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RACIAL BIAS IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.   Term Paper ID:29305 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Discusses research studies. Premise that beliefs about race and culture negatively effect African-Americans. Relationship between America's history of legal racism and disproportionate number of blacks in lower socio-economic levels. Disproportionate number of black men incarcerated in prison. Theory of "New Institutionalism" and legal system. Paper Introduction: Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System I. Introduction This paper seeks to test the basic hypothesis that Black defendants receive disparate treatment in America’s criminal justice system. Many scholars have written about and studied the presence of a pervasive racial bias against Black defendants in America’s justice system. Generally, these scholars have argued that this country’s history of White domination has always meant that minority defendants are more likely to be viewed negatively and judged more harshly than White defendants. Many scholars have offered the disproportionate numbers of Black men incarcerated in the country’s prison as evidence of this bias. This paper undertakes a review of literature on this subject, from a variety of viewpoints and areas of concentration, to examine the evidence and sociological theories that eithe Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Thus,further empirical studies by knowledgeable sociologists are necessary toexamine the effects of racial bias with an understanding for the socialbeliefs that often cause them, difficult though they may be to detect andprove. The practice focusedpublic attention on the relationship between law enforcement and minoritycommunities in the late 199 s after New Jersey police admitted they usedracial profiles to stop motorists and New York police officers beat andsodomized Abner Louima and shot Amadou Diallo. Mello agrees that the Baldus study may not demonstrate intentionaldiscrimination, but argues that it does demonstrate a pattern of racialdiscrimination, specifically, one of discriminatory impact. Whilein some institutions such a bias can be overlooked, he argues strenuouslythat it cannot be overlooked in the case of the death penalty, which raisesissues of life and death. Lopez'sconclusion is very similar. In "Defunding Death," Michael Mello reviews studies that haveattempted to prove racial bias in the application of the death penalty andthe Supreme Court's treatment of such studies. The Civil Rights Movement during the late 195 s and through the 196 sdid result in enfranchisement of Blacks. Thomas, Stubbe & Pearson did not posit a theory behind the racial biasdemonstrated in their study, but Jerome Miller did in his article titled"African American Males in the Criminal Justice System." Miller arguedthat the underlying racism that sees all Black males as criminals isresponsible, in large part, for the disproportionate numbers of Black malesincarcerated in the United States. For example, he notesthat the LAPD anti-gang sweeps in the late 198 s also resulted in therounding up of affluent Black children. II. Klarman was primarily interested in the Court's intervention intocases decided by Southern courts involving mob-dominated trials, or trialsthat were performed primarily to save the Black defendant from an extra-legal lynching. Abraham Abramovsky and Jonathan Edelstein also address the issues oflabeling based on preconceived notions of criminality in their survey ofcriminal law titled "Pretext Stops and Racial Profiling after Whren v.United States." Racial profiling is the targeting of individuals forpolice investigation based on their race alone. Introduction This paper seeks to test the basic hypothesis that Black defendantsreceive disparate treatment in America's criminal justice system. He concludes by stating that even 131 yearsafter the Emancipation Proclamation, the value of White life in thecriminal justice system remains far higher than the value of African-American life. Literature Review The ten journal articles reviewed involved the study of racialdisparities in the criminal justice system, though each article focused ona different aspect of the system. Generally,these scholars have argued that this country's history of White dominationhas always meant that minority defendants are more likely to be viewednegatively and judged more harshly than White defendants. Prisons." British Journal of Criminology 34 (1994): 97-115. Lopez reviews thecases of two Mexican-American activists who were tried for disturbing thepeace and conspiracy, among other charges, during the 196 s. Abramovsky & Edelsteinundertake a review of two differing state law approaches to the issuesraised by the practice. Since World War II, theSupreme Court has come to require intentional discrimination before agovernmental practice will be found discriminatory. In particular, they found that 82percent of the referrals in their sample to the more restrictivecorrectional school were non-White, while only 42 percent of those referredto the less restrictive mental health hospital were non-White, whichresulted in fewer juveniles of racial minorities receiving treatment in themental health system. Tonry does note that Blacks in America were categorically treated in adiscriminatory manner until relatively