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Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System: “With Liberty and Justice for All?”




Author(s)

Remi Alapo, David Rockefeller

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2019.07.006

Racial discrimination remains a prevalent issue in the contemporary U.S. despite efforts to promote equality. Many young African American and Hispanic males are easy target for law enforcement agents. Minorities experience a higher and more unfair form of racial discrimination, racial profiling, police brutality, unfair sentencing, and mass incarceration for offences which are the same or less than those committed by White males. The rate of incarceration in the United States is five to eight times higher than most developed countries, and Black males constitute the largest percentage of inmates in the U.S. prison system. Once arrested, Black Americans are more likely to remain in prison longer, and await trial for minor offenses at a higher rate than Whites. Black and Latino males sentenced in state and federal courts face significantly greater odds of incarceration than White offenders for the same or even higher crimes. Vagins and McCurdy in a 2006 ACLU on “cracks in the system” reported that “There is no rational medical or penological reason for the 100:1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine and instead it causes an unjustified racial disparity in our penal system” (p. 7). There is a racial disparity in the proportion of Black males in prison serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). In addition, The United States Criminal Justice System needs to be carefully examined as a top priority agenda needing immediate call of action that needs reform to guarantee the constitutional rights accorded to every American “with liberty and justice for all”.

civil rights, civil liberties, criminal justice reform, racial inequalities, Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), mass incarceration, racial discrimination, prison privatization, racism, racial disparity, racial justice, reparations, Senate Bill S6098A, U.S Criminal Justice System, U.S. Prison System