“Biases Against Minorities in the Criminal Justice System”
By: Michael Bryan
“You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.” This is a quote from English politician, philanthropist, and leader of the movement to eradicate the slave trade, William Wilberforce. For this research article, I’m going to focus my research around the topic, biases against minorities in the criminal justice system. There are many different forms of biases against minorities in the criminal justice system; however, I’m going to focus on the biases against minorities, in regard to: drug-related offenses, capital punishment, sentencing disparities, and the number of offenders whose probation is revoked by race. I believe by focusing on the four categories above; research will show, there is biases against minorities in the criminal justice system.
First, I’m going to discuss how there is bias against minorities when involving drug-related offences. According to Bill Quigley (2011, Huffington Post), “Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice. African Americans are arrested for drug-related offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than rate for whites- according to a May 2009 report on racial disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch.” One of the biggest reasons as to why drug arrests are much higher for minorities than Caucasians is because of the rate of police officers stopping minorities being more frequent than the rate of Caucasians being stopped. New York City uses “stop and frisk,” which is, if a police officer has reasonable suspicion to stop an individual for questioning and frisk is when the police pat-down or search minimally to discover weapons. Although “stop and frisk” is used to deter guns, it does show how police officers will stop minorities more often than whites.
Bill Quigley (2011, Huffington Post) states, “In New York City, where people of color makeup about half the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were blacks and latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked.” This statistic alone highlights the fact that police officers have a pre-assumption of minorities than whites in regard to the initial encounter between a police officer and an individual of minority descent. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, “there were more than 3 million admissions to prison for drug offenses between 1993 and 2009 in the United States,” with African Americans comprising thirty-one percent of individuals arrested for drug offenses and forty-percent of those incarcerated in prison. Latinos make up twenty percent of individuals in state prisons for drug offenses and thirty-seven percent of individuals incarcerated with drug offenses. I believe the statistics above show there is bias against minorities in regards to drug offenses because of the likelihood of a minority being stopped compared to a Caucasian being stopped. The Drug Policy Alliance also stated, “Nearly 80 percent of people in federal prison and almost 60 percent of people in state prison for drug offenses are either black or Latino.” This number is startling because it shows that Caucasians are less likely to get in trouble for drug-related offenses than minorities which is a bias against minorities.
Next, I’m going to discuss biases against minorities in regard to capital punishment. Capital punishment, is the use of the death penalty to punish wrong doers for certain crimes, such as, murder. In the United States, thirty-one states currently practice the death penalty and eighteen other states have the practice banned. According to the Death Penalty Information Center (2012), “56% of death row inmates are black or Hispanic.” One of the leading factors to capital punishment convictions is the race of the victim. According to David A. Love (2012), “77% of the victims in capital punishment convictions were white.” This statistic shows that if a minority offender facing capital punishment victimizes an individual of Caucasian descent, the minority offender is more likely to be convicted than if the victim was of minority descent.
According to David R. Dow (2011, New York Times), “David C. Baldus, along with two colleagues, published a study examining more than 2,000 homicides that took place in Georgia beginning in 1972. They found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants and that murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks.” As of 2014, Matt Ford (The Alantic,2014) stated, “the national death row population is roughly 42 percent black- nearly three times the proportion in general population.” One of the biggest issues with the number of minorities on death row is the number of minorities who have been exonerated and found to be wrongfully convicted. Since 1989, the Innocence Report reported “over three-hundred and forty-seven individuals sentenced to death have been exonerated, including: two-hundred and fifteen African Americans, one-hundred and five Caucasians, twenty-five Latinos, and two Asian American.” Next, I’m going to discuss biases against minorities in regard to sentencing disparities.
A sentencing disparity is a situation in which those convicted of similar crimes do not receive similar sentences. Sentencing disparity occurs when three different expectations are not met, which includes: criminals receive similar sentences for different crimes of unequal seriousness, criminals receive different sentences for similar crimes, and mitigating or aggravating circumstances have disproportionate effect on sentences. According to FindLaw (N.G), “Many different factors are considered by judges, which includes: whether the offender is a “first time” or repeat offenders, whether the offender was an accessory or the main offender, whether the offender committed the crime under great personal stress or duress, whether anyone was hurt, or whether the offender was particularly cruel to a victim or if the offender is remorseful.” A major factor in regard to biases against minorities during sentencing is legal counsel.
If an offender is unable to afford private legal counsel, the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to proper representation when accused of a criminal offense. According to Elizabeth Renter (2010, Huffington Post), “More than 75% of criminal cases use the public defense system,” Renter continues, “of these citizens using the public defense system, racial minorities constitute the vast majority with 25.3% of the Hispanic population and 25.8% of the African American population living in poverty.” Although public defenders aren’t considered to be “bad” attorneys; they’re however, overworked and under-paid and handle many cases on a day-by-day basis which can cause an offender to receive a harsher penalty than if represented by a private attorney. According to Marc Maurer (Sentencing Project), “African-Americans are 21% more likely to receive mandatory minimum sentences than whites and 20% more likely to be sentenced to prison than white defendants.” Next, I’m going to discuss biases against minorities when involving probation and parole revocation.
