Dreisly Grullon

ENGL 11000/ C4
Bubrow
4/5/17

With Liberty and Justice to Some: Racism in Justice System

How would you feel if you lived in a society that claimed to protect all people, including

you, but did the complete opposite? A society where certain individuals preach and praise

equality but arrest people of color for how they look. Racism has been apparent in American

culture since the second the country was founded, and even before that in Europe. African

Americans have been treated as property, animals, savages, and anything else except equal

humans in American society. Even though a large portion slavery died in 1863, racism didnt.

For centuries, hundreds of African Americans have been arrested, mistreated, or just plain

wronged by the American Justice System and a lot of the times their stories are swept under the

rug and go unnoticed. Although many Americans may say that the justice system is not racist

and that those who are in jail deserve it , people of color are stopped and arrested for how they

look and are detained while awaiting trial,or dont get a trial at all, with harsher treatment and

sentences than whites.

When one is asked is the American justice system racist?, many emotions may be

provoked. One may say that the justice system is fair to all, and those who are arrested deserve

everything they get. Angela Davis, a current professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz

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and a political activist, author and scholar states Almost two million people are currently locked

up in the immense network of US prisons and jails. More than 70 percent of the imprisoned

population are people of color. (Davis, 2000). So can this be deemed coincidental or is it done

on purpose? According Figure 1, data collected from the Bureau of Justice Statistics between

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1980-2008, the rates of African Americans who committed homicides were 8 times higher than

of their white counterparts. 52.5% of homicides are performed by African Americans, the highest

rate out of all other races. This image is supporting the argument that blacks belong in jails

because they are the ones that commit crimes and thus deserve the positions they are put in.

While some African Americans may actually be in jail because they are guilty of the

crimes they committed, very often the people of color who were arrested and are in jails were

stopped in the street for an unknown reason and may or may not have been liable for the crimes

they are charged with. According to figure 2, 1 in 3 African American men are likely to be

incarcerated in their lives, compared to 1 in 17 while men, This chart shows how maybe some

African American men are worthy of time in jail, but that doesnt defeat the fact that people of

color are much more likely to be in jail for minor or no reasons at all. An example of this unfair

treatment is the Stop and Frisk programs put into practice by the NYPD. The programs have

technically been in place in NYC since 1964, but have gained light in the recent years. The

objectives of the Stop and Frisk programs were to stop those who looked suspicious and question

them, and if anything unlawful had been seen or done, then the suspect would be arrested. Not

only is this policy unconstitutional because it violates ones right to protection, it also targeted

Black and Hispanic youth who are usually seen as suspicious and predators and makes them

more susceptible to being arrested or just being stopped and mistreated just because of how they

look. Between 2002 and 2016, the rate of blacks stopped and frisked remained at a steady

majority, never dipping below 50% of the total number of people (ranging from 50,000- 500,000

New Yorkers) stopped. The rate of Hispanics stopped and frisked stayed between the 20-40%

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range, the second highest behind blacks. Even though stop and frisk was technically pulled back

and deemed unconstitutional, it is still something that happens in NYC and around the country,

just under different names. The racism doesnt stop after one gets questioned and checked for

how they look, actually, its just the beginning as to an extremely racist justice system.

Another way that African Americans are treated unfairly by the American Justice System

is being arrested and detained without trial or never receiving a trial to begin with. This is

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particularly discouraging because this right is supposed to be protected by the Sixth Amendment,

which states to give you the right to a speedy trial, unbiased jury, and witnesses to help your

case. This amendment seems to have been ignored multiple times, one example of many being

Kalief Browder, an African American kid who was sent to Rikers Island at 16 years old in May

of 2010 for allegedly stealing a backpack and went 3 years without trial. Even though Browders

accuser continued to change the story of the alleged theft multiple times, and there was no actual

evidence linking the crime to Browder, he still remained behind bars and even in solitary

confinement for an extended period of time. When a boy like Kalief Browder is put in jail and

torn away from his family and everything he knows without any evidence of wrongdoing, and

men like Brock Turner and David Wise have committed proven crimes and gotten nothing more

than a slap on the wrist, you know the American Justice System is something broken that needs

to be fixed.

In conclusion, American society is not as equal and united as one may hope it is, and

years and years of injustice, mistreatment, and hatred towards people of color illustrates that

everyday. If America truly wants to live up to its name of being one Nation, under God,

indivisible. With liberty and justice to all, its citizens need to stop pretending and open their

eyes to the reality that racism is there, and if you ignore it, youre part of the problem. One may

say that more African Americans are in jail because they are criminals and deserve it, when

in reality they are usually stopped and arrested for little to no reason and are detained while

awaiting trial, or never see a trial, with much longer and harsher sentences than whites.

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 Works Cited Page
Cunneen, Chris. Racism, Discrimination and the Over-Representation of Indigenous

People in the Criminal Justice System: Some Conceptual and Explanatory Issues.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/CICrimJust/2006/1.html. Published 2006. Print.

Davis, Angela. Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex.

http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IndigLawB/2000/12.html. Published 2000. Print.

Davis, Angela. Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation.

http://www.disruptiva.net/uploads/files/Political%20Prisoners,%20Prisons,%20and%20B

lack%20Liberation_AngelaDavis.pdf. Published May 1971. Print.