Racism In The American Justice Criminal System

One of the problems in the American criminal justice system is that people from low-income backgrounds or even color are convicted of more crimes and sentenced to imprisonment than other wealthier non-people of color. But this country has its police force that keeps the streets safe and most important it has a criminal justice system, a system that acts to enforce the criminal laws. But what happen when racism it is involved in the criminal justice system? The American Justice Criminal System it supposes to prevent all type of crimes and incarcerate to those who commits the crime. One of the causes of some of those crimes could be poverty, greed, or ethnicity; as not all the offenders are processed and given the same punishment just because one person is white and another one a person of color. Sometimes people been mistakenly incarcerated and the worse is the majority are poor or people of color. The American criminal justice system has been unfairly convicting and punishing people because of their disadvantage backgrounds, lack of money and sometimes race. A system that is out of balance and not giving the same equality to all offenders that committed the same crime or get the necessary affordable help to prove their innocence or guilt of the crime. One big example is the story of Anthony Ray Hinton who wasn’t properly served by the criminal justice system because he was a person with low-income and a person of color and incriminated for a crime that he never committed.

The current American Justice System is not working in the fair way it should be, because people who are poor cannot afford good lawyers and good experts as witnesses. People of color who are poor are incarcerated by the system as was Anthony Ray Hinton who was accused of 3 murders, and not being able to afford a good lawyer to prove his innocence, for example, in the book of The Sun Does Shine Anthony Ray Hinton explains how he didn’t have the enough money for a ballistic expert and a better lawyer. “The other big obstacle was finding a ballistic expert. We needed someone to look at the gun and the bullets and get up there and testify. I knew the state was lying about the bullets and my mom’s gun, but it wasn’t like a judge or a jury was going to believe me. Perhaps had told me that the only thing keeping me from a good defense was money, and then he asked me if I had anyone who could pay him$15,000 to do the work. Nobody had that kind of money”. As can be seen Anthony Ray Hinton had a disadvantage of being poor and not able to have a good lawyer who could help him to prove his innocence and an expert who could take a better look of his mom’s gun.

This passage shows how Anthony, a person of color and low income went thru some obstacles just to find the help he needed to prove his innocence of a crime he didn’t even committed. Here is another example of how hard was for Anthony Ray Hinton to afford a lawyer who could help him with his case, “Your case from this point to the U. S. Supreme Court, but my fee to do that would be $15,000. The conditions for the payment of the fee are difficult; it would be my requirement that the entire fee be paid immediately in order for me to begin the appellate process. Please contact your family instantly and contact me immediately with your decision about what it is you would like to do”. Anthony Ray Hinton knew he didn’t have a chance to afford the lawyer and pay in full that high amount of money nor way he could do payments just to get the help to prove his innocence. So, how can the American criminal system can accuse a person of color of a crime, when they can’t even afford a lawyer to defend themselves and demonstrate if they guilty of their crime? This is a proof that the system actually gives better chances to the wealthy people to defend themselves and imprison the minority just because they don’t have the money to afford better lawyers and better experts for their cases.

I think racism in one of the things we need to worry about in the criminal justice system as they have the power to put someone in jail for very long time and the majority are people of color who are wrongly accused, arrested and convicted. A lot of people of color are treated unfair by police officers. That happen to Hinton as he was accused of something he didn’t committed. Police used false evidences against him, his lawyer didn’t even try to help him in the way he deserved and they didn’t even try to use the lie detector he passed. One shown example is what Anthony Ray Hinton said, “You know, I don’t care whether you did or didn’t do it. In fact, I believe you didn’t do it. But it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t do it, one of your brothers did. And you’re going to take the rap”. In few words this officer just didn’t care about the innocence of Anthony Ray Hinton. He was taking him either innocent or guilty of the crime. I won’t say that all police officers are the same but with so many news stories about topics of race involving the police is not surprising that racism still exist within the criminal justice system.

Another great example from the book The Sun Does Shine, Anthony Ray Hinton explains how his lawyer was showing signs of racisms since the very moment he met him. “At my arraignment, he barely looked at me. He was officially assigned my case, and I heard him mumble, “I didn’t go to law school to do pro bono work”. I cleared my throat, and he looked me in the eye for the first time. Even though I was handcuffed and chained, I held out my hand to shake his. “Would it make a difference if I told you I was innocent?” “Listen, all y’all always doing something and saying you’re innocent”. I dropped my hand. So that’s how it was going to be. I was pretty sure that when he said “all y’all”, he wasn’t talking about ex-cons of former coal miners or Geminis or even those accused of capital murder. This passage shows another example, Anthony’s lawyer showing he really had something against people of color as the way he acted and talked to Anthony Ray Hinton the day they met. It really shows racism is everywhere, even inside the criminal justices system where with power and authority they can define someone just because of their wealthy living situation and their race. Most of the people who pay the high price are people of color or Hispanic people.

In conclusion we live in a country where racism still exist. Where we have an American Criminal Justice System that is still broken and blind. A system that should treat people equally no matter race, money or genre; People of color and Hispanic people face long periods of jail time than white people that committed the same type of crime, because there is racism inside the criminal justice system; Where there is not a single day we hear news about a police officer using overpower of their authority against a person of color or even against an Hispanic person. We need an American criminal justice system that gives fairness and at the same time protect the society. As we live in a time where the criminal justice system should be doing what it should be doing best, protecting and serving the society without looking for profiles if the person is rich, poor, black, Hispanic, white, gay or straight. Is the time where the system should show the true justice and provide the kind of protection and fairness people are looking for. But what we as society can do about it? What can the criminal system justice could implement to provide the same equal justice to everyone without looking for poor or rich, black or white? But just that one day racism ends as a thing from the past and we all get treated in the same way, not more nor less. That this country provides it police officers with better training, and teach them how to deal in each day situation without causing no harm to anyone.