When looking at racial disparities in the criminal justice system,
it is important to think about the historical context which has led us to the
world that we live in today. Looking back all the way to the 1860’s when slavery
was abolished in the United States. W.E.B. DuBois believed that “with the end
of slavery, the number of black convicts in the South rose substantially, in
large part because of vagrancy laws passed in the aftermath of emancipation” (Golash-Boza,
2016, p. 220) .
This was just the beginning of the unequal distribution of minorities
incarcerated.
Jumping ahead to the 1970’s this disparity worsened after President
Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs. This war resulted in the mass incarcerations
of drug users, which overcrowded the prisons and awarded the US one of the highest
incarceration rates in the world. Golash-Boza writes that the “zealous enforcement
of drug laws disproportionately affects people of color, even though whites are
actually more likely to use and sell drugs” (p. 220). Police are targeting crack cocaine users over powder cocaine users, because the majority of crack cocaine users are predominately poor and black, where the majority of powder cocaine users are white. The incarceration rate for crack cocaine to powder cocaine is reported to be 18:1 (Palamar, Davies, Ompad, Clealand, & Weitzman, 2015) . Reinforcing the stereotype of increased
drug use by minorities, the police have also targeted the neighborhoods where minorities
reside rather than white neighborhoods, which results in more and more blacks
and Hispanics being incarcerated than whites.
Prisons were and are
still today overcrowded with non-violent drug offenders. From the 1970’s to
today, crime rates have remained the same to some decline, while incarceration
rates have skyrocketed. This is the root of the disparity in the criminal justice
system, because minorities are automatically expected to break the laws and be
sent to prison. It has occurred throughout the United States’ history and it does
not appear that anything has been done to change this mindset today, so what
can be done to combat this inequality?
Golash-Boza, T. M. (2016). Race & Racism A
Critical Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.
Palamar, J. J., Davies, S., Ompad, D. C., Clealand,
C. M., & Weitzman, M. (2015, April 1). Powder cocaine and crack use in
the United States: An examination of risk for arrest and socioeconomic
disparities in use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 108-116. Retrieved
from: http://www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/S0376-8716(15)00049-6/abstract
It is amazing after decades of injustice the same problems still occur today. Have you researched any changes being made in the criminal justice system involving drugs and overcrowding?
ReplyDeleteThrough my research I came across recent amendments to New York’s Rockefeller Drug Law of 1973. In April of 2009, major changes were made which shortened some sentences and even eradicated the requirements of other sentences for class B drug charges altogether. In areas of New York that are traditionally inhabited by minorities, the number of arrests have decreased significantly. Looking at the most recent data in 2015, it appears that this is a step in the right direction to lessen the number of individuals being sentenced for non-violent crimes. I have attached the link to the website which provides data from the past seven years of the amendment’s impact on sentencing, arrests and indictments. http://criminaljustice.ny.gov/drug-law-reform/index.html
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