Racial Diversity and Justice System - Research Paper Example

Racial Diversity College Racial Diversity In any country, harmony and cohesion across the society is a prerequisite ingredient in building a solid statehood mentality and achieving greater potential. Such is the goal of any society that seeks to strengthen its institutions and entrench a higher sense of belonging among its people. In America today, diversity is a major strength for the country’s development with the positive effects of diversity portrayed in the massive growth and great potentials in the country at large. However, there exist challenges that threaten such diversity and its potential, a major challenge in this case being the criminal justice system. Any solid society boasts of a strong judicial system that serves its citizens adequately and to a high degree of satisfaction. All the same, as currently constituted, the judicial system in the United States of America has to be improved as it does not reflect the diverse society that it serves. The justice department has over the time conceded the presence of a sharp racial disparity in American jails with more blacks being jailed than Hispanics and whites. Booth (2007) observed that the African – American males are being arrested and jailed at alarming rates across the country. For instance, Booth remarks that black males are about 75% of all inmate population across the country. Moreover, in a population of about 10.4 million black males in America, about 1.5 million have been imprisoned with more than 3.5 million facing probation and parole cases. These figures are an indication of a biased judicial system that criminalizes the blacks compared to other races across the country. Considering weapon and drug related offenses, there were more African - American youths arrested in the last one decade compared to whites arrested in the same duration (Jones, 2011). A major fact to support this assertion is that since the amendment of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Protection Act (JJDPA), there has been increased cases of disparity in arresting and sentencing youths of different color, a situation that could be blamed for hardening and promoting crime among the black American teenagers. The negative effects of the juvenile justice system disparity in handling youths of different color was evident in a meta-analysis research by Pope and Feyerherm. The researchers observed that two thirds of the analyzed juvenile justice systems and the justice processes had major disparity cases in handling the minority groups of youths as compared to whites (Jones, 2011). Policies aimed at curbing drug use and addiction across the country have also been marred with racial discrimination, though the drug problem affects all races. There exists a dire case of racial supremacy, a concept that could have contributed to more blacks being incarcerated than whites and Hispanics. There is a deeply cultivated ideology that whites are the only natives in America and hence deserve special treatment, and that other people of color are outsiders. As such, though blacks are described as African- Americans, there are no terms such as White-Americans, a concept that portrays racial supremacy of the whites over the rest (McKinney, 2005 ) Consequently, law enforcers target the blacks; in most cases blacks would be searched for criminal activities while their white counterparts would not be suspected of such. Therefore, the blacks are a constant target of the criminal justice system that promotes inequalities by criminalizing people according their race. Ideally, a larger population of the white people has better employment opportunities compared to blacks and Latinos. For Instance, McKinney (2005) remarks that, “as a white person, I was offered a neatly packaged opportunity to feel ethnic” (77). This could imply that race us an important determinant in getting any opportunity in the American society, with whiteness being a necessity in obtaining the best opportunities. As such, the blacks and other nonwhites are relegated to a lower class of humanity as the whites share the best opportunities based on their race and color. Essentially, more blacks than Hispanics and whites live in poor neighborhoods dominated by social problems such as poverty, unemployment and drug use, all which are a precursor to an increase in crime rates. This fact might explain the high cases of victimization among blacks and Latinos compared to whites. The statistics above present a glaring problem in the justice system, and bring out biasness against black youths mainly due to societal stereotyping. For instance, while statistics indicate that white youths do use illicit drugs much more than their black counterparts (Jones, 2011), the justice system applies racial bias in incarcerating more black teens for crimes with higher prevalence among the white teens. Consequently, as discussed, more blacks have been jailed for drugs related problems compared to Hispanics or the whites. The major problem has been that the mentality of the whites has been skewed by stereotyping tendencies that continue to accommodate hidden biases that have been cemented over many years of social learning and cultivation (Levinson, 2012). It is through the lens of the racial attitudes and stereotypes that the African –American population has been forces to insubordinate and continues to be historically disadvantaged. Unfortunately, the legal and criminal justice system plays an active role in the subordination of the blacks. The judicial system in America is biased towards the whites and in most cases sentences black offenders to harsher penalties compared to whites. For instance, The African-American youths arrested for drug related offenses were twice the number of whites arrested (314 per 100,000 among black teens compared to 175 per 100000 among white teens) (Jones, 2011). Moreover, according to a report in the Wall Street journal, the prison term sentences for the blacks were found to be more than 20% longer than those of whites sentenced for similar crimes (Levinson, 2012). The problem was compounded after the restoration of the judicial discretion in sentencing victims back in 2005. Though there is a common defense line that judges and other federal judicial officials make sentencing decisions based on different legitimate but immeasurable considerations, the judicial system clearly portrays racial prejudices against the blacks. It is on this context that the natives find legitimacy in the theory that the blacks are more a criminal race compared to whites. The composition of the federal judicial system does portray racialism and segregation of the blacks and the Latinos, relegating them to a lower level in the American society. Ideally, the Brookings Institution think tank revealed that by August 2009, 70% of all federal judges were white men, 15% white females, 10% African –American and Hispanic males and a partly 3% minority females (Jones, 2011). As Jones (2011) observed, despite the fact that the African -American youths comprise about 17% of all youths in the country, the black juveniles were blamed for more than 27% of all arrests related to drug violation while the black youths were about 48% of all the youths detained for drug abuse cases. Notwithstanding the disparities in the juvenile justice system and processes that target the black youths, statistics indicate that African- American youths might not be the largest consumers of drugs in the country. For example, a report by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicated that among all youths in the 12 to 17 years age gap, 15% whites were found to be using illicit drugs compared to 9.3% among the African- American youths (Jones, 2011). Moreover, the report indicated that white youths in the above age group were more likely to have sold the illicit drugs compared to their black counterparts. Besides, a Monitoring the Future Survey in high school students revealed that the white students were 4.6 times more likely to use cocaine compared to Latino or African- American youths (Jones, 2011). In summing up, the development of the justice system does not match the societal development as the system continues to treat whites as a superior race to the rest. The justice system has portrayed skewed judgments in handing the blacks longer sentences than the whites for similar crimes. The stereotyping and the naming of blacks to Africans living in American and not American citizens is also a major problem that contributes to increased racial prejudices in the country. Currently, there are much more blacks in American prisons and jails than whites and Hispanics, with more black males facing paroles and probation issues. As such, the criminal justice system suspects nonwhites of criminal activities while the whites may walk away with such criminal activities. Therefore, for the justice system to perform its mandate as required, major changes and policies have to be changed to accommodate the larger American society. Reference Boothe, D. (2007). Why are so many black men in prison? (2nd ed.). United States: Full Surface Pub. Jones, V. (2011). ARE Blacks A Criminal Race? Surprising Statistics. The Huffington post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/are-blacks-a-criminal-rac_b_8398.html Levinson, J. (2012). Implicit racial bias across the law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McKinney, K. (2005). Being white: Stories of race and racism. New York, N.Y.: Routledge. Read More