The Color of Justice CHAPTER 11 “RACE” IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT ▪ Race, ethnicity, & crime o Bound within American society o Most Americans believe there is a “real” link • • Rooted in stereotypes & prejudice History shows stereotypes & prejudices ▪ Perceptions and Illusions permeate the reality of crime and criminals often relating to issues of race and gender o Statements such as: • • • “Crime just keeps going up and up,” “Dangerous criminals all get off easy,” “Immigrants are responsible for the crime increase.” © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. EXPLAINING PERSISTENT RACIAL/ETHNIC DISPARITIES ▪ Many Americans have grown up in a society that assumes ▪ inequities and disparities reflect “natural” differences between groups of people. Some believe… o Racism permeates the CJ system ▪ Some believe… o There are rare individual acts of racism, but no widespread discrimination ▪ The “truth” rests between these extremes. © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. EXPLAINING THE DISPARITIES: SYSTEMATIC DISCRIMINATION? ▪ Pre-1960s – Systemic Discrimination characterized the early ▪ ▪ ▪ criminal justice system Currently Contextual Discrimination most likely characterizes the Criminal Justice System Institutional Discrimination must be examined in more detail to understand the unintended consequences Discrimination does not take place o Invariably o In all parts of the system o All the time © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. PAST AND PRESENT (SLIDE 1 OF 3) ▪ Police and other criminal justice agencies no longer refuse to ▪ ▪ ▪ employ people of color. Police reform and a major Supreme Court decision have placed controls over police use of deadly force Police no longer completely ignore crimes against African Americans, as was often the case in the Segregation Era. The bail reform movement of the 1960s eliminated the worst discrimination against poor people, which disproportionately affected people of color. © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. PAST AND PRESENT (SLIDE 2 OF 3) ▪ African Americans can no longer be excluded from juries. ▪ Sentencing reforms since the 1970s have attempted to endure ▪ that sentences are based on acceptable legal factors (the seriousness of the offense and the offenders prior record), thereby curbing the worst forms of sentencing discrimination. Racial segregation in prisons has been eliminated because it has been declared unconstitutional. © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. PAST AND PRESENT (SLIDE 3 OF 3) ▪ Supreme Court decisions on the death penalty have eliminated ▪ the uncontrolled discretion in death sentences that produced the mast blatant forms of racial discrimination. Most recently in 2010 the Crack Cocaine Sentencing Revisions were implemented addressing what many offered as a cornerstone of disparate treatment within the war on drugs. © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. RACE, CRIME, & JUSTICE Facts are facts… ▪ Race & crime are linked o Many Americans do not think of race as a social construct ▪ CJ system still has many biases o There are degrees of bias & bias types o Minorities more likely to be punished, and punished more harshly, than whites Improvements have been made, but problems still exist. © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. STUBBORN PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL/ETHNIC DISPARITIES (SLIDE 1 OF 2) ▪ Race and ethnicity continue to be social “hot buttons” o Public indifference to racial and ethnic discrimination is also affected by the increased racial polarization of American politics • 2016 poll, almost half (46 percent) of all white Americans think that race relations in this country are “generally good” o CJ system continues to reflect social views, regardless of history • Many non-Hispanic Americans feel that immigration, and unauthorized immigration in particular is a major problem in this country. © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. STUBBORN PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL/ETHNIC DISPARITIES (SLIDE 2 OF 2) ▪ Tonry and Melewski (2008) o Reducing racial and ethnic disparities • • • (1) Radical decarceration (2) Replacing disparity-causing policies (capital punishment, mandatory minimum sentencing laws, sentences of life without parole, and truth-in-sentencing laws) • “Principled” sentencing guidelines - Shorter sentences proportionate to the harm done by the crime (3) “Race and ethnicity impact statements” © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. YOU DECIDE ▪ Unacceptable disparities continue to exist. ▪ What other changes would you add to what Tonry and Melewski and Walker, Spohn, and Delone offer to achieve the ideal of Equal Justice Under Law? © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. KEY TERMS ▪ Contextual discrimination ▪ Disparities ▪ Racial discrimination ▪ Racial inequities ▪ Systematic discrimination © 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
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