Race crime and justice M1 W

Instructions
Graph shows arrest rats (2001-2010) for whites and Blacks. Black rates are more than double those of whites in 2001 and continue to risee, while white arrest rates remain steady.
This assignment is designed to recognize and evaluate your understanding of the material covered in this module. Your work will be assessed for demonstrated critical thinking, analytical and communication skills. Read the instructions carefully and present your response in a clear and organized fashion. For grading criteria, please consult the rubric for this assignment.

Questions:

How can it be argued that, since Reconstruction, the criminal law has been defined and used against racial or ethnic minorities?
What is meant by the oft-heard phrase “systemic racism”?
Does what you have studied in this module about the history of and practices in the criminal justice system support the claim that it is riddled with systemic racism? Provide a well-reasoned response to this question, citing references from the primary course texts The New Jim Crow and Race and Crime as well as information from the other course materials to support your arguments.
You should address the question in a paper of approximately 2,400 words, relying primarily on the readings and other materials assigned in this module. You will not receive credit without demonstrating that you have read and understood the material assigned. You may include independent sources. All information should be documented in MLA style.

ANSWER

Race, Crime and Justice M1 W

The reconstruction era was the era that was meant to bring freedom to former slaves and redefine the new relationship between African Americans and white Americans. However, since the reconstruction era, criminal law has been used against ethnic minorities such as African Americans. There is a myriad of examples of how criminal law was used against racial minorities, especially African Americans, since the reconstruction era (Alexander and Chattod 25). Differential treatment on the basis of race is documented in the US criminal law system. The definitions of criminality and criminal activity are defined unequally among different racial groups in the US, with the people of color being on the losing end of the unequal criminal policies. Racial biases are deep in the criminal justice system such that disparities exist at each decision point, affecting the subsequent decision point and finally leading to a negative outcome.

The US has for long created discrimination against people of color. Offenses have been defined by people in power, and this means for a long time, they have been structured to maintain the status quo. An example of this is the black codes and vagrancy, which were used to maintain control over black communities during and after reconstruction (Alexander and Chattod 27). The Jim Crow laws prevented communities of color from having access to equal resources as the white community, and this prevented the black community from amassing wealth for themselves as the white people were doing the same. Laws and policies made explicitly based on race have evolved into the modern criminal law system, which looks neutral at the surface but is still meant to exert control over people of color.

Consequently, the criminal law system in America has continued to deprive people of color of their right to a fair criminal justice system that is willing to treat them fairly. In the modern world, the criminal law system in the US is still targeting people of color, and they are still being incarcerated and arrested. After segregation was lifted, the supporters targeted people who supported integration and those who had participated in the civil rights movement. During the Reagan administration, the “get tough” policies that targeted people of color were introduced. These policies primarily targeted black and Latino people who had been stereotyped as engaging in criminal drug activity (Alexander and Chattod 31). The crack epidemic developed as part of this war, which paved the way for laws that disproportionately targeted black communities. The crack epidemic led to the mass incarceration of the black community as anybody found with crack was sentenced to harsh minimums. This further expanded the false narrative about the people of color, and the media promoted the narrative that people of color were criminals.

In retrospect, the crack epidemic was similar to the opioid epidemic. The only difference between the two is that it affected people of a different race and a race that the administration undermines. The people who were addicted to crack were not criminals and did not need to be incarcerated. They were sick people who needed help, but instead of helping them, they incarcerated them. This led to many African American children growing up without their parents. The black community also lost its young people, and this stopped the community from growing as the young, energetic people who were supposed to help the community grow were either dead or in prison. Today, the opioid epidemic mostly affects the white community. However, they are not incarcerated; they are taken to rehabilitation centers. If the same had been done for the black community, they would have had a better chance of growing their community.

After reconstruction, there was high tension between the races. There was tension concerning the allocation of labor and resources between the races. One case that brought attention to the plight of African Americans in the US was the case of several African American boys who were on the same freight with some white boys and two girls (Gabbidon and Helen 28). A fight ensued between the two races, and the white boys alighted from the freight before the African American boys. On the next stop, the two girls alighted from the freight and accused the black boys of gang-raping them. The boys were saved from getting lynched by the police. However, they were arrested and sentenced to death. Years later, it was discovered that they had not raped the girls, and the accusations were false (Gabbidon and Helen). However, the boys had spent the better part of their young lives incarcerated for a crime they had not committed. This trend still exists in the criminal law system, with many innocent African American men being accused of crimes they have not committed. The system is yet to start treating all races equally, and most African American men end up facing the wrath of the criminal justice system even when innocent.

Systemic Racism

Systemic racism can be described as the patterns of racism that often appear in the American system. This means that racism is ingrained within the systems, and all the systems are plagued with racism. Systemic racism means a system ingrained in racism that is no longer visible. Racism is a system that oppresses people of a different color. Systemic racism manifests itself in the judicial system, national and global economies, education system, religion, popular culture, and a war machine that kills non-European people around the world. In the US, systemic racism manifests itself in different ways (Alexander and Chattod). It manifests itself in a system that funds the police system that is focused on killing young African American men and women. It manifests itself in the criminal law system that still believes that people of color are criminals and profiles them.

Slavery transferred wealth from black labor to white property owners. Slaves were not paid to work, and their labor was used to amass wealth by the white slave owners and the non-slave owners. The white slave and no-slave owners made wealth out of the black slaves’ labor while the black communities continued to be economically y and politically oppressed. Slavery laid a foundation for the economic gap between blacks and whites, which persists to date. Slavery also had dismal repercussions not only for African Americans but also had an impact on the African continent. Even after slavery ended in the 1860s, racism persisted through the establishment of Jim crow laws which legalized racial segregation in the US (Alexander and Chattod ). These systems persisted for a century. Jim crow was replaced by a mass incarceration system that disproportionately imprisons black people for nonviolent drug offenses. The system during the crack epidemic imprisoned more black people even though the rate of using drugs between the white and the black community was the same.

