Criminal Justice and Racisim

The criminal justice system, in the United States, contains elements of racism. This is especially apparent in the mandatory jail sentencing legislation for illegal drug charges. A sentencing disparity exists, between individuals, arrested for crack cocaine and powdered cocaine possession. This sentencing disparity is the result of mandatory sentencing guidelines, which require different lengths of jail terms for conviction of possession, of the different forms of cocaine. The law, as it is written, has racial implications. The words, of the law itself, are not racially discriminatory, but the application of the law, and the sociological effects of the law are racially discriminatory. The reasons behind the law and the discriminatory aspects of the law are varied. These background issues will need to be addressed in order to find a solution to the problem of discrimination in the legal system of the United States.

Historically, there has been racial discrimination, in the United States, since the days of slavery. Open discrimination and prejudice are disappearing but are not completely absent, from society, even today. This can be seen clearly by looking at the differences in employment and income levels between whites and black citizens in the country. It is also evident when a close look in paid to the legal system from arrest, to prosecution, to convection, and sentencing. Minorities loose at each junction of the system.

Blacks have been awarded second clas

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loyed. These are people who are employed but are not able to earn a wage which will enable them to subsist or support their families. Two-thirds of black Americans arrested, in Washington D. C., for drug distribution, were employed. The wages that they earned were so low that dealing drugs was considered part-time employment to allow them to remain self-sufficient (Young Black 3). Part of the solution, to the inequality of the justice system, will be to address the inequality in society as a whole. As stated earlier, the majority of the crack cocaine users are white individuals. This is an important fact to understand, (along with the knowledge that discrimination is the unequal treatment of an individual solely because of the color of a person's skin), because the majority of individuals arrested for possession of crack cocaine are black (Young Black 3). If there were no discrimination, the color of the skin on the people arrested for possessing cocaine should mirror the composition of the color of skin of the users of crack cocaine. This is not what is happening. The reason is that police are using, with the court's approval, the racial make-up of a person as a part of the profile of a drug courier (Kennedy 21). If mo

Category: Government - C