recently. Furthermore, as theliterature review will demonstrate, courts have not yet accepted thestudies performed to date that attempt to prove racial bias as a cause forthe obvious racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Miller also surveys recent re-analyses of studies of delinquents that confirmed that intergenerationaldelinquency was as likely to be due to intervention by the justice systemas it was to be the result of culture and character. John, Stubbe, Dorothy & Pearson, Geraldine. "Equality Trouble: Sameness and Difference in Twentieth- Century Race Law." California Law Review 88 (Dec 2 ): 1923.Hymes, Robert, Leinart, Mary, Rowe, Sandra & Rogers, William. Whren was the decision in which the Supreme Courtheld that a police officer's subjective reason for stopping a motorist wasirrelevant if he could articulate an objective, reasonable reason formaking the stop. Angela Harris also addresses these deeply-ingrained notions in herarticle titled "Equality Trouble: Sameness and Difference in Twentieth-Century Race Law." Harris uses the term "race law" to discuss not onlyanti-discrimination law, but also the law governing the formation,recognition, and maintenance of racial groups, as well as the lawregulating the relationships among these groups. She concludes that attempts to measure the relationshipbetween verdicts and juror race demonstrate that such connection is usuallythe specific kind of connection often predicted by judges: White jurors areharsher with Black defendants and more lenient with those charged withcrimes against Black victims than are Black jurors. Klarman's review of Supreme Court selection and decisions during theinterwar period concluded that the Court developed the constitutionalparameters of criminal procedure based on social norms. Stubbe and GeraldinePearson examined "Race, Juvenile Justice, and Mental Health" and concludedthat Black juvenile defendants who were referred to mental health serviceswere routinely placed in more restrictive settings than were their Whitecounterparts. Harris contends that the attempt to balance these twocompeting pressures has led, particularly over the past century, toconstantly shifting definitions of equality. Particularly in theSouth, "Jim Crow" laws served to segregate Blacks, who were stillconsidered inferior and less "human" than Whites. Thomas, Stubbe & Pearson argued that their data suggested that thisracial bias likely went beyond the courts and was systemic to the juvenilemental health system. He does agree that discrimination,especially in "unconscious forms related to stereotyping and attribution ofthreatening characteristics to minority offenders," also plays a part inthe racial incarceration ratios, but he does not believe there is strongempirical support for concluding that a significant portion of the long-term disproportion in prison numbers results from institutional racism. W. "Defunding Death." American Criminal Law Review 32 (Sum 1995):933-1 12.Miller, Jerome. "The Racial Origins of Modern Criminal Procedure." Michigan Law Review 99.1 (Oct 2 ): 48.Lopez, Ian. "Institutional Racism: Judicial Conduct and a New Theory of Racial Discrimination." Yale Law Journal 1 9 (Jun 2 ): 1711.Mello, Michael. Evenafter slavery was abolished during the Civil War in the 186 s, Black peoplein America were still not granted full citizenship. Robert Hymes, Mary Leinart, Sandra Rowe and William Rogers offergreater insight in their study of "Acquaintance Rape: The Effect of Race ofDefendant and Race of Victim on White Juror Decisions." Hymes, Leinart,Rowe & Rogers conducted a study of White jurors in acquaintance rape casesinvolving both intraracial and interracial defendants and victims. And Supreme Court decisions andacts of Congress thereafter began to create a framework of laws to protectthe rights of Black Americans. This paper undertakes a reviewof literature on this subject, from a variety of viewpoints and areas ofconcentration, to examine the evidence and sociological theories thateither support or impeach the existence of racial bias in the criminaljustice system in the United States. He reaches his conclusion by applying atheoretical framework called "New Institutionalism." New Institutionalism posits that human interaction is governed bysocially accepted but unexamined practices and patterns of behavior. Undoubtedly, juries actas both policy makers and administrators when they determine guilt andinnocence and, in capital cases, decide punishment. Only one of the articles found noempirical support for the existence of racial bias. He argues that the UnitedStates Supreme Court only began to interpret the constitutional law ofstate criminal procedure between the two World Wars. As aresult of the study, they concluded that racial bias in juror decisionmaking does not automatically place Blacks at a disadvantage. Nonetheless, in one survey titled "Racial Disproportion in U.S.Prisons," researcher Michael Tonry noted the disproportionate numbers ofBlack males in American prisons, but concluded that such disproportioncould be accounted for by the disproportionate numbers of Black males whoparticipated in "imprisonable" crimes. Manyscholars have written about and studied the presence of a pervasive racialbias against Black defendants in America's justice system. Klarman argues that the Court intervened in these casesnot in contravention of local mores, but actually in communion with them.He argues that during the interwar period, the majority of Americans cameto view lynchings as barbaric and in clear violation of Black defendants'human rights. Thus, the cause may be difficult to prove with certainty, but thedisproportionate numbers of Black defendants incarcerated in the UnitedStates is indisputable. He contends thatthese study prove that the better predictor of future delinquency iswhether a boy or his father had been effectively labeled as a criminal bythe larger society. John Thomas, Dorothy E. And he relies on thishistory to argue that Black Americans are an identifiable subgroup thatstill suffers from the legacy of slavery and legal racism, as demonstratedby inadequacies in education, employment opportunities, and health care.He does not, however, question the institutional policies that underliesuch inadequacies. The researchers concluded that, at least for crimes such as rape,which involves issues of sexual relations outside one's own race, theeffects of the interaction between juror bias and the specific context ofthe crime may be too complex to be predicted using a single decision rule. United States." Albany Law Review 63 (Spr 2 ): 725.Harris, Angela. Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System I. As the journal articles demonstrated, arelationship exists between America's history of legal racism and thedisproportionate numbers of Blacks in lower socio-economic levels. He argues that, in contemporary America, the young Black male isgiven a criminal identity without class distinction. After World War I, however, theCourt expanded its intervention based primarily, Klarman argues, onchanging social mores. He argues that the FBI inflates crimestatistics by reporting complaints and arrests rather than convictions.This inflation supports the view of the Black man as criminal and helpsprovide public support for restrictive forms of criminal justice. Thus, both Black and White defendants had a greaterchance of being convicted if their race differed from that of the allegedvictim. "African American Males in the Criminal Justice System." Phi Delta Kappan 78 (Jun 1997): K1.Thomas, W. Miller contends that people, in general, are labeled by the largersociety. Bothactivists argued that the grand jury selection process, which resulted inno Mexican-Americans sitting on the grand jury, was discriminatory. Sociologists are best equipped to observe human behavior inthe context of historic and contemporary social patterns and norms and toinvestigate the beliefs that govern such behavior. These underlying beliefs, manyscholars argue, still govern personal and institutional decisions today,resulting in an "institutional racism" that has some similar effects to theovert racism that characterized the treatment of minorities in the pre-Civil Rights era. Inparticular, the GAO concluded that there was a "pattern of evidenceindicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and impositionof the death penalty" throughout the country. She argues that in the firstpart of the century, "constitutional equality" assumed inherent differencesbetween the races expressed in terms of culture. Furthermore, theliterature review provided support for each of the five supportinghypothesis listed above. In "Postconviction Review of Jury Discrimination," Nancy King seeks todetermine whether racial composition affects jury decisions, whether judgescan measure that effect, and whether judges should be permitted to act uponsuch measurements? However, Harris argues, neither of theseapproaches has solved the fundamental issues of race that continue topervade our society and its institutions. Thereafter, in the latterhalf of the century, the language of equality shifted profoundly. Klarman's analysis, therefore, supports the theory of an institutionalracism, which Ian Lopez develops in his article titled "InstitutionalRacism: Judicial Conduct and a New Theory of Racial Discrimination."Lopez, in a way, picks up where Klarman left off. Tosupport their cases, the activists deposed more than 1 superior courtjudges regarding grand juror nomination practices. The jury is aninstitution within the justice system and, as such, the beliefs of itsmembers should be subject to the same critical investigation as otherinstitutions within the system. "Pretext Stops and Racial Profiling after Whren v. "Racial Disproportion in U.S. In "The Racial Origins of Modern Criminal Procedure," Michael Klarmanprovides a historical basis for racial bias. In other words,the majority of the country was appalled by the clear discriminatoryapplication of criminal procedures in cases involving Southern Blackdefendants and the Court's decision reflected that view. Mello suggests that a subtle racial bias may pervade every humaninstitution and that race-consciousness is a fact of American life. In other words, the Court validated the pretextual stopsby the police, one of the most common methods by which racial profiles areput into effect. Klarman argues that the Court's selection process reflected themajority view that White Americans' inherent superiority and right todominate were not threatened by more impartial treatment of Black criminaldefendants but would have been threatened by legal sanction of Black rightsthat would integrate them into society. Furthermore,he contends that after analyzing twenty-eight studies concerning racialdiscrimination and the death penalty, the General Accounting Office, in a199 report, found a strong pattern of racial discrimination by race of thevictim in the imposition of the death penalty in the United States. This paper is interested in the underlying assumptions aboutrace and difference that serve as the foundation for policy decisions andpersonnel actions in the criminal justice system. Harris argues that therehas always been tension in these laws between true equality and the desirefor White dominance. Works CitedAbramovsky, Abraham & Edelstein, Jonathan. In particular, Melloreviews the Baldus study, which was used in the Supreme Court case in whichthe Court held that a constitutional challenge to such racism must showintentional discrimination. "Race, Juvenile Justice, and Mental Health: New Dimensions in Measuring Pervasive Bias." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 89 (Win 1999): 615.Tonry, Michael. Hypotheses Five hypotheses sought to be tested in the literature review were: (1)Black males are more likely to be arrested than are White males; (2) Whitejurors are more likely to convict Black defendants than White defendants;(3) Black defendants are more likely to be incarcerated than Whitedefendants, (4) White jurors are more likely to give harsher sentences toBlack defendants; and (5) Black convicts receive longer prison sentencesthan do White convicts for similar crimes. On the other hand, during this same period, the Court did notintervene in cases that involved clear violation of Blacks civil rights,such as in cases of clearly discriminatory state court decisions involvingschool and housing segregation, interracial marriage and Black votingrights. Their research confirmed there are statistically significantdifferences in the racial makeup of juveniles referred to correctionalschools and those referred to hospitals. III. It seems an incomplete conclusion for him to admit thatBlack Americans still suffer from the effects of legal racism withoutquestioning whether the predominantly White social structure that framessuch policies still does, too. The next two journal articles review the effect of juror race on jurydecisions. They found that, across the board, court and mentalhealth personnel referrals disproportionately assigned the leastrestrictive setting to White subjects, while also disproportionatelyassigning more restrictive settings for juveniles. The Court also held the Baldus study, whichstudied Georgia's capital punishment system, did not prove discriminatoryintent under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Nonetheless, it is difficult to believethat the racial and cultural views that supported slavery and the Jim Crowlaws were as easily legislated away. Many scholarshave offered the disproportionate numbers of Black men incarcerated in thecountry's prison as evidence of this bias. Conclusion There is sufficient and competent research to support the basichypothesis that deeply-ingrained beliefs about race and culture negativelyeffect Black defendants in the criminal justice system. Thesepractices and patterns give rise to "institutional racism," which inhabitsour cognitive processes and our culture without the conscious considerationof race. In both cases, the presiding judges ruled thatthe selection process was not discriminatory because the defense had notproved an intent to discriminate based on race. Before World War I,the Supreme Court only overturned state court decisions in a very few casesinvolving discriminatory jury selection. Theproblems arise in proving that the beliefs that established that historiclegal racism still continue to negatively affect views and impressions ofBlack defendants, in particular, today. Nonetheless, the difficulty of proving the rootcauses of Black disparate treatment within the criminal justice system liesin the difficulty of identifying and proving the underlying beliefs ofactors within the system. IV. Thus, practices which are discriminatory in fact because they arebased on the actors' racist cognitive and cultural beliefs are organizedinto institutional practices. "Acquaintance Rape: The Effect of Rape of Defendant and Race of Victim on White Juror Decisions." The Journal of Social Psychology 133 (Oct 1993): 627.King, Nancy. Rather, theyfound that jurors paid more attention to whether the victim appeared toconsent. These judges testifiedthat they nominated grand juries from people they knew, and they knew fewor no Mexican Americans. The concept of institutional racism is a significant one forsociologists. Generally, the arguments in support of a racial bias in criminaljustice are based on this country's troubled history of race relations.Most Blacks, of course, were legal property of White owners until 1863.Even free Blacks were subjected to significant limitations on theirliberty, including lack of suffrage and other rights of citizenship. Now, thefoundation of equality became racial "sameness" and distinctions thatshould make no difference. But juror racial bias would come into play when determining theissue of consent. The Court's requirement of intentionaldiscrimination, Lopez argues, fails to take into consideration the deeply-ingrained notions of race that govern our actions. "Postconviction Review of Jury Discrimination: Measuring the Effects of Juror Race on Jury Decisions." Michigan Law Review 92.1 (Oct 1993): 63-13 .Klarman, Michael. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.