... to retroactively apply the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced prison terms for inmates convicted of crack-cocaine offenses. On a unanimous vote, "unfairly long sentences" for crack offenders, who are mostly African Americans, were reduced to be more compatible with sentences given to powder-cocaine offenders, who are often white and sometimes affluent (Serrano). Last year, Congress voted to lower the sentences given ... ...

• Word Count: 790
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Justice System to purge in equality. Data Supporting the Existence of the Problem The biggest crime in the U.S Criminal Justice System is that African Americans are directly targeted and punished in much more aggressive ways than white people. In New York City, where people of color make up about ... arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites - according to a May 2009 report on...

• Word Count: 1374
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... it seems to be for the color of their skin. Trials are rare, only very small numbers of criminal cases go to trial - the rest are plea bargained- with most African Americans defendants never getting to a trial. Most plea bargains consist of promise of a longer sentence if a person exercises their constitutional right to trial. As a result, people get caught up in the ... Commission (2010) reports that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10% longer than white offenders for the same crimes. Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project reports African Americans are 21%...

• Word Count: 2307
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... known as racial profiling happens all to often throughout the U.S. and is one of the most serious issues confronting law enforcement today. The point of whether police are intentionally targeting African Americans because they think they are more likely to engage in criminal activity is being debated by civil rights groups, law enforcement officials, and normal everyday citizens. Many states have ... . In about 90% of these searches, the police found no criminal wrongdoing or evidence. This data proves that more black drivers are being targeted for criminal activity. With more African Am...

• Word Count: 1146
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... adults in alarming numbers. The rates of incarceration in America is far from exiguous for all races. Startling to many is the realization that African-Americans, specifically males, are incarcerated in higher numbers than Whites. In fact, "African Americans are overrepresented in all stages of the criminal justice system" (Thompson par 9). In the article "The Race of a Criminal Record: ... on crimes that are committed by Blacks more often than Whites. Also, that the police are churlish when it comes to African-Americans. His statement helps to prove that the criminal justice system is ...

• Word Count: 1223
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... ). Some of the states that are now having a larger number of police misconduct and brutality court cases tend to have large communities of minority racial group. According to Cruz, young African Americans and Latino males are seen by cops as potential criminals, and without probable cause "they are constantly stopped, frisked, and harassed by cops." However, little reliable information exists on the ... when they treated blacks aggressively because that specific racial group lacked political power during that time period. Holmes has maintained in his study of police brutality, that when ...

• Word Count: 5510
• Approx Pages: 22
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... be an assertion of independence not only from family, but also from cultural and class constraints. Women are able to express themselves as assimilated Americans, spending money freely and standing up for themselves. They construct an image of the gang that counterpoints the suffocating futures they face (Campbell, ... gang members, controlled their gangs. By the time they had reached their late twenties, most of the African Americans and Latino females had ceased to participate in their gangs. African Americans were more likely than Latinos to be employed, less likely to be on welfare, m...

• Word Count: 2737
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... that "it signals a dangerous new twist in the twisted way that the system relates to the masses of Black people and other oppressed peoples (971)."" According to American Factfinder, African Americans in 1990 were only 12% of the population, whereas Caucasians made up 80%. This massive difference in population numbers added to the fact that in 1992 80% of America's drug ... number of violent crimes actually dropped dramatically (Johnston, 1). According to Revolutionary Worker, arrests for serious crimes dropped 12% between 1981 and 1991 while arrests for petty crimes rose 46%. Although ...

• Word Count: 1651
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... people from all socio-economic backgrounds and occurs in rural, suburban and urban areas. Multicultural Implications of Racial Profiling "There is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact." President Barack Obama, July 22, 2009 In addition to targeting the ... and religious profiling also affect a broad range of communities, including Native American, Latino, Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities (Rights Working Group website, n.d.). "It is commonly believed that African Americans are more ...

• Word Count: 1975
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... community is better off when some nonviolent lawbreakers remain in the community rather than go to prison. The decision as to what kind of conduct by African-Americans ought to be punished is better made by African- Americans themselves."1 The means by which Butler proposes for Blacks to implement these decisions is termed jury nullification. By placing the race of the defendant above the ... between punishments for white-collar crimes and punishments for other crimes, more severe penalties for crack cocaine users than for powder cocaine users, and the high rate of incarceration of Afri...

• Word Count: 3584
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... right to hope, the government is clearly going above and beyond their duty of being an impartial rational spectator. Opposition capital punishment are notorious for arguing that sentencing for African Americans vs. White Americans is disproportionate and tend to be bias toward minorities. If we consider the pertinent facts, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Whites who are arrested for murder or ... huge, and the purpose here is not to suggest that they indicate bias against whites; the point is that in no way do they support the notion of bias against African Americans. Al...

• Word Count: 1505
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... views on minorities help cultivates hostility and animosity form whites towards blacks (Campbell 2004). When looking at some of the inequalities in the criminal justice system, we know that African-Americans are more likely to receive more severe punishments than whites for the same crime (Dowler 2003). We understand this disconnect can be attributed to the fear that is potentially caused ... (Dowler 2003). The way that crime and police are perpetuated in both news and television also affects the public's attitude toward their effectiveness. Dowler (2003, p. 116) found that, "African-Am...

• Word Count: 2700
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In a recent study they found 75% of white Americans believe that there is no issue with the criminal justice system and that racism is not a problem in the world we live in today. Racism can be broken down into ... a call back from a job than someone names Lakisha or Jamal even though they have the same exact resume. The United States Sentencing Commissions released a report saying that African Americans sentences are 20% longer than white Americans even though they both were convicted with the same crime. A government study on discipline in public schools states that black students are thre...

