Racial bias within the Criminal Justice
System contributes to the Overrepresentation of African-American Males in
correctional facilities
By Dianne A. Williams, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice, Livingstone
College, Salisbury, North Carolinia
Abstract
This paper attempts to identify a correlation between race,
rate of incarceration, and severity of sentencing for drug related crimes. Statistical data was analyzed and an overview
of the information is presented. The
statistical review reveals a substantial, but disproportionate increase in the
rate of incarceration of African-American males for drug related crimes. Additionally, there is disparate handling of
African-Americans compared to Anglo-Americans throughout the process of arrest
to incarceration. Legislative policy
that was implemented to control crime appears to support economic, geographic
and cultural biases, which have resulted in disproportionate overrepresentation
of African-Americans in correctional facilities. Stricter guidelines are needed to ensure that
arresting and sentencing policies are applied across the board regardless of
race.
Introduction
Incarceration
rates are determined by criminal justice policy, which includes sentencing
legislation, parole policies, overall crime rates, violent crime rates and
severity of sentencing. Social policy
includes the availability of alternative sentencing options and community
resources and cultural attitudes toward punishment. Every society attempts to establish a
reasonable coexistence between both. Our
society has not been successful.
Research
suggests that a society’s penal climate or its penchant for punishment is
linked to its perception of social equality (Mauer
1999 ). The greater a society’s
tolerance for inequality, the more likely that society is to support extreme
punishment. So, the severity of
sentencing represents a negative reward
for those at the lower end of the economic spectrum and a positive rewards for those with income and
status. In a society such as ours,
therefore, which supports and encourages great disparity in wealth and social
standing, we should not be surprised to see harsher cultural attitudes toward
sentencing policy.
African-American
communities are becoming increasingly concerned with police treatment in
particular and with the criminal justice system in general. Although this country’s
criminal justice system
is based on equality before the law and during the administrative process of
the law-- from the officer on the beat to the Supreme Court-- the reality is
that it is predicated on the exploitation of economic, geographic and social
inequalities.
The Supreme Court has ruled that
under the terms of the Fourth Amendment a police officer must have reasonable
suspicion--probable cause--before conducting a search and seizure. ( Mallor et al,
1998 ). Yet it is the Supreme Court that continues to created exceptions that
permit the police to invade privacy without probable cause, particularly in
cases involving minorities who are less likely to assert their legal right to
refuse.
African-Americans make up
13% of the national population yet African-American males are incarcerated 9.6
times the rate of Anglo-American males (Mauer,
1999). They comprise 13% of monthly drug
users yet are 39% % of drug arrests.
From 1986 to 1991, the number of African-American drug offenders in
state prisons has more than quintupled from 14,000 to 80,000 (Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, various years). In 1993 African-Americans made up 45.7% of
all arrests for violent crime. Which
means that Anglo-Americans made up 54.3%.
Yet African-Americans were convicted and incarcerated at rates of 55 %
and 74% respectively (Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports,
various years).
For drug
related crimes in particular, National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP)
research shows that African-Americans comprise 62.7 % and Anglo-Americans 36.7
% of all drug offenders admitted to state prison, even though federal surveys
and other data detailed in this report clearly show that this racial disparity
is alarmingly disproportionate to the racial differences in drug use and even
drug arrests. There are, for example,
five times more Anglo-American drug users than African-American. Relative to
population, African-American men are admitted to state prison on drug charges
at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than that of Anglo-American men (National
Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP), 2001).
It would appear, therefore that the racial disparities in incarceration
for drug offenses, has a significant impact on the overall rate of incarceration
of African-American males compared to Anglo-American males. African-American males are incarcerated for
all offenses at 8.2 times the rate of Anglo-Americans.
One in every
20 African-American men over the age of 18 in the United States is in state or
federal prison, compared to one in 180 Anglo-American men. Shocking as such
national statistics are, they mask even worse racial disparities in individual
states. In seven states, for example, African-Americans constitute between 80
and 90 % of all drug offenders sent to prison. In at least fifteen states,
African-American men are admitted to prison on drug charges at rates that are
from 20 to 57 times greater than those of Anglo-American men (NCRP, 2000).
There is a
considerable range in prison incarceration rates among U.S. states. Minnesota has the lowest rate, 121 prisoners
per 100,000 residents, and Louisiana the highest, with a rate of 763. Almost every state has a prison incarceration
rate that greatly exceeds those of other western democracies, in which between
35 and 145 residents per 100,000 are behind bars on an average day. The
District of Columbia, an entirely urban jurisdiction, has a rate of 1,600. Thirty-two states have mandatory minimum
sentencing laws for drug offenses (Bureau of Justice Assistance, "National
Assessment of Structured Sentencing" U.S. Department of Justice, 1996).
These racial
disparities in drug offenders admitted to prison skew the racial balance of
state prison populations. In two states, one in every 13 African-American men
is in prison. In seven states, African-Americans are incarcerated at more than
13 times the rate of Anglo-Americans. The imprisonment of African-Americans for
drug offenses is part of a larger crisis of over incarceration in the United
States. Prison was intended to be used
as a last resort to protect society from violent or dangerous individuals. Today, more people are sent to prison in the
United States for nonviolent drug offenses than for crimes of violence.
Throughout the 1990s, more than one hundred thousand drug offenders were sent
to prison annually. More than 1.5 million prison admissions on drug charges
have occurred since 1980 and the rate at which drug offenders are incarcerated
has increased nine fold.
Drug policies constitute
the single most significant factor contributing to the rise in prison
populations in recent years with the number of incarcerated drug offenders
rising 510% from 1989 to 1994. In
eleven states the rate of incarceration of African-American males is 12 to 26
times that of Anglo-American males and in D.C. the rate is 49 times. Nationally, incarceration rates amongst
African-American males have grown exponentially from 39% in 1979 to 53% in 1990
(new convictions only) (National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 1995).
The arrest rate for
African-Americans for violent crime is
45%. Although grossly
disproportionate this rate has not changed significantly for the past two
decades. For drug offenses, however,
the African-American proportion of arrests increased from 24% in 1980 to 39% in
1993, well above the African-American proportion of drug users nationally (BJS
1998 Sourcebook). Mauer
(1991) summarizes drug offense processing and its impact on African-Americans
as follows.
(1)
Drug arrests have almost tripled since 1980,
rising from 471,000 in 1980 to 1,351,000 by 1994
(2)
the African-American proportion of drug arrests
has increased during this time as well, rising from 24% in 1980 to 38% in 1994,
and,
(3)
the chances of imprisonment after being arrested
for a drug offense have increased dramatically, rising by more than 400% from
1980 to 1992.
The U.S. rate
of incarceration is 519 per 100,000, second in the world amongst industrialized
nation having increased by 22 % since 1989.
This rate is 5 to 8 times the rate of almost all other industrialized
nations and sadly enough, of the 1.3 million Americans behind bars 583,000 or
almost 50% are African-American. Bear in
mind the fact that 537,000 African-American males are enrolled in higher
education (Mauer, 1992). These numbers should be cause for grave
concern.
The past two
decades have witnessed dramatic growth in the United States prison
population. In 1975 there were 250,000
persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons as compared to the nearly 1.3
million as of mid 1999 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999). Most commentators attribute this exponential
growth to the increasingly severe sentencing practices for drug offenses (Mauer, 1999; Skolnick, 1997; Tonry,
1995). They have determined that that
the risk of receiving a prison sentence for a drug offense increased by 447 %
between 1980 and 1992 and that the percentage of state prisoners incarcerated
for a drug offense nearly quadrupled from 6% in 1980 to 23% in 1996. Similarly,
the percentage of federal prisoners serving time for a drug offense increased
from 25 % in 1980 to 60 % in 1996. In fact, the increase in drug offenders
accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total increase in federal inmates
and one-third of the total increase in state inmates during this 16-year period
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1998).
These
statistics reflect a crime control policy based on a “superficially persuasive:
theory of deterrence” (Skolnick, 1997, p. 411) The assumption is that
subjecting drug offenders to long prison sentences will deter current and
prospective offenders and will eventually lead to an overall reduction in drug abuse and drug-related
crime. The general consensus is, however,
that this theory rests on the
unsupported assumption that altering criminal penalties will alter behavior
(Irwin & Austin, 1997; Paternoster, 1987, 1991; Tonry,
1995). In fact, research generally supports the conclusion that increasing the
severity of penalties will have little or not effect on crime (see Caulkins, Rydell, Schwabe, & Chiesa, 1997 and Speckart, Anglin, & Deschenes, 1989 for research that assesses the deterrent
effects of punishment for drug offenders).
Critics of the
‘War on Drugs’ argue, however, that public safety has not improved as a result
of the race to incarcerate (Irwin & Austin, 1997, p. 140). Instead, these critics suggests that at
least two-thirds of the $13 billion the United States spends annually to wage
the War on Drugs should be reallocated to treatment and prevention of drug
related illnesses (Skolnick,1997).
Additionally, the criminal justice system should challenge itself to
create a program geared to eliminating drug related cases while providing
treatment for those drug related offenders (Belenko,1990, p. 70).
Just as our
constitutional rights depend upon double standards, so, it appears, do our
incarceration policies. We currently confine about two million people, making
us the world leader in per capita incarceration. Our rate is approximately five times higher
than that of the next highest industrialized nation. About half of those behind bars are there for
nonviolent offenses and the burden of this incarceration policy is born by
minorities and the impoverished.
Moreover, for every African-American man who graduates college each
year, 100 are arrested.
On any given
day, one in three African-American men in their twenties is in prison or jail
or on probation or parole. The per capita incarceration rate among
African-Americans is seven times that among Anglo-Americans. And, most
significantly, at the current rate, one of every four African-American male
babies born in hospitals across the country today can expect to spend a year or
more of his life in prison (Mauer, 1999).
If the incarceration rates were
reversed, and one in four Anglo-American male babies born faced the prospect of
a year or more in prison, we could expect the politics of crime would change
dramatically. Instead of ‘three strikes
and you're out’ laws, mandatory minimums and more severe sentences and the
elimination of parole, we would probably
be faced with a host of lobbyists demanding more humane policies such as
mandatory treatment for drug offenders,
more programs to encourage kids to stay in school and job training programs. Unfortunately, as long as the majority
remains unaffected we, as a society will continue to bury our heads in the
sand.
Double
standards undermine law enforcement. It
breeds resentment and alienates minorities and the poor. As long as African-Americans
see the criminal justice system as biased they will be less likely to cooperate
with police. In addition, people who
have lost respect for the letter of the law are more likely to break the law
themselves. Racial profiling does the
same. Using racial generalizations to decide whom to watch, approach, stop,
search or arrest is becoming a major part of policing culture. But is it not obvious that if minorities are
stopped more, all things being equal, they will be arrested more? But, says Mauer “if
low-income youth are more subject to police scrutiny and have fewer counseling
and treatment resources available to them than middle class adolescents, their
youthful criminal activities will more likely result in a criminal record that
will affect their chances of going to prison later on” (Mauer,
1999).
Another subtle
strategy of the criminal justice system is its non-clinical differentiation
between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
The disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine is
overwhelming. Persons convicted of crack
possession receive a mandatory prison term of 5 years by possessing only
one-hundredth of the quantity of cocaine those charged with powder cocaine
possess. Fourteen states already have
statutes that distinguish between crack and powder cocaine in sentencing. The U.S Sentencing Commission found that
African-Americans accounted for 84.5% of federal crack possession convictions in
1993, but only accounted for 38% of those who report using crack during the
same period.. The Sentencing Commission
has also reported that a person convicted of trafficking in five grams of crack
with a maximum retail value of $750 will receive the same sentence as an
offender charged with selling 500 grams of powder cocaine retailing for $50,000
(U.S Sentencing Commission, 1992).
This phenomenon is significant when
considered with the rationalization of the likes of Hagedorn
who concluded that: “Long and mandatory
prison terms for use and intent to sell cocaine lump those who are committed to
the drug economy with those who are using or are selling in order to
survive. Our prisons are filled
disproportionately with minority drug offenders…who in essence are being
punished for the ‘crime ‘ of not accepting poverty or of being addicted to
cocaine” (Hagedorn,
1998). Ongoing research supports the
argument that the hard and fast, yet biased rules that have been adopted to
fight the war on drugs have been so unsuccessful that consideration should be
given to equitable and unbiased availability of jobs, improved accessibility to
drug treatment, alternative sentencing, and, perhaps, even decriminalization of
nonviolent drug offenses.
A 1990 study by Peter Reuter and his colleagues
at RAND examined the criminal histories and demographics of young
African-American males arrested for drug distribution in Washington, D.C. since
they comprised the vast majority of persons arrested for that offense. The intention was to document the extent to
which drug dealing has become a source of income. One-sixth of the African-American males born
in 1967 had been arrested for drug distribution by the age of 20, and there
were projections of one-quarter having an arrest by the age of 29. Two-thirds of the offenders had been employed
at the time of arrest, primarily at low-wage jobs with an average income of
$800 per month. Drug dealing had, in
fact, become a second job for some of these young men, who were able to earn,
on average, $2000 per month in drug sales (Reuter, 1990, Wilson, 1987).
