According to official statistics, there are some significant ethnic differences in the likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system. Black people, and to a lesser extent Asians are over represented in the sample. For example black people make up just 12.8% of the population, but 11% of the prison population and Asians make up 4.7% of the population, but 6% of the prison population. By contrast, white people are under-represented at all stages of the criminal justice process. The Ministry of Justice states that members of the black communities are seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched , three and a half times more likely to be arrested, and five times more like to be sent to prison.
Whites began to lynch blacks due to the belief that they were the superior race. In the years between 1882 and 1968, as many as 3,440 blacks were lynched, including men, women, and children. Some whites saw lynchings as offensive, but they supported them in order to keep order among the blacks. Whites believed that if blacks were not in constant fear, they would rebel. The belief of stereotypes played into the lynchings a significant amount.
Even though all of these strains have an influence on the racial differences in crime, I believe that the community contributes a lot to these differences. By observing at a community, one can derive that a community branches out to numerous types of strain. According to the text, African Americans show a disproportionate number of residents who occupy areas where there are higher rates of violence and economical disadvantages. These disadvantaged neighborhoods usually lack good public schools, job opportunities, and more often promote criminal behavior. With the lack of job opportunities in a poverty infused area, one might succumb to criminal
Stuart Hall argued in his writing of ‘Policing the Crisis (1978) where he dealt with the stereotypical image of a black youth that was presented by the media with their uneven amount of attention which they paid to certain varieties of crime. The media however tend to radicalise, dramatic and decontextualised crime, such as presenting the riots in the 1980’s as tremendously ‘black riots’ (Campbell, 1993; Gilroy, 1987), not to reject the major involvement of young blacks being the offenders of certain crimes, and not labelling the criminalisation (Keith 1993). Such as the vast array of evidence that the victims of crime are committed by black offenders which are usually living in the same area (Burney, 1990). This should not be seen as ‘black on black crime’ as the media mostly describes it to be but should be seen as neighbour on neighbour, youth on youth and poor on poor. Youth crime is normally seen as something they usually will get bored of and grow out of where they normally stop as they grow up and eventually starts to build a family of their own and settling down.
Due to this problem, Scarman Report suggested to reform ‘recruitment and training’ because of racism in young police officers. Bowling and phillips (2002: 128-9) mentioned that in the 1970s and 1980s police officers widely practiced using ‘oppressive policing techniques’ in the ethnic minority’s communities, such as ‘ mass stop and search operation, the use of riot squads using semi-military equipment, excessive surveillance, unnecessary armed raid, and police use of racially abusive language.’ For example, Willis (1983) mentioned that black males, adult and young, double to be stopped rather than white. Not only for black people, but also West Indians tripled and Asian five times higher on foot. Smith (1983) also mentioned that, many West Indians have experienced to be stopped ‘for almost any reason and very often for no reason
Logically if an overwhelming majority of the poor in the US are black, and since poverty causes crime, then a lot of the criminals are black. Obviously, it’s the same in any country. Claiming that poverty causes crime does mean that the poor are criminals. That's because the word "criminal" implies a moral value; "he's a bad person", while it should in fact be more of a social issue. What's even worse is that the habit of long-term jail sentences in the US has completely wiped out any chance of ever getting a job again for most of these people.
It’s like the police are racist towards the black community. And that’s where injustice comes in. When blacks got their freedom from the civil rights movement, it sparked fear in the criminal justice systems, so they hired more police officers, and cracked down on black communities. It’s no justice, its racism. Whites are involved with the war on drugs, but it’s one out of five who are caught.
This case led to the questioning of whether the legal system is effective for the individual and the community and whether it really brought justice to the victims of crime. A large proportion of society feel let down by the legal system, as a mechanism put into place to protect and bring justice has obviously failed in this case. The fact that serious sex offenders who place a black mark on the well being of victims, both physically and mentally being let off in less than 20 years caused a lot of conroversy. Although it may be argued that 55 years was a harsh penalty and didn’t warrant the crime, the victim’s of the crime received a much harsher sentence, a life of trauma and a constant feeling of alarm. Denele Crozier a Women's Health NSW executive officer asked the question many women had asked after the appeal was established ``How many times do women have to be constantly let down and disappointed by the legal
Judge Marvin Arrington, a black judge in Atlanta, confirms that in Atlanta, African-Americans are 54 percent of the population, but are responsible for 100 percent of homicide, 95 percent of rape, 94 percent of robbery, 84 percent of aggravated assault, and 93 percent of burglary. Source: APD Uniform Crime Reports, Apr 2011 to Apr 2012. The real problem is the moral structure deterioration so prevalent around the country, not the skin pigmentation of our citizens. It is sad that more of our black citizens are not more upset about the realities of these statistics as the black citizens seem to be suffering the most acutely as
African Americans are often portrayed as flashy drug lords or homeless fiends. Once again this is an exaggerated miss representation that doesn’t stand up to the truth. “In fact, blacks are no more likely than are whites to use drugs; and more whites than blacks are arrested on drug charges.”(9) With that said the media over represents African Americans in regards to crime, illegal drug activity, and poverty. These three aspects are the foundation upon which the faulty African American stereotype stands. The media’s portrayal of African American’s is both inaccurate and highly degrading.