[News] None Dare Call It Justice: Eighteen Examples of Racism in Criminal Legal System

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/04/none-dare-call-it-justice-eighteen-examples-of-racism-in-criminal-legal-system/ 



  None Dare Call It Justice: Eighteen Examples of Racism in Criminal
  Legal System

by Bill Quigley <http://www.counterpunch.org/author/bill-quigley/> - 
October 4, 2016

Racism may well be the biggest crime in the criminal legal system. If 
present trends continue, 1 of every 4 African American males 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/16/the-stale-statistic-that-one-in-three-black-males-has-a-chance-of-ending-up-in-jail/> 
born this decade can expect to go to prison in his lifetime despite the 
fact that the Census Bureau 
<https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00> reports that the 
US is 13 percent Black, 61 percent white and 17 percent Latino.

When /Brown v Board of Education/ was decided in 1954 about 100,000 
African Americans 
<http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Addressing-Racial-Disparities-in-Incarceration.pdf> 
were in prison.  Now there are about 800,000 African Americans in jails 
and prisons: 538,000 in prisons 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf> and over 263,000 in local 
jails <http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/jim14.pdf>. Black men are 
nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Hispanic 
men are 2.3 times as likely, according to the Sentencing Project 
<http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf>.

Why?  Because our country has dramatically expanded our jails and 
prisons and there is deep racism built into every step of the criminal 
legal system.  Some think the criminal legal system has big problems 
that need to be reformed 
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426017/americas-broken-criminal-justice-system-desperate-need-reform-george-will>.  
Others think the racism in the criminal legal system is helping it 
operate exactly as it has been designed 
<http://harvardkennedyschoolreview.com/the-criminal-justice-system-is-not-broken-its-doing-exactly-what-its-meant-to-do/> 
to incarcerate as many black and brown people as possible.

Here are 18 examples of racism in parts of different stages of the 
system.  Taken together, the racism in each of these steps accelerates 
the process of incarceration of African American and Latino males. 
Together, they demonstrate that racism may well be the biggest crime in 
the criminal legal system.

/One.  Racism in Police Stops/

Who is stopped by the police, either in cars or on foot, continues to be 
highly racialized as proof of racial profiling continues to accumulate.  
University of Kansas professors found the police conducted investigatory 
stops of African American males 
<http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janfeb-2014/driving-while-black/> 
at twice the rate of whites.  A black man in Kansas City 25 or younger 
has a 28 percent chance of being stopped, while a similar white male has 
only a 12 percent chance.  In New York City 
<http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/nypd-stop-and-frisk-encounters-down-50-but-minorities-still-stopped-more-stats-show-1.10685785>, 
police continue to stop Black and Hispanics at rates far higher than 
whites even though they are stopping many less people due to a 
successful civil rights federal court challenge by the Center for 
Constitutional Rights 
<https://ccrjustice.org/stop-and-frisk-human-impact>.   One of the most 
illuminating studies is in Connecticut 
<http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/minority_drivers_less_likely_to_be_pulled_over_after_dark/> 
which showed racial disparities in traffic stops during the daytime, 
when the race of the driver can be seen, but not at night.

/Two.  Racism in Police Searches/

Once stopped, during traffic stops, three times as many Black and 
Hispanic drivers were searched as white drivers, according to the US 
Bureau of Justice Statistics 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pbtss11.pdf>.  According to the same 
US Bureau of Justice Statistics 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pbtss11.pdf>, white drivers were 
also given tickets at a slightly lower rate than Black and Hispanic drivers.

/Three.  Racism in Police Use of Force during Arrest/

A recent report by Center for Policing Equity 
<http://policingequity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/CPE_SoJ_Race-Arrests-UoF_2016-07-08-1130.pdf> 
found that police are more likely to use force like Tasers, dogs, pepper 
spray and physical force against Black people than White people in 
making arrests.

/Four.  Racism in Juvenile Arrests/

Black youth are twice as likely to be arrested for crimes in school as 
white kids, over 2.5 times as likely to be arrested for curfew 
violations as white kids, twice as likely as white kids to be arrested 
for all crimes, and much more likely to be held in detention than white 
kids, according to the Sentencing Project 
<http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Disproportionate-Minority-Contact-in-the-Juvenile-Justice-System.pdf>.

/Five.  Racism in Transgender Arrests/

Hundreds of thousands of gay and transgender youth are arrested or 
detained every year and more than 60 percent are Black or Latino 
according to the Center for American Progress 
<https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/report/2012/06/29/11730/the-unfair-criminalization-of-gay-and-transgender-youth/>.