• Word Count: 594
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... is the race of the victim (Amnesty International USA, 2015). Amnesty International also revealed, according to a 2007 study of Connecticut sentences that were examined by Yale University School of Law, African-American defendants receive the death penalty at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the victims are white. Londono (2013), refers to characteristics of race or socioeconomic ... some sort of racial bias. These statistics show great disparity in the application of capital punishment. Despite the fact that African Americans make up only 13 percent of the nation'...

• Word Count: 1818
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... bias. This is a leading and causing concern among citizens of minorities within the U.S. For example, "Thirty-four percent of those executed in America since 1974 have been black, while African Americans represent only 13% of the general population" (Mears, 2008). Doesn't make much sense and seems quite unfair to me. Because most of the overall population are underneath the poverty ... /Latinos, which actually happen to be the minority of the overall population. As previously states, "Thirty-four percent of those executed in America since 1974 have been black, while African Americans rep...

• Word Count: 2043
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of minority youth come into contact with the juvenile justice system in relation to their representation in the general population. This affects all minority races and ethnic groups including African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Hispanic/Latinos, and any other non- Caucasian group. Various explanations have been offered which seek to identify the causes and effects of minority overrepresentation. It has been ... (1994) controlled for legal factors and found that the relationships between race and socioeconomic status and severity of disposition disapp...

• Word Count: 8199
• Approx Pages: 33
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the fact that it occurs in all areas of the field. That's right! It can even be found inside the police station itself between other officers. There have been countless African American men and women who report being subject, to not being promoted because of their color and who they are affiliated with, according to (Martin, 1994). The article (Martin, 1994 ... conclude, it also states that Caucasian women are more subject to promotion, due to their affiliation with Caucasian men, whom usually are of higher power, and accrue more wealth than African Americans. The racism war is endless ...

• Word Count: 730
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... public support for federal gun control measures? I will focus on public attitudes toward gun control over both the short and longer terms. Some Americans are convinced that more federal regulation of firearms is necessary to reduce the number of murders that are committed with guns and to ensure ... crimes. They maintain that interdiction will not have any effect on crime but will strip away the constitutional rights and privileges of law-abiding Americans by taking away their right to own guns. On the other hands, advocates of interdiction, led by such organizations as Handgun Control, ...

• Word Count: 2264
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... -four people were freed from death row and declared innocent, which means one death row has been released for every seven executed (Day, 13). A study shown in Philadelphia showed that African Americans were four times more likely to receive the death penalty than any other ethnic or racial group (Day, 14). More than half of the prisoner executed between 1930 and 1996 ... were African Americans and for rape (Day, 14). The majority of the citizens favor the capital punishment because they believe that the criminals deserve death for what he/she has done. Retribution has ... ...

• Word Count: 1448
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , gender-base bias, ridicule for disabled people, and disdain of homosexuals are considered the most rampant factors. Studies report that the largest determinant of hate crimes is racial bias, with African Americans at the greatest risk. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1999 states that sixty-one percent of hate crimes were motivated by racial discrimination. The report also blames about eighteen ... is the most common type of hate crimes, accounting for thirty-five percent. Vandalism or destruction to property accounted for twenty-nine percent (Ritchey "Racial Bias). Furthermore, ...

• Word Count: 1075
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... begin to dig deeper it becomes evident that incarceration in the United States poses a broad moral and ethical dilemma that stems from years of racial injustice perpetuated against minorities, namely, African American and Hispanic men. America's approach to mass incarceration is racist and flawed because of the lack of sentencing and policing reform, how it negatively impacts the lives of inmates ... and federal prisons by the end of the century (Pettit and Western 151). There is also the fact that over 90% of prisoners are men, and that incarceration rates for African American men are ...

• Word Count: 903
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... "("Capital"). In America's history, in the over 18,000 convictions of capital punishment, only thirty-seven were of a white person being punished for the murder of an African-American. Also, despite the fact that African-Americans constitute only 12% of the national population ("Five"), they comprise 43.1 percent of the prisoners on death row ("Death"). In fact, a comprehensive study in Georgia concluded that ... murderers of white people are 4.3 percent more likely to receive a death sentence than a killer of an African-American ("Five"). Capital punishment is prejudiced against men as ...

• Word Count: 858
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... like the people who come to court" (Frontline 13). By that she believes that by increasing the number of African-American judges, or Latina or Latino, even Asian judges on the bench, possible biases and stereotypes might be lifted. Cordell also states that African-Americans are more likely to be charged (Frontline 13). Equally, they are more likely to receive longer sentences when ... an African-American commits the same crime along with having a similar criminal background to a white juvenile (Frontline 13). A study done by Mike ... ...

• Word Count: 2903
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... done by Baldus, et al. in 1980 which found that defendants convicted of murdering a white person were 4.3 times more likely to receive a death sentence than defendants convicted of murdering an African-American (Bailey, 2003). However, in a study conducted by the New Jersey state Supreme Court, it was found that there was, "no sound basis from the statistical evidence to conclude that ... are ultimately sentenced to death" (Gallagher, 2001). It was also found that between 1976-1999 that 86% of white murder victims were killed by whites and 94% of African-American victims were killed by ...

• Word Count: 2390
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... various forms since the end of slavery. During the reconstruction of the South, laws called "Black Codes" were created. These "codes" made it punishable by imprisonment and indentured servitude for African Americans to loiter, be unemployed, be drunk, or be in debt. The "Black Codes" were a very blatant form of racial profiling aimed at maintaining an unpaid labor pool in the South ... on Labor and gutted social spending in order to maintain their profits. The harshest consequences of this program are experienced by low-wage workers and unemployed youth, predominantly Latinos and Africa...

• Word Count: 567
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate