Minorities In The Criminal Justice System

Minorities are being overrepresented in the criminal justice system with numbers as high as “30% of the probation population (approximately 1.2 million people), 44% of the prison population (est. 586,300), and over 40% for the parole population (est. 309,000)” all of which are African American (Taxman, Byrne, 2005). The numbers continue to grow for the Hispanic population as well “12% of probationers (491,700), 18% of parolees (136,000), and 19% of prison inmates (251,000) are Hispanic” (Taxman, Byrne, 2005). The numbers aren’t so shocking to many people because that can relate to these statistics, but these people live in this constant cycle and begin to believe that this is what is meant for them. I interviewed a young man, Franklin Walker,
The populations have a complete imbalance and this is a result because of the judges that are representing the United States justice system. In a study done by William & Mary Law School researchers found that “Black men are noticeably sentenced to higher levels within the statutory matrix than white men. The difference relative to white men is about 15 to 27 percent, and the odds ratios suggest that the levels are much higher for black men than for Hispanic men or white women” (Griffin, Sloan, Eldred, 2015). This gives people a chance to see the racial disparities that are going on, it should be wake up call to many people as to how the judges that determine these sanctions should be held accountable for. Marcus Watson, 22 African American said “Judges are the main reason why people are in the system. They’re racists and there’s no telling what they are capable of, it’s scary having to go up in from of a judge but imagine going up in front of judge that you knew was going to cage you up like an animal because of the color of your skin. Or having to go up to someone and pled your innocence even though you already know the outcome. It’s people like that that have black men scared for their lives and most important enslaved to this type of discrimination.” The points being made by this student is very true, many people feel unprotected by the people whose job is to protect everyone. We
A clear cut example of this is the Terry V. Ohio case of 1968; “the Supreme Court established the principle that the Fourth Amendment did not prohibit the police or any other law enforcement agent from stopping a person for questioning as long as they have reasonable suspicion that the target or victim might be armed and therefore pose a danger, even when that suspicion does not equate the probable cause standard necessary for an arrest. Terry would prove to be one of the legal tools used by law enforcement agencies in defense of racial profiling practices” (Kamalu, Coulson-Clark, N.M. Kamalu, 2010). Terry stops are also known as Stop and Frisk in New York and are used by police officers in that state. Law enforcement officers are given the chance to discriminate against people solely based on how they look, whether they be Hispanic or Black or White but in most cases the “suspicious” people they see on the streets are in fact African American and Latino. This has a lot to do with how police officers are being trained to do their jobs and to