Malcome Jenkins said, “After spending time with police officers on ride-alongs, meeting with politicians on the state and federal level and grass roots organizations fighting for human rights, it’s clear that our criminal justice system is still crippling communities of color through mass incarceration.” With such a significant number of news stories and occurrences encompassing the subject of race and the police nowadays, it isn’t astounding for individuals to arrive at the resolution that prejudice may exist inside the criminal equity framework.
The issues encompassing the theme of race resembles the two essences of the indistinguishable coin from there are normally opposite sides that we need to consider reality and media depictions.
The truth side of circumstances is dependably there at the time, however it is so quietly escaped society that no one comprehends it except if they witness it firsthand and with the media spreading sifted data, it turns out to be considerably harder for us to distinguish the key issue; this is particularly the situation when managing the police and racial profiling.
In the event that you turn on the news and flip to a channel where it is providing details regarding the police and their captures, you will in all probability observe a larger number of captures relating to minorities than different ethnicities. In the news, we can frequently observe a deception of ethnic minorities, normally, African-Americans, being captured when contrasted with others and this has caused issues around social orders on many occasions. In this paper, I will be discussing the reason to believe that there are racial disparities in the criminal justice system due to the amount of unfair sentencing amongst African-Americans, police brutality, and racial profiling. This is important to talk about because as a whole we need to open our eyes and realize that is becoming an issue more and more every day.
Unfair sentencing is one of many reasons to believe that there are racial issues in the justice system. “According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, between 2007 and 2011, sentences for black males were 19.5 percent longer than those for whites. Furthermore, black men were 25 percent less likely to receive sentences below the sentencing guidelines for the crime of which they were convicted.” (americanprogress). There are more than a handful of cases that prove white males will not be charged the same as a black male, for committing the same crime. “According to the commission’s report, judges are less likely to cut black men a break than white men. White men were more likely to get their sentences reduced under the judge’s discretion than black men, and white men got larger reductions than the ones black men got.” (vox). Recently in Flordia, two 17-year-old boys robbed a corner store. One white male, and one black male, each committed the same exact crime, same circumstances, but different sentencing. Allen C. Peters the white male was sentenced 6 years of probation. Jaquavias E. Sturgis was sentenced 4 years in prison. Keep in mind that they had all the same charges, as well as the same points on their trail. How is it that the same crime was committed but sentencing is the difference when it comes to race.
There are countless amounts of police brutality cases that show how often police are not held accountable for their actions. It is uncommon for police officers to be punished for their accusations. “99% of cases in 2015 have not resulted in any officer-involved being convicted of a crime.” (MappingPoliceViolince) Families have lost innocent loved ones due to officers being trigger happy and bloodthirsty towards African-Americans. There seems to be a pattern when it comes to officers handling blacks than how they approach whites. “People who are African-American/Black are twice as likely to be killed by a police officer while being unarmed compared to a Caucasian/White individual.” (The Guardian). Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Laquan McDonald, Eric Gardner, and Sandra Blan are all victims of police brutality, sad to say there is more. Each of these victims was black and were all mistreated because of the color of their skin. In each report as well as many others, each officer felt as if they were threatened or in danger, yet each victim was unarmed.
Police Brutality and Racism in America. (2022, Apr 29). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/police-brutality-and-racism-in-america/