The Issue Of Race And Ethnicity In The American Criminal Justice System
Race and ethnicity has always been an issue to the way the criminal justice system functions. Some ethnic groups are targeted more than others and have been for a very long time. An age-old question has been the reason why. Why are some groups on the spotlight and viewed as inherently bad and criminal while others are considered to be lawful and ethical? In countries with a lot of diversity it is very clear that non-white people are more likely to be the victims of hate crime for their religious beliefs, their ethnicity, their colour and their sexuality. In the following paragraphs many questions that are important in resolving the issues around race and why the Criminal Justice Systems seems to focus on certain groups of people when looking for someone to blame but forsakes when they are the victims of criminal activities.
For many decades sociologists and criminologists in the United States have argued whether people of colour (especially African Americans) are misrepresented in the Criminal Justice System. Latter reviews of the research reveal that more than half of the studies surrounding the subject identify race as an important component. In his report about Stephen Lawrence, a black teenage boy who got killed by six white boys while waiting for the bus with a friend, William MacPherson (1999) said that institutional racism is the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people either because of their culture, colour, or ethnic origin. Moreover, MacPherson conducted an inquiry as to why the police and the crown prosecution service are prejudice in handling some cases because their effort to pursue evidence and prosecute the offender are inadequate. With that being said it is clear that the prejudice of the Criminal Justice System can indeed explain the disproportionate treatment of ethnic minority groups. When ethnic minority groups are the victims of a crime sometimes their cases get swept under the rug by the Criminal Justice System due to the racist nature that is embedded in our wider society. An example of disproportionality in the Criminal Justice System is the conviction and sentence rates of indictable offences. Although more white people were found guilty of that said offence, black and ethnic minority groups sentenced rates were higher.
On the contrary belief 75 percent of the people who are stopped while driving in England and Wales are white while the remaining 25 percent being black, Asian, mixed, or other. But, the percentage of people who got searched and arrested as a consequence to being stopped were higher for black, mixed, and Chinese or other. In the United States the arrest per 1000 people population showed great disproportionality. More than half of the people being arrested were black (56. 5 per cent), almost 38 per cent were mixed, 20. 5 per cent Asian, 19 per cent white while the remaining were Chinese or other. In 2008 the 40 per cent of the male prison population were black. McConville et al (2014) and others have found evidence of racial discrimination on the sentencing decision made by the court. More specifically Asians and Blacks are more likely to be treated unprofessionally during their court trial. An argument by Hall et al (2013) was made to point out the increased policing of black people and the stereotypes attached to them due to the exaggeration of black crime of the media and the state. In addition, the disproportionality of the Criminal Justice System can be detected in the overrepresentation of black people who are imprisoned.
The disproportionality of people of ethnic minority background cannot go unnoticed. Ethnic minorities are the least likely to be accepted as practitioners within the Criminal Justice System, that’s the reason Bowling (2002) implied that the recruitment practices are prejudiced. Very often people of colour and of ethnic minority background are discouraged from joining or continuing a job within the Criminal Justice System due to past experiences and negative feedback of other ethnic minority people. Also, the racism they encounter from their colleagues can attribute to that. Considering all the above information, it is safe to say that the racism within the Criminal Justice System can explain the disproportionate treatment of minority ethnic groups. In addition, women of colour and of ethnic background feel that once they join the force they will be subjected to racism and sexism. Some researchers wanted to discover the reason behind disproportionality in the juvenile justice system. Most delicately accounted the reason behind the disproportionality to be “extra-legal” or “research selection” while a smaller group of researchers argued that the reason is racism of the Criminal Justice System. An even smaller group argued that the reason of disproportionality in numbers can be explained by the higher involvement rates in serious crimes by youths of colour. Scarman (1981) said ‘a police force which fails to reflect the ethnic diversity of our society will never succeed in securing the full support of all its sections’.