History has shown repeatedly that
there is a direct correlation between poverty and crime. As a group, young African-Americans are
generally worse off than their Anglo-American counterparts regardless of their
social standing. Economically, the
lowest fifth of African-American families was on average 45% worse off than the
lowest fifth of Anglo-American families.
The second lowest fifth of African-American families on average were 53%
worse off than corresponding Anglo-Americans (Swinton,
1987). Additionally, 45% of
African-American males under 18 were living in households with incomes below
the poverty level whereas 15% of similarly aged Anglo-Americans lived in a
comparable manner (Gibbs, 1988).
Moreover, U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 data revealed that
African-American youths were three times more likely to live in poverty that
their Anglo-American counterparts. When
national unemployment rate was 7.5%, unemployment among African-Americans was
16% and overall 43% of all working age African-American males (almost 4
million) may be out of a job. This
translates to 11% unemployed another 19% out of the labor force 2% incarcerated
and 11% unaccounted for (Joe, 1987).
James Lynch
and William Sabol point to additional significant
racial effects of law enforcement practices.
They analyzed data on incarceration rates, race and class from 1979-1991
and classified inmates as either underclassed or non underclassed (working class or middle class) based on
educational background, employment history and income. They concluded that the most significant
increase in incarceration rates was for working class African-American drug
offenders, whose rated increased 6 times in a 12 year period. The trend for Anglo-Americans, on the other
hand was just the opposite with underclassed drug
incarceration for Anglo-Americans doubling during the same period. They suggested that increased targeting of
African-American working and middle class citizens for supposedly discretionary
drug enforcement and ultimately increased incarceration for drug offenses was
the cause. The immunity that working and middle class status used to bring in
the African-American community (and still does among Anglo-Americans) is all
but lost (Lynch and Sabol, 1997).
While the
processes that produced these outcomes may not have been racially motivated in
intent, and we have no proof of that , the bottom line is that they have
resulted in racially disparate outcomes. Additionally, there is the potential
for a ‘spillover effect’ from the combination of residential racial segregation
and law enforcement profiling which will only serve to herd more non-underclass
African-Americans into the criminal justice system.
Declining federal funding combined
with the inability of mental health organizations to address more subtle forms
of discriminatory practices in health care settings, as well as increasingly
narrow interpretations by the courts, and a the lack of adequate monitoring mechanism
for monitoring of providers, all contribute to disparate levels in the
availability of mental health services for minorities. There are many other
indicators of racial disparity in the mental health system beyond the direct
control of health services providers and disparities in income, wealth,
insurance, housing, and environmental risk exposures also play important
roles.
Not only must
we deal with racial disparities but we are also faced within the African
American community we are also faced with the issue of gender. While acts of physical violence are
relatively rare between both sexes, they are very much common among men.
Differential parenting styles result in the great disparity among men and
women. Although more women are committing crimes, the nation must develop a way
in which we can raise children without gender differences (Glietman,1999).
Men commit a
large percentage of all crime (BJS, various years). Perhaps discovering the
reason for this phenomenon will provide society with the answer to the
prevention crime. Nonetheless experts
such as Glietman and Weiten
have theorized that the problem lies in the fact that men and women are
socialized differently according to their gender roles. They argue that males
and females receive differential treatment during childhood. Boys are expected
to be tough, strong and independent, whereas the girls are expected to be soft
and dependent. Because of this, boys are allowed to stay out until after dark,
while girls must go home before sundown. Parents have more confidence in their
male children that they can be on their own and that girls need more parental
guidance (Glietman,1999; Weiten, 2001).
Although this
difference continues into adulthood, BJS statistics have identified an increase
in the number of women criminals, which is being blamed on the present
transition in gender roles (BJS, various years). This transition in genders may be directly
related to the exponential increase in incarcerated African-American males,
which would result in African-American women having to assume the role of head
of household. So, from a mental health
perspective, the criminal justice system could be slowly and subtly destroying
the African-Americans family unit.