Probation is a criminal sanction in which a convict is allowed to remain in the community rather than be imprisoned. Probation is the most common form of punishment in the United States with the Bureau of Justice statistics (2014) reporting that fifty-six percent of the majority of convicts are on probation. According to Christopher Hartney and Linh Vuong (2009. National Council on crime and delinquency), “states with the highest overrepresentation of African Americans on probation- each with rates approximately 5 or more times higher than those for whites- were Iowa, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.” Revocation, or probation revocation, is the formal process by which probation is ended and a probationer is punished for his or her wrongdoing, often being sent to jail or prisoner for the original term decided by the court.
In a study conducted by Jesse Janetta and Jeremy Porter (2014. Urban Institute), the two discovered a “consistent presence of disparity in probationer revocation outcomes to the disadvantage of black probationers. Revocation rates for black probationers were higher than for white and Hispanic probationers in every study site.” The study also concluded that “revocation rates for Hispanics probationers were lower than those of black probationers,” however, in New York City, Hispanic probationers experienced revocation at a higher rate than white probationers.
In the article, “Justice Study Finds No Racial Bias,” Karen Gullo discusses how the Justice Department reviewed federal cases and concluded there was no evidence of racial bias in regards to capital punishment. According to Attorney General John Ashcroft, “Our analysis has confirmed that black and Hispanic defendants were less likely at each stage of the departments review process to be subjected to the death penalty than white defendants,” he concluded by stating, “Differences in state laws governing criminal cases, decisions by state Prosecutors and geographical factors account for the fact that the majority of defendants facing federal death sentences are minorities. Although I have pointed out biases against minorities in the criminal justice system, there’s however, believers that there is no biases against minorities in the criminal justice system.
A number of supporters of capital punishment are in support because they believe the death penalty is “just punishment” when dealing with someone who commits an heinous crime. According to Chris Goodnow, “While its utility as a deterrent to future crime is hotly disputed, capital punishment is an effective prosecutorial tool, ensuring the greatest justice for the largest number. It values the lives of lawful citizens above those who have consciously sacrificed their right to live by murdering a fellow human being. If a man is said to own himself, then there is no surer way to give up that ownership than to irredeemably obliterate the self-ownership of another. In what may appear to be an incongruent paradox, the death penalty is the surest way to uphold the sanctity of life.” Capital punishment has proven to be effective when dealing with mass murders such as the Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh.
As I was conducting research on the topic of biases against minorities in the criminal justice system, I had a difficult time finding information as to why there is no racial biases in the criminal justice system. I believe I had a hard time finding information because whether it’s an, conscious or unconscious thought, biases and racism does exists in the United States criminal justice system. I believe it exists in modern day policing, court rooms, juror decisions, community corrections, jails, and in prisons. I believe trends of police brutality in the past few years has shown this with the deaths of Freddie Gray, Eric Gardner, Sandra Bland and Michael Brown.
I believe the statistics provided above put any individual who states there is no biases in the criminal justice system argument to rest. I believe drug-related arrests, sentencing of minorities in the court room, and the use of capital punishment against minorities is jaw-dropping in itself. The Criminal Justice system is put in place to help American citizens of the world. It is supposed to maintain order and individuals expect to be treated just a fairly as an individual of an opposite race. I feel that as long as Capital punishment is in effect, innocent individuals will continue to sit on death row and wait for their innocence to be proven. According to a former wrongfully convicted offender Gordon “Randy” Steidle, who lived on death row and in the general prison population until his sentences was overturned, stated, “If you really want to kill someone, give them life without parole, it’s worse than dying.”
In conclusion, I have discussed four different categories in the criminal justice system where biases can be spotlighted, which included: biases against minorities in drug-related offenses, biases against minorities in the use of capital punishment, biases against minorities in sentencing disparity, and biases against minorities regarding probation revocation. For each category of biases, I provided scholarly statistics and opinion that help paint the picture of biases against minorities in the criminal justice system. I also provided information as to why believers that there is no biases in the criminal justice system believe otherwise, especially in regards to capital punishment. I also provided a rebuttal to the claim that there is no biases in capital punishment, by providing information as to the number of wrongful convictions that has taken place in the last forty-years in regard to capital punishment.
All in all, I believe something needs to be done to alleviate biases in the criminal justice system. I believe police officer should be held accountable for their actions against minorities and should be held to the same standard as a citizen in regard to taking another individuals life when it wasn’t warranted for them to do so. I believe jury’s should be fair and minorities should be provided proper representation to avoid their lives being tarnished over one bad mistake or because they were unable to afford proper representation to face a judge, jury, and courtroom. I also believe capital punishment should be abolished, because, there is no justice in killing even one innocent person for a crime they did not commit. I believe the information from the research shows, there is racial biases in the criminal justice system and more needs to be done in order to counter biases against minorities.
The Mind of a Dreamer 