Criminal Justice System

     My initial thought of our Criminal Justice System was that it surely had problems and biases. I thought this partly because of our Civil Rights field trip. It opened my eyes to see how bad some people's cases were when it came to racial disparity. The United Stated has one of the largest Criminal Justice Systems in the world. In our Criminal Justice System, there are disparities in how people are sentenced for the crimes that they commit. There are a lot of factors that play into this disparity, however the main one happens to be race.

     The Washington Post video on Race and Incarceration in the U.S. said that the US has the world's largest prison population. There are approximately 666 inmates per 100,000 people. Within this, there are 450 White male inmates per 100,000 people, 831 Hispanic inmates per 100,000 people, and 2,306 Black inmates per 100,000 people. This data shows that Black inmates represent about 40% of the incarcerated population in the US and Hispanics represent about 19%. There is a drastic difference in sentencing when it comes to the race of the accused. Recent research shows that Black men who commit the same crimes as White men receive a sentence that is about 20% longer. But these racial disparities aren't just for Black men, Native Americans were incarcerated at a 38% higher rate on average than White men and Native American women were incarcerated at a rate of 6 times more than White women.

     Even though this was a big problem back in the days of mass segregation, it is still a problem today. People like Civil Rights activists, politicians, and reporters are constantly trying to find ways to draw the public's eye to the US's incarceration inequality. For example, Jay-Z spoke out against Meek Miller getting sent to prison for a parole violation that was related to a crime committed a decade ago. Jay-Z called this action "unjust and heavy-handled". After this, Barack Obama addressed worldwide racial disparities during his administration. He did this seeking to undo harsh sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. On the other hand, President Trump has a different approach. He is seeking to have a more tough-on-crime approach when it comes to these cases. Attorney General Jeff Sessions agrees and has ordered tougher sentences on offenders of these crimes.

     There are many factors that contribute to the data that was collected for this topic. The Sentencing Project's article mentions that one factor is the disparities for arrest rates. When it comes to arrest rates, it is found that racial minorities are the ones that commit certain crimes at a higher rate. Specifically, data shows that Black Americans, mostly males, tend to commit violent/ property crimes more frequently than other races. This doesn't necessarily have to do with their race, however. Other studies show that high crime rates relate to socioeconomic factors. Highly disadvantaged neighborhoods experience higher crime rates regardless of the racial composition.

     The USSC's article on Demographic Differences in Sentencing claimed that there were key findings on racial disparities. One of these findings is that Black male offenders continued to receive longer sentences than similar situated white male offenders on an average of 20.4%. Another was that females of all races received shorter sentences than white male offenders, so gender played a role in this as well. The EJI's article agreed with all of this data and based on its 2012-2016 data, it shows that this is consistent with the prior 4 periods studied by the commission. All of this data shown by these sources agree with each other. This shows that throughout our history we have had a natural racial bias toward other races and we are still fighting that bias to this day.


Racial Discrepancy 


Racial Disparities 


Racial Disparities in Children

Sources: 
Washington Post  
Sentencing Project 
US Sentencing Commission 
EJI