Victim surveys ask individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of. We can get information on ethnicity and offending from surveys when we ask what ethnicity of the person who committed the crime against them. For example in the case of mugging blacks are overly represented among those indentified by victims as offenders. Victim surveys show much crime is intra-ethnic; it takes place within rather than between ethnic groups. For example the British crime survey (2007) found 90% of where the victim was white; at least one of the offenders was also white.
In this short essay I will define institutional racism, its history in American and who it mostly affects. Institutional racism also known as institutional oppression refers to racism perpetrated by government entities, major cooperation’s, schools, the courts or the military (Moore 2008). Unlike the racism perpetrated by individuals, institutional racism has the power to negatively affect the bulk of people belonging to a minority group. This form of racism still persists in America because dominant groups are unwilling to share or give up the benefits inherited from past generations. Through numerous examples, Institutional Racism demonstrates how inequality and racial exclusion are embedded within the fabric of American society.
Black students scoring lower than White students, but this can be looked at from many different angles. When we think back in history the first ones allowed to have an education were wealthy white males. As time passed and new laws were put in place women along with African Americans were also given the chance to an education. But of course Black children did not receive the same education as White students. In Death at an Early Age by Jonathan Kozol, he describes the conditions of African American schools as horrible, where children were mistreated.
Most people though don’t realize this and automatically think because of the color of their skin that they are a lost cost. The Juvenile Justice System is becoming more bias when it comes to sentencing minorities over Caucasians and we should not care about the color of their skin, but the crime that was committed. There are more than 2,500 juveniles in the United States that are serving life without the possibility of parole. Most of these juveniles come from backgrounds that most Americans don’t hear about. The juveniles’ age range from 13-16 years old and most are African American.
Moreover, further statistics show that black people are seven times more likely and Asians twice as likely to stopped by police compared to their white counterparts. Some may say that racism can be a result of a ‘canteen culture’ where some officers hold negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities and pass on their views to their colleagues which will lead in a general negative stereotype among the police force. Reiner explains that characteristics of canteen cultures include cynicism, suspicion, macho values and racism. On the other hand, the McPherson inquiry after the murder case of Stephen Lawrence concluded that the police force was institutionally racist. This meant that police procedures and culture disadvantaged non-white people in an indirectly racist way.
Stereotypes Three stereotypes that I have encountered in my life have had to do with African Americans. I myself am an African American male. One of the most common stereotypes that I have encounter was African American males are violent. African American males are commonly associated with crime, even though it is proven by the FBI that the majority of crimes in the United States are caused by Caucasians and Hispanics. According to the FBI, in 2008 there were a total of 10,662,206 arrests in the United States, 69.2% of the people arrested were Caucasians, 28.3 % African Americans, 1.3% American Indians or Alaskan Natives and 1.1% Asian or Pacific Islanders.
Racism predominately happens when a person from one race views another person from a different race in an adverse behavior which can sometimes involve physical and emotional violence. Racial discrimination has been present in America from the time of the 18th century and is still present today, but nowhere near as harsh as in the past centuries(Gracia, 2010). Racial discrimination is never an easy subject to talk about, especially the discussions throughout history class in high school about Blacks being slaves at the time, and the teachers and some students not desiring to really go into detail on the subject for the reason that there are African American learners in the class. Racial
Woodsworth and Mr. Baldus out of Philadelphia analyze and show how the death penalty is found to be four times more likely to happen for a black person than any other race (Dieter, 1998). Information and background checks that researchers made on this topic, came to the conclusion that black people are far more likely to be sentenced than any other person that committed the same crime. This goes to show the racial disparity in the death penalty and Professor Mr. Woodsworth explains that Philadelphia’s death penalty was deemed as one of the most racist and unfair in the United States. In 1974 the death penalty was re-established in Philadelphia and still to this day is carried out (Dieter,
According to the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics the incarceration rate in state and local jails for all states was 2289 per 100,000 for blacks and 412 per 100,000 for whites in 2005 (Beck, & Harrison, 2006). Another example of racial disparity in the criminal justice system is the amount of black local law enforcement officers compared to white. According to the United States Bureau of Statistics in 2007 black officers accounted for 11.9% and white officers accounted for 74.7% of local police officers (Reaves, 2010, p. 14). Some people believe that the disparity in the number of black police officers
One negative aspect of stereotypes is that they can be judgmental and limiting of persons as individuals. Persons can be judged by stereotypes and not allowed to just be who they are. There are negative things like racial profiling, and hate groups that develop around stereotypes. People can sometimes also begin to embrace and become the stereotypes in which they fall, given too much pressure or implication. Part III Define stereotypes and prejudice.