A 1994 review
of statistical literature on the relationship between imprisonment rates and
crime rates concluded that a 10 % increase in the likelihood of being
imprisoned after conviction for a violent crime would reduce violent crime by
about 7 %. Still, as Joan Pertersilia has observed, “it is one thing to say that a
person will not commit a crime while incarcerated and quite another to say that
society's overall crime rate will be affected by the increased use of
imprisonment” (Pertesilia, 1992).
In
1989, there were an estimated 66,000 fewer rapes, 323,000 fewer robberies,
380,000 fewer assaults, and 3.3 million fewer burglaries attributable to the
difference between the crime rates of 1973 versus those of 1989 (i.e., applying
1973 crime rates to the 1989 population). Langan
reports “if only one-half or one-quarter of the reductions were the result of
rising incarceration rates, that would still leave prisons responsible for
sizable reductions in crime. Tripling the prison population from 1975 to 1989
potentially reduced reported and unreported violent crime by 10 to 15 % below
what it would have been, thereby potentially preventing a conservatively
estimated 390,000 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults in 1989
alone” (Langan 1994).
It is the
general consensus of criminal justice critics that increased penalties for drug
use and distribution have had a negligible impact on the operation of illicit
drug markets, on the price and availability of illicit drugs, and on
consumption of illicit drugs (Cohen, 1998, p. 1260).
Additionally,
those critics of the crime control approach, who maintain that the War on Drugs
has failed and that “public safety has not improved as a result of the
imprisonment binge” (Irwin & Austin, 1997, p.140), have called for a new
approach that effectively combines public safety and public health needs. While acknowledging that imprisonment may be
appropriate penalty for some offenders, from a public health perspective it has
become necessary to contemplate alternatives to incarceration (Skolnick, 1997).
There is now a
litany of arguments for drug abuse treatment programs to reduce drug use and
drug-related crime (see Anglin & Hser, 1990 for a summary).
Positive results have been noted for both community-based treatment
(Benedict, Huff-Corzine, & Corzine,
1998; McCorkel, Harrison, & Inciardi,
1998; Smith & Akers, 1993), and for treatment within a correctional
institution (Field, 1984; Inciardi, Lockwood, &
Hooper, 1994; Mullen,1996; Tunis, Austin, Morris, Hardyman,
& Bolyard, 1996; Wexler,
Falkin, & Lipton, 1990).
In addition to
the process of drug abuse treatment, and for those who need no treatment by
need supervision, Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that over 90 % of all
probationers are part of a punishment system that begins with substance abuse
counseling but successfully encompasses house arrest, community service and
victim restitution programs, to name a few. Bear in mind, though, that it has been
determined that these intermediate sanctions have not proven effective for high
risk probationers or those who pose a threat to the public. It is also felt that these programs are
more expensive than routine probation and defeat the purpose in the long run
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999).
Community
corrections would be effective as a sentencing alternative if, and only if, it
was applied across the board regardless of race or culture. Not only would it
reduce overall annual cost of incarceration but, if executed in an unbiased
manner, should reduce the rates of incarceration and, more importantly, the
rate of recidivism especially among African-American males. Allen and Simonsen
(1989) argue that implementation of community corrections policy would weaken
the efficacy of the concept of incarceration which is that isolation is the
only effective punishment. But in view of the fact that rates of recidivism are
rising exponentially and the cost of maintaining institutional programs are
exorbitant, community corrections as a sentencing alternative may be the only
viable option. However, the success of Private Profiteering as it relates to
the prison industry has become a significant challenge to the success of
community corrections.
Bureau of Statistics (2000)
reports that over 63% of adults on probation are Anglo-American while only 34%
are African-American and 55% of parolees are Anglo-American while 44% are
African-American. If the statistics show bias, the research shows bias and the
bias continues to exist it is unlikely that community correction absent a
series of solid checks and balances would solve the problem. There is no doubt that there is a desperate
need to erase sentencing inequality across racial and cultural lines, however,
by the time the problem of sentencing arises it is in its final stages. The problem begins with disparate community
policing and racial profiling and since most criminologists and advocates
against incarceration say that we cannot
build our way out of the problem the question still remains, how do we solve
it?
The quality of legal representation
is also a significant factor in the severity of after-arrest activity. According to the Justice Department's Bureau
of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 1998 two out of every three federal felony
defendants were represented by publicly-financed counsel. Public defense involves the use of
publicly-financed counsel to represent indigent defendants who are unable to afford
private counsel. Obviously the quality of representation will be crucial when
such large numbers are being considerer.
