Race in the United States criminal justice system

Racial inequality in the American criminal justice system is mostly caused by a racial imbalance in decisions to charge criminal defendants with crimes requiring a mandatory minimum prison sentence, leading to large racial disparities in incarceration.

Race inequality in prison

At the end of 2006 the Bureau of Justice released a group of data that stated that there were 3,042 black male prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,261 Hispanic male prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic males and 487 white male prisoners per 100,000 white males.

Likelihood of going to prison

The likelihood of black males going to prison in their lifetime is 28% compared to 4% of white males and 16% of Hispanic males. Other social factors include Socioeconomic status, the environment in which a person was raised, and the highest educational level a person achieves. It has been argued by some that the race a person is born into has a substantial effect on the amount of discrimination they experience in their lifetime. In a sociological experiment conducted by Steven Raphael, a black male with no criminal record applying for a certain job had a 14% chance of getting a callback for an interview while a white male applying for the same job had a 34% chance of getting a callback for an interview. If both the black male and white male had criminal records the callback percentage was 5% and 17% respectively.^[2] This shows that there are significant negative effects on blacks even after their prison sentence has been served. With less opportunity than whites to enter back into the workforce after incarceration, blacks end up having a higher rate of return to prison.

The Moynihan Report also blamed the lingering effects of slavery for contributing to the breakdown of the black family, i.e., the rise of single-parent families headed by females (which he called "matriarchy"). Moynihan said the lack of a father in the home led to poor socialization of young black males, e.g., inability to deal with authority; and that matriarchy severely reduced the esteem of men as the family "breadwinner".

Likelihood of being accused or convicted

Various studies have shown that, in recent decades, there has been no noticeable disparity in black vs white crime statistics in black-run vs white-controlled cities, say Atlanta vs San Diego. In the largest counties, the rates of conviction for accused blacks was slightly less than the conviction rates for whites, for example.

Racial inequality in the death penalty

There is also a large disparity between races when it comes to sentencing convicts to Death Row. Looking just at the federal death penalty data released by the Department of Justice between 1995–2000, 682 defendants were charged with death-eligible crimes. Out of those 682 defendants, the defendant was black 48% of the cases, Hispanic in 29% of the cases, and white in only 20% of the cases.^[3]

Contributing factors to the rise in the penal population

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe. In the 1980s U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to steadily decrease. A lot of urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law enforcement is already concentrated in the areas with high violent crime and drug crime. With this new drug legislation, the U.S. government has increased the use of incarceration for social control which has resulted in "sharper disproportionate effects on African Americans." In politics, blacks are still in the minority when it comes to winning legislative seats in the state and federal government. Because of this, legislation is being formed and issued through the eyes of the white majority in congress which has led to the continued burden in black communities across the United States.

Factors contributing to people going to prison

Blacks have a higher chance of going to prison especially if they dropout of high school. The importance of getting a high school education is the difference between going to prison and functioning as a good citizen in society. If a Black male drops out of high school they have a 32.4% chance of going to prison while their White and Hispanic counterparts have a 6.7% and 6% chance respectively.^[4] Bruce Western and Becky Pettit use the example of the age cohort that grew up during the Great Depression. These men had to learn to value economic security because of the mass unemployment during the 1930s. They delayed marriage and fatherhood in order to establish themselves with economic security to provide for their families and became the “Greatest Generation” in America. ^[4]

In the latter part of the 20th century the age cohorts born in this time period never experienced a major event in their lives like the Great Depression and therefore underestimated their roles in society which has led to less educated individuals especially among minorities. Less education in urban areas tend to lead to negative influences on children growing up in this situation. Children who have a parent in prison are easily influenced by older children in their neighborhoods. They are then exposed to the life of drugs and violent crime that can lead them to join gangs and follow the same path as those adults in their neighborhood who are incarcerated.

Effects on families and neighborhoods

With violent crime on the rise in the late 20th century coupled with the war on drugs violations, penal population growth sent shockwaves through the most fragile families and neighborhoods that were least equipped to deal with the problem.^[4] Since the majority of people in the prison population are minorities and lower class individuals, the people they leave behind have to deal with extraordinary circumstances. This burden has left families broken and children are the victims of single-parent homes which increases the percentage of these children going to jail earlier than most. With the majority of the prison population being men, "women are left in free society to raise families and contend with ex-prisoners returning home after release."^[4]

Children raised in single-parent homes are less supervised which leads to less emphasis on education and self-determination. The result of this situation is that society is damaged and has to take on the financial burden of children growing up in crime ridden neighborhoods and going to prison. When a family member is arrested, the family loses not only that person's income, but also acquire additional expenses involved in keeping contact with the incarcerated family member.^[3] Mothers then have to leave the home and children behind to take on more jobs in order to provide the basic needs for the family. As a result, the children are left behind to fend for themselves and get involved with the wrong people who will guide them down the path that their incarcerated family member went down.