Systemic racism manifests itself in different facets of societal patterns. Patterns of racial inequality exist in the judicial system policing, education, and global and national economies. Examples of systemic racism in the US include;

Police and Justice System

Non-white people are more likely to get stopped by the police; they are more likely to be arrested and harmed. In most cases, the same officers that harm and hurt people of color are acquitted. When people of color are arrested for the same crimes as white people, they are given harsher sentences (Alexander and Chattod). There are many examples of systemic racism that happens in the US today. The most recent example is the George Floyd case, where two police officers killed a black man for committing fraud. Despite the black man having committed a crime, he did not deserve to die. This is an excellent example of the racism that exists in the US police and justice system.

Whitewashing Education and History

Systemic racism exists in all systems, including the education system. The education curriculum whitewashes or downplays the effects of slavery, genocide, rape, and racism in the US while glorifying the oppressors (Alexander and Chattod). Examples of the oppressors who are glorified are the confederate and founding fathers who were slave owners. While they contributed to the development of the country, they should also be condemned for supporting a system that oppressed and contributed to the suppression of one race.

Access to Opportunities and Wealth

Non-white people in the US do not have equal opportunities for good schools, higher education, and wealth. This is a result of the wealth gap that was formed during racism. The white people were given a head start by the labor of black people, while the black people were held back by oppressive systems such as the justice system, which held them back by incarcerating them even after they had enslaved them for 400 years (Alexander and Chattod). Systemic racism exists in the US; thus, the term systemic racism refers to systems plagued with racism. Despite the many changes that happened in the US, people of different races are still faced with racism in their places of work. They still do not have access to equal opportunities because the American systems are built on the foundation of the oppression of one race.

History and Practices in the Criminal Justice System

The lessons studied in this module assert that the US criminal justice system is riddled with systemic racism. In her book, Michelle Alexander illustrates how slavery and other laws and policies which were explicitly based on race have evolved and seeped into the modern-day criminal justice system. Looking at the book, one can tell that the black community has been plagued by a history of oppression, unequal opportunities, and systems that have been put in place to ensure that they are at the bottom of the barrel. The book by Alexander is proof that the African American community has been under oppression for so long, from not being able to vote to being segregated and not allowed to study in the same schools as white people or even use the same bathrooms (Gabbidon and Helen). The systems that are in place in the US today are the same systems, only that the language of discrimination has been changed, but it still exists in the systems.

After the Jim Crow laws of racial segregation, the black community was riddled with a period of mass incarceration as a result of the crack epidemic. The sane system that was supposed to work towards protecting them worked against them by incarcerating them. Mass incarceration is still in existence in the modern world and in the US today (Gabbidon and Helen). This is because, despite the many changes that have been made in the criminal justice system, black me are still in danger of being profiled, they are still arrested, evidence is still planted, and many black men still end up being in the same place they are trying to avoid. Incarceration is another beast of its own in the US because, after incarceration, black men find themselves in a place where they are outcasts in their own community. They cannot vote, they cannot have a job, and the fact that they were incarcerated still plays a role in how they are judged as a people.

Even with the growth of minority groups, prejudice and discrimination are still concerns in the US. Prejudice plays a major role in the injustice and systemic racism in the US today. Young black men and women are more likely to be stopped and searched by the police compared to their white counterparts. There are many situations where the black men and women who are stopped by the police refuse to stop, and in these cases, the police escalate the situation, which eventually ends up in the death of the black person. The policing system in the US has been built to profile and mistreat black men and women. Black men are the most affected by this, with many having to walk around with their identity cards as they are likely to be stopped by the police. They are also at the risk of losing their jobs because they were arrested because, according to the police, they fit the description.

Despite African Americans having gained their freedom from slavery, they were still faced with systems that worked against them. The same systems are still in place because these are systems that are formed under the rules of the founding fathers, who were slave owners and formed rules that were meant to oppress and repress the rights of African Americans. Some of the instances that show that systemic racism still exists in the US is the public school systems in the US do not have the same amenities as private schools. Schools in white neighborhoods have better resources compared to those in black neighborhoods. This creates a disparity in the education system and denies children of color equal opportunities in terms of education and work opportunities.

There is a common belief that since some African Americans have experienced success in recent years and the country has even had a black president, the country is in the process of achieving a system that is not plagued with racism. However, that is not the case because, despite the many steps that have been made in the US, the system does not treat all fairly. This module has proven that the criminal justice system has always been riddled with racism (Alexander and Chatodd). The systemic racism in the US has been seen in the criminal justice system, with the country being riddled with a period of black men being incarcerated. All the module has proven is that the laws that were put in place after reconstruction, during the Jim Crow era, and during the Reagan era have all been put in place to ensure that black people do not have the same opportunities as white people in the US.

In conclusion, systemic racism does not have to be apparent. People do not have to call the other derogatory terms out rightly for them to be racist; racism in the US today is seen in the systems of governance. It is seen in healthcare when low-income communities, which mostly comprise people of color, are unable to access healthcare. It is seen in the education system where white and black children do not have equal opportunities. All this comes down to slavery and segregation. The American system is racist in that the white people have benefited from the free labor of the slaves, while the black people suffer the consequences of slavery and segregation, which have made it hard for the black community to keep up with the white community. The same systems that stooped black people from being homeowners are the same ones that are in place. Racism is still ingrained deep in the American system.

Works Cited

Alexander, Michelle, and Chatodd Floyd. “THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS.”

Gabbidon, Shaun L., and Helen Taylor Greene. Race and crime. Sage Publications, 2018.