On a different note, an issue has been raised on whether migration has become criminalised or not. One might argue that due to the many migration laws that exist today that migration has indeed been criminalised. The European union in their attempt to govern migration created new criminal divisions of irregular, illegal and undocumented migrants. In 2009 the council of Europe commissioner expressed his concern about the tendency to criminalise the irregular entry and presence of migrants in Europe. He indicated his thoughts by saying the following, ‘such method of controlling international movement corrodes established international law principles; it also causes many human tragedies without achieving its purpose of genuine control. ’ It was also stated that irregular immigrants are not criminals and should not be treated as such, they should not be subjected to detention at all and that member states of the European Union are obligated to find an alternative to detention and that detention should be as short as possible. The immigration law has been influenced and directed to be what it is today by crimes committed by immigrants. A federal statute surrounding the law is to restrict any foreigner who has been convicted of a criminal activity from entering the country. After that, the criminal and immigration law have developed a better relationship, where many immigration violations are characterised as criminal offences and can lead to deportation. Moreover, in many of the European states when a foreigner who is crossing the European borders from a non-European country and is subjected to immigration control can face administrative sanctions.
The residents of a country feel threaten when immigrants arrive because they expect to act unlawfully, that’s is the image given to them by news and the rest of the media. They focus only on the crimes committed by immigrants and that helps to their criminalisation. Additionally, immigrants are afraid to report crimes committed against due to the constant fear of being deported. In 2017 the president elect of the United States Donald Trump, issued a new ban, descripted by the people as a ‘Muslim ban’, that didn’t allow people from certain countries to enter the United States. Staying on the subject of the U. S, Mexican mothers and fathers were being deported and consequently divided from their American born children in an attempt to clear the land of immigrants from immigrants. In 2012 almost 400. 000 people were removed from U. S soil. People flee their countries seeking asylum and get rejected in the process or they get detained for a long time before being released under supervision.
An example of migrants being criminalised are the very strict asylum policies of Sweden. Many migrants chose to share their experiences, many got detained in centres for as long as 25 months, other got send back to their countries and many, who unfortunately did not get the chance to share their story, chose to commit suicide because they would face a harsher treatment if they were eventually transported back home. Detention and removal of an individual from a country are seen as mechanism for preserving their national security. With all of the above being said it is clear that migration has become criminalised. Everyone residing in a country, whether that is a police officer or a salon owner, never expect from an immigrant to be law abiding because that is what they are shown. Moreover, many ethnicists want to preserve their national status and ethnicity intact they feel threatened by anyone foreign. Since the dawn of time people travelled countries and established civilisations and the world as we know it today. The world would not be the same if Alexander the Great stayed in Macedonia and if Christopher Columbus did not discover America. It is true that these people may not have been the best humanitarians but in the aftermath, they will be known for ever. People would travel from land to land when their provisions would run out or when they were threatened by war. Today people might migrate because of economic, social, political, or environmental reasons.
Today, more than ever before, people are afraid of going to crowded spaces, like a concert, the train station, or a shopping centre, due to the constant fear of a terrorist attack. Terrorism is very hard to tackle because no one can really know when or where it’s going to happen. The government and the police have taken some measures when it comes to combating terrorism. If you take a stroll around the city centre, you will see armed police officers patrolling the streets. That may be scary and unnatural to see but people feel safer when they know they are protected and that there is someone there that will act no matter what. What must not happen is to target certain groups of people because the majority of terrorists belong or rather believe they belong in those groups. After a major event that impacts people’s lives they tend to associate the religious or ethnic groups of the people responsible to crime committed. After the 9/11 incident in the United States the West targeted Muslims, attacked them and made them feel unwanted and unsafe. There was an instance when a group of friends were removed from the aeroplane because they were speaking Arabic and the other passengers felt threatened. A country that is the home to diverse group of people cannot target and try to push its people out. If the police have suspicions and evidence that someone, who happens to belong in an ethnic minority group, is going to do something to harm the society, then they have every reason to keep an eye on them. But, to target innocent people because they are Muslim, or Arab is unjustifiable. In addition, black people should not be targeted because of their colour or because they look “dangerous” in our society’s standards.
