. Sentencing data are limited in terms of demographic and extra- statutory variables, and these data are neither readily available nor easily obtainable. office to the fieldRacial disparity operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions within our criminal Justice system. This information will inform decision makers about differences in the unequal treatment of defendants based on the illicit criteria of race, when like cases with respect to case attributesregardless of their legitimacy defendants are sentenced differently. p ossibly identifying gaps between established policies and actual practices. It will outline the various levels that racial disparity enters the criminal justice system. The decision-making that occurs prior to sentencing often has a greater impact on the punishment that offenders receive than does the exercise of discretion in sentencing. If there are differences in the way these decisions are made for different racial and ethnic groups, such differences could contribute to sentencing disparities that would be masked by legal factors.Arrest and conviction rates do not correspond precisely with criminal behavior rates and cannot serve as a proxy for criminality. A very large portion of disproportionality cannot be explained by legitimate race neutral factors, leading us to conclude that race matters in ways that are not fair, that do not travel legitimate public safety objectives, that produce racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and that undermine public confidence i n our legal system (Gonzlez & Chang, 2011) Analysis will show that the ways that the correctional system in the United States functions to control minorities through deliberately chosen, systematically imposed legal restrictions. 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