Surprisingly, the data, presented in a BJS report on indigent defense
also supports an alternate theory that conviction rates for indigent defendants
and those with their own lawyers are about the same in federal and state
courts. About 90 % of the federal defendants and 75 % of the defendants in the
most populous counties were found guilty regardless of the caliber of their
legal representation.
On the other hand, the statistics
also show that those offenders who are represented by publicly-financed
attorneys and are found guilty are incarcerated at a higher rate than those
defendants who paid for their own legal representation; 88 % compared to 77 %
in federal courts and 71 % compared to 54 % in state courts. Additionally, sentence lengths for convicted
offenders are shorter, on average, for those with publicly-financed attorneys
than for those who hired counsel.
Moreover, about 50% of felony defendants in large urban counties with
public counsel and over 75% of felony defendants with private counsel were
released from jail before trial. Bail was granted to 57 % with public counsel
and 65 % with private attorneys. And, of those offenders who were allowed bail,
over 30% of those who had a public attorney and 75% of those with a hired
attorney were released before adjudication.
Seventy-five % of state and federal prison inmates who had a public
defender or assigned counsel and 66 % with their own counsel either pleaded guilty
to the charges or did not contest them.
While 69 % of white inmates in state prison reported they had lawyers
appointed by the court, 77 % of blacks.
In federal prison black inmates were
more likely than whites and Hispanics to have public counsel 65 % for blacks,
57 % for whites and 56 % for Hispanics.
So although it can be argued that in cases of public versus private
legal representation the outcome is statistically the same, it would appear
that the type of representation is still significant as far as sentencing rate
of incarceration, severity of sentencing, pretrial release, release before
adjudication, and granting of bail are concerned.
Court-appointed counsels should
receive a fair sum of financial funding to ensure legitimate representation for
indigent defendants. By providing court-appointed counsels with more financial
resources, defendants will have stronger cases against the prosecution. The
court-appointed lawyer can obtain expert witnesses or conduct competent
investigations. In an effort to
eliminate bias and discrimination during the process of sentencing in any
trial, strict guidelines should be made by which jurors and judges are guided
to make a decisions. Perhaps sentences
should be more narrowly assigned to the various crimes such that jurors and
judges have less room to include their personal beliefs and biases.
Stricter guidelines must be put in
place to prevent the inconsistencies
that are prevalent in the sentencing process. It is not fair that two people
who commit similar crimes receive different sentences. Every criminal act must have particular
punishment. The jury and even the judge
must not be given the power to choose within a broad range of sentences, such
as one to nine years. The consequence must be narrowly defined with the
possibility of additional jail being incurred with each criminal act. For example and offender might receive two to
three years for possession of a deadly weapon and four to five years for
causing bodily harm to the victim. When all violations of the law are assessed,
it should be easy to calculate punishment without considering the race, class,
or gender of an individual. Race, class and gender should not be factors in
deciding the sentence for criminal behavior because it is the crime, not the
criminal, that is on trial.
When offenders are sentenced to jail
time, the judicial system must ensure that theses offenders serve the time that
they have been sentenced to. If parole is a consideration, it should be a
consideration across the board regardless of race. Prisoners, on the whole, are only serving 20%
of their sentence because of overcrowding in correctional facilities (Bedau 1997). All
other variables being equal, this is acceptable as long as race is not a
consideration in the decision making process.
After
all is said and done it is only fair to give credit where it is due. In the January Session of the 1999 General
Assembly, Substitute Bill No. 7089 was passed.
This bill is entitled An Act Concerning Racial Disparity in the
Criminal Justice System. In theory
Bill No. 7089 addresses all the issues presented in this paper with an apparent
intention to rectify. But is it feasible
to expect corrective action to be feasible at this stage where disparate
treatment and discrimination have permeated the very fabric of the criminal
justice system. And even when these
band-aid solutions are implemented can it effectively eliminate the racial
subtleties that have become the system’s foundation.
How do we
restore a sense of legitimacy to our criminal justice system? All fingers point to legislative policy. Adopting double standards must itself become
a punishable crime. Police departments
must become more representative of the communities they serve and diversity
training must become the norm. Society
must proactively seek alternative methods of dealing with crime since
incarceration is obviously not the answer.