Our society has for a very long time associated black people with criminal activities. That’s the reason why the police are more anxious and observant when they encounter people of colour. The general racism of our society is also planted in the minds of police officers who may or may not act in a prejudiced and racist manner when interacting with black and ethnic minority groups. Targeting religious groups and putting surveillance on predominately Muslim communities is going to create a schism not only with the police but with other groups as well. The police should not target minor groups but rather individuals who pose a threat to national security, targeting all of people within a religious or ethnic group is going to create chaos in society and an awful relationship between the two. The job of the police is to make each and every person of the community regardless of their skin colour, their religion or their sexuality feel protected and safe. That will create a trustworthy relation among the police and the public and the it will help in the smooth function of the society. When a person of colour is stopped or is randomly selected for a check at the airport they automatically think is because of their clothing or the colour of their skin, and most of the times that is the reason behind it.
Another question that needs to be answered is whether slavery was a hate crime. This is a very sensitive question that needs to be addressed discretely. There is no doubt that people of colour have been, and some are still going through one of the most horrific situations anyone could think of. To this day black people are being enslaved and sold, in some parts of Africa. There is actual footage of an auction where people are buying black Africans. These people are being told that they are going with a boat to a different country but in reality, they are being sold as slaves for 400 dollars. Slavery is not a new-found issue, it has been going on since the ancient times and not only black people were subjected to it. After 1400 B. C. slavery began to rise again with the first documented case being in Lagos, Portugal in 1444. After 400 years nations began to abolish slavery. The abolition of Slavery Act passed in 1807 criminalising the British Atlantic slavery trade. Starting from the beginning of the year 1808, the United States passes legislation forbidding the slave trade. In the years to follow most European countries abolished slavery such us, Spain and most of the Spanish colonies, Holland, Sweden, and France.
One of the most monumental moments in U. S. history was when then President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the liberation of slaves starting from the 1st of January 1863. The 13th Amendment follows soon after in 1865 banning slavery. One of the human rights stated by the United Nations in 1943 is that no one will be held in slavery or in servitude slavery and that the slave trade and slavery must be restricted in all forms. Going back to the initial question if slavery is or is not a hate crime. First of all, what is a hate crime? A hate crime is any crime or criminal activity targeted towards an individual because of their skin colour, their religion, their sexual orientation, or their gender. It is difficult to answer the question, but one might argue that indeed slavery was a hate crime due to the fact that black people were targeted because of the colour of their skin. There is no indication that in the past people were actually prosecuted for owing slaves and if they did there is no evidence that shows that they were prosecuted for a hate crime. On the contrary, someone might say that in ancient history and more particularly ancient Rome anyone could be sold as a slave regardless of their race or religion. Moreover, slavery could not be classified as a crime back in the 17th century because owning slaves was completely legal. One thing is for sure, people are not property, they cannot be sold or bought. There is a huge difference between cleaning houses for money on your own terms and being sold to work 20 hours a day for the profit of someone else.
To conclude, today in our modern society many things from the past that are degrading human lives are still happening today. Prejudices and behaviours that indicate that some human lives somehow are worth less than others are still deep rooted in the heart of our society. People are afraid to get a job in the Criminal Justice System because they don’t want to experience verbal and psychological abuse. The racism of some people that is in fact coming from our racist society and the stereotypes that surrounds all kinds of people, make the idea of a just and fair world seem like a fantasy. Human lives are being sold like a piece of clothing and everyone else in the world just goes on with their life because they are simply not affected. Children of colour and of ethnic minority background need to feel represented, seeing a man or a woman of colour in uniform will help them trust the police and to make them want and know that it’s possible to be in such position when they grow up. Furthermore, people need to stop pretending that people are inherently bad or Muslims are by default terrorists, black people are thugs and people of any ethnic groups are criminals. People are just people and they need to be treated equally and respectfully.
