Minority groups are bifurcated from the majority and given different treatment by the criminal justice system. Police officials are more likely to stop and search an African-American man over a white one. It is also believed that in the court system White Americans have an unfair advantage over their Black counterparts.
Michael Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota Law School wrote the article "The Social, Psychological, and Political Causes of Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System." In which he explains: "Police drug law enforcement focused effort on inner-city, primarily minority, neighborhoods, where many black Americans live, and on crack cocaine, of which blacks are a large majority of arrested sellers. Police officers engaged in widespread racial profiling and stopped blacks on streets and sidewalks much more often than is justifiable in terms of objective, race-neutral criteria" (par 2 ). Tonry is explaining that there are instances in which the police focused 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 specious. Inadvertently, it has vilified African-Americans and associated them with negative connotations. The government has capriciously changed which laws they would make more arrests for in order to be sure to arrest Blacks. The police should exhibit probity; however, they are disingenuous because they appear to be helping everyone, but have other intentions. Society views African-American males as a threat to society and the police support this stereotype by arresting quickly and not giving them a chance to explain themselves. An example of the unequal treatment that police give is in police brutality. An officer is more likely to use deadly force against a Black male rather than a White one.