Policies must be put in place to get and keep the media under
control. The media breathes fear in the
population at large and this fear fuels unreasonable reaction in power hungry
politicians.
It is the fear
of crime rather than crime itself shapes criminal justice policies (lobbying,
media sensationalism) and politicians
capitalize on society’s fears about crime (caused by the media) and use this
fear to feed campaign strategy.
Moreover, the issue of private profiteering must be addressed. Prison-industrial complexes have become
lucrative and profitable businesses and as long as private corporations are
allowed to profit from prison labor the efforts made to support an impartial
criminal justice system will always be suspect.
Mauer
(1990) found that 23% of all African-American males in the U. S. age 20 to 29
have been either in prison, jail, probation, or on parole. By 1994 that figure
had increased to 30.2% (Mauer, 1995). In contrast, Anglo-American males of the same
age had an incarceration/parole rate of 6.7% for the same period.. Coggins (1990) pointed out that in the larger metropolitan
cities as much as 40% of the African-American male population could be affected
by the legal system in one capacity or another.
Could this
fact be related to the Coggins argument that at the
time of arrest, 63% of African American males were unemployed, 41% had less
than a 12th grade education and generally, the annual income $4,000 below the
federally mandated poverty level (Coggins,
1990)? Well, FBI crime data for 1997
show that African-Americans are seven times more likely than Anglo-Americans to
be homicide victims and eight times more likely than Anglo-Americans to commit
homicides. Ten years earlier Wilson
(1987) warned that structural changes in the society, relative to the labor
market and hiring practices by some businesses, would fuel the societal stress
evident in inner-city African-American male youth population as it relates to
violence; a significant factor is the impact of the joblessness ratio between
African-American and Anglo-American males upon leaving secondary school (Tatum,
1996). No one listened. The results
speak for themselves.
Today,
African-American males remain unemployed anywhere from two to four times the
rate of Anglo-American males at all levels in the society, with unemployment
for African-American male youths between 16 and 19 years being particularly
high (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2000). This income differentiation has
caused a disproportionate number of young African-American males and those with
families to live in poverty. As a result, many often become delinquent and
involved themselves in crime in order to survive.
To charge,
prosecute, and incarcerate this group cost U. S. taxpayers billions of dollars
annually. According to Conciatore (1989) the
government spends more money housing African-American male prisoners than
preparing them for a higher education and the job market. Yet the very leaders that create committees
to monitor spending in these areas are the very leaders, who, by their actions
or their refusal to take action, support this type of spending. So perhaps it can be argued after all, (as Mauer seems to suggested ) that the growth of the criminal
justice system in the past twenty years has coincided with a host of factors
including, but not necessarily limited to, economics and the changes in social
policies. And these changes in social
policy have had a profound effect on income distribution, employment
opportunities, community development, and family structure in every segment of
society but especially in African-American communities.
Conclusion
In 1998, the
Advisory Board to the President’s Initiative on Race presented recommendations
to the president titled One America in the 21st Century: Forging
a New Future. Among other things,
this report identified an under-representation of minorities in law enforcement
professions (President’s Advisory board, 1998).
The BJS Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1996, had already
pointed out that 81% of full-time sworn personnel in local police departments
were Anglo-American as compared to 11% African-American. Additionally, BJS stated that 68% of
correctional officers in state adult correctional systems are Anglo-American
compared to 23% African-American. This
is, of course, supported by other societal factors which play additional roles
in the over-and under representation of minorities in the criminal justice
system. These factors include, but are
in no way limited to, employment opportunities and other economic conditions,
educational opportunities, minority role models, and the portrayal of
minorities in the media.
The common societal goal of the criminal justice system
should be to build and support safe communities and neighborhoods. Minority issues prevent the effective
execution of these goals. There is still
an urgent need to deal with such issues as:
·
Conscious and unconscious tensions and stresses
between minorities and law enforcement personnel
·
Accurate reporting of racially motivated hate
crimes
·
Minorities as crime victims
·
Racial profiling by law enforcement officials
and its detrimental effect on community
relations and prison crowding.
·
Minority access to the court system and adequate
legal representation
·
Disparate minority treatment Re parole and
probation
·
Racially biased effects of drug laws and
enforcement strategies
·
Evaluation standards for law enforcement
personnel
·
Racially disparate sentencing patterns.
Until this
society is willing to acknowledge its shortcomings and make genuine efforts to
correct injustices, the cancer of minority issues will continue to spread
silently within the
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