/Six.  Racism in Arrests for Drugs /

Start with the fact that whites and blacks use and abuse drugs at about 
the same rates.  This is proven by the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use 
and Health 
<http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUHresultsPDFWHTML2013/Web/NSDUHresults2013.pdf> 
of the US Department of Health and Human Services.  This study found 
drug and alcohol abuse among whites and blacks nearly the same with 
blacks reporting one percent higher on drug use than whites while whites 
have three percent higher rates of binge alcohol and one percent higher 
rates of substance abuse or dependence.

But when it comes to drug arrests, Blacks are arrested at a rate more 
than twice their percentage in the population.  Twenty nine percent of 
drug arrests, according to FBI statistics 
<https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43>, 
are of African American people.

/Seven.   Racism in Police Arrests for Marijuana/

While marijuana use is similar in black and white communities, blacks 
are 3.73 times as likely 
<https://www.aclu.org/report/report-war-marijuana-black-and-white?redirect=report/war-marijuana-black-and-white> 
to be arrested for possession of marijuana as whites.

/Eight.  Racism in Pre-trial Release/

The National Academy of Sciences 
<http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/nrc/NAS_report_on_incarceration.pdf> found 
that blacks are more likely than whites to be incarcerated while 
awaiting trial.

/Nine.  Racism in Prosecution Charges/

Federal prosecutors are almost twice as likely to file charges carrying 
mandatory minimum sentences for African Americans than whites accused of 
the same crimes according to a study published by the University of 
Michigan Law School 
<http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=163082093087069064070107115007082113125002071065025035011068112075029114002013103074036063099027006049113027119003101068127102126001025021028016001024122030064023035036063003117026030073095122104120068027073113115111103124030077091101112095089001068&EXT=pdf>.

/Ten.  Racism in Prison versus Community Service/

The National Academy of Sciences 
<http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/nrc/NAS_report_on_incarceration.pdf> 
stated that blacks are more likely than whites to received prison terms 
rather than community service.  Black people are imprisoned at twice the 
rate of white people in the US according to the US Department of Justice 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf>.

/Eleven.  Racism in Length of Incarceration/

The National Academy of Sciences 
<http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/nrc/NAS_report_on_incarceration.pdf> 
stated that, after conviction, blacks are more likely than whites to 
receive longer sentences.

/Twelve.  Racism in State Drug Incarceration/

The Bureau of Justice Statistics 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf> reports 208,000 people are 
in state prisons <http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf> for drug 
offenses.  Of this number 32 percent are white and 68 percent are 
African American or Hispanic.

/Thirteen.   Racism in Federal Drug Convictions/

More than half of all federal prisoners are there for drug offenses 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf>. The US Sentencing 
Commission 
<http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2014/Table34.pdf> 
reported 25 percent of all federal drug convictions in 2014 were of 
African Americans and 47 percent were Hispanics versus 24 percent of 
whites.  In federal prisons 
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf>, 22 percent are white and 
76 percent are African American or Hispanic.

/Fourteen.  Racism in Federal Court Sentencing/

African American men were sentenced to 19 percent longer time periods in 
federal courts across the US than white men convicted of similar crimes 
in a 4 year study conducted by the US Sentencing Commission 
<http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/news/congressional-testimony-and-reports/booker-reports/2012-booker/Part_E.pdf#page=1>.

/Fifteen.  Racism in Incarceration of Women/

Black women are incarcerated at a rate nearly three times higher than 
white women 
<http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/the-changing-racial-dynamics-of-womens-incarceration/>.

/Sixteen.  Racism in Sentencing to Life Without Parole/

Over sixty five percent of prisoners serving life without parole for 
nonviolent offenses 
<https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/111813-lwop-complete-report.pdf> are 
black.

/Seventeen.  Racism in Hiring People with Criminal Record/

Having a criminal record hurts a person’s ability to get a job.  But it 
hurts Black men worse.  In fact, white men with a criminal record have a 
better chance of getting a positive response in a job search than black 
men without a criminal record.  This has been confirmed by a study of 
6000 applications in Arizona 
<https://csgjusticecenter.org/reentry/posts/researchers-examine-effects-of-a-criminal-record-on-prospects-for-employment/> 
and an earlier study 
<http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/09/study-black-man-and-white-felon-same-chances-for-hire/> 
in Milwaukee and New York City.

/Eighteen.   Racism in Eliminating the Right to Vote/

The impact of this is devastating.  For example, one of every 13 African 
Americans has lost their right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement 
<http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenfranchisement-laws-in-the-united-states/> 
versus one in every 56 non-black voters.

Taken together, these facts demonstrate the deep racism embedded in the 
criminal legal system.   None dare call this justice.

/*Bill Quigley* teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans and can be 
reached at quigley77 at gmail.com <mailto:quigley77 at gmail.com>./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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