Racial Disparity In Prison Research Paper
The Race of an American Prison: A Racial Disproportion
Bethany Dowdy
ENG 122
Michelle Williams
May 27, 2013
It seems that more minorities are incarcerated as opposed to the majority; looking at the facts as they stand, a person’s ethnic background really has bearings on whether he/she is incarcerated, because more than 60% of those incarcerated are of a minority background. To say that our judicial system is not biased due to race would very much be false. There have been numerous studies performed on the said topic and they all point to our judicial system having a biased nature. Our American prisons have a disparity of minority inmate population. Racial disparity is an on-going epidemic within today’s society. This is a far larger …show more content…
Today’s incarcerated youth is made up by two-fifths African-American and one fifth Hispanic. Today’s minority youth are facing stricter punishment than their white counterparts, resulting in a larger number of minority youth jailed. The article, “Preliminary Report on Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System” (Anonymous, 2012), states that “African-Americans are over represented in the prison population because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes”. This seems to be an unfair judgment due to the fact that minorities are more than two times more likely to be searched or stopped for any kind of criminal activity based on the color of their skin. For example, “among felony drug offenders, black defendants were 62% more likely to be sentenced to prison than similarly situated white defendants.” (Anonymous, 2012) Also once convicted, African-Americans were 21% more likely to receive harsher punishment compared to white offenders with a sentence that is 10% longer than white offenders that committed similar offences. Racism in our judicial system are present at different stages of our criminal justice system including but not limited to arrest, charging, conviction, and imprisonment. According to recent research, done by the Department of Education, minority students made up more than 70% of arrested youth in the 2009-2010 school year. Young African-Americans have a higher rate of youth incarceration and are more likely to be imprisoned as adults than white
Bethany Dowdy
ENG 122
Michelle Williams
May 27, 2013
It seems that more minorities are incarcerated as opposed to the majority; looking at the facts as they stand, a person’s ethnic background really has bearings on whether he/she is incarcerated, because more than 60% of those incarcerated are of a minority background. To say that our judicial system is not biased due to race would very much be false. There have been numerous studies performed on the said topic and they all point to our judicial system having a biased nature. Our American prisons have a disparity of minority inmate population. Racial disparity is an on-going epidemic within today’s society. This is a far larger …show more content…
Today’s incarcerated youth is made up by two-fifths African-American and one fifth Hispanic. Today’s minority youth are facing stricter punishment than their white counterparts, resulting in a larger number of minority youth jailed. The article, “Preliminary Report on Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System” (Anonymous, 2012), states that “African-Americans are over represented in the prison population because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes”. This seems to be an unfair judgment due to the fact that minorities are more than two times more likely to be searched or stopped for any kind of criminal activity based on the color of their skin. For example, “among felony drug offenders, black defendants were 62% more likely to be sentenced to prison than similarly situated white defendants.” (Anonymous, 2012) Also once convicted, African-Americans were 21% more likely to receive harsher punishment compared to white offenders with a sentence that is 10% longer than white offenders that committed similar offences. Racism in our judicial system are present at different stages of our criminal justice system including but not limited to arrest, charging, conviction, and imprisonment. According to recent research, done by the Department of Education, minority students made up more than 70% of arrested youth in the 2009-2010 school year. Young African-Americans have a higher rate of youth incarceration and are more likely to be imprisoned as adults than white