African-Americans and Hispanics make up most of the prison population in America. The average prison sentence for a violent crime is about one year longer for African-Americans than for Caucasians ("Racial Inequalities in" 1). Many cases in America have been concluded in which a white man gets less prison time than a black man for the same crime. For example, there was a case in New York State where an African-American homeless man, Roy Brown, robbed a bank and only took one hundred dollars. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison (Co-Cane, "Justice For Roy Brown"). In Pennsylvania, a white man robbed a bank of five thousand dollars and was sentenced to ten years in prison ("Pennsylvania Man Sentenced" 1). This exemplifies that racism in criminal cases exist today. Minorities make up most of the prison population in American for two reasons that should be well known in today's society: minorities get more time because of unfair policies, and cases where Caucasians get less time than a black or Hispanic person. .
In today's society minorities are often imprisoned because of some policies that are just unfair. .
A study of race and criminal justice at The University of Washington concluded that minorities say that bias happens in the legal system and that these minorities do not trust the court system. Also in the study, it appears that the criminal system does not provide protection, access, support, and services to minority victims ("Race in the" 1). I argue that this is true in today's system. Minorities are not being treated fairly by judges. This could be the cause of why the American prison population is so populated with minority prisoners. The criminal justice system does not give blacks and hispanics an equal opportunity as they would a caucasian man. In some cases, many police officers and judges think that because there are a few African Americans who break the law on occasion, then they should just go around to black neighbor hoods because they think that the stereotype is to break the law.
