Criminal Justice System And Race Disparities - Research Paper Example

Criminal Justice System And Race Disparities Section I: Introduction Background Society is constituted through the interaction that exists between two or more people (quote). As much as possible, these groups of people constituting a society are expected to live and relate in a manner that would ensure that the welfare of each person is protected and protected. In the wake of this, there are rules and responsibilities that bind individuals within each society. Research has revealed that the even though rules and responsibilities are necessary for ensuring the welfare of people, it is the presence of these very rules and responsibilities that bring about the need for a criminal system and for that matter a criminal code because in most cases, there is a section of people within the society that go against the rules of society and also defile the responsibilities they are expected to perform (quote). Having said this, it is important to point out the need for the laws that are made as a constituent of the criminal system to be as fair and balanced as possible. This is because it is only in such a premise that the criminal system can serve its purpose of protecting the right and welfare of all people (quote). In diversifying societies such as the United States where diversities exist in the form of racial differences, it has often been said that there have been weaknesses with the execution of the criminal code in a manner that refuses to ensure that all people are treated fairly and equally. Purpose of the Paper As the United States as a diversifying society is expected to execute its criminal justice system in a fair and unbiased manner, it is important to ensure that the system is not racist and partial against an identified group of citizens. It is against this backdrop and the background given earlier that the current research paper is being undertaken. As part of the purpose of the paper, the researcher shall determine whether or not the criminal justice system that is currently practiced in the United States is racists, and whether or not there is a relationship between crime and race at all in the United States. Research Question Based on the purpose of the study to determine the relationship between crime and race and to determine whether or not the criminal justice system is racist, the following research questions are asked: 1. Is there a connection between race and crime in the United States? 2. What are the factors accounting for disparities in crime rates among people of different races in the United States? 3. Is the criminal justice system of the United States of America racist? 4. How have the differences in crime rates among different races led to the criminal justice system becoming racist? Methodology To find answers to the research questions posed above and achieve the purpose of the study, it is important that a well meted out plan be used. In this research paper, this plan is referred to as methodology. Generally, the methodology describes the processes the researcher is going to use in an attempt to collect data from respondents (quote). In the current study, the researcher is going to employ the use of interview, which is a qualitative research method to collect data from respondents. Respondents are going to be sampled from a relatively confined and well defined population of colleague students. There shall be ten (10) respondents in the sample size made up of an equal number of males and females. Through a purposive sampling procedure, the researcher shall also ensure that there are an even proportion of all major racial groups in the United States in the sample size. The races shall be made up people from African background, White background, Hispanic background, Indian background, and other backgrounds, with two (2) representations from each of these five backgrounds. It is hoped that such differentiation of the racial variables of respondents will ensure that there is fairness with responses that will be gathered as there shall not be favoritism for a specific racial background. After sampling the respondents, the researcher shall go ahead to undertake a one-on-one interview with each respondent on questions related to the research questions, particularly question 1 and 3. Questions 2 and 4 shall be used as follow up questions to questions 1 and 3 respectively, and where necessary, additional follow up questions included. Significance of the Study The current research paper is being conducted at a very opportune time when the debate as to whether or not the criminal justice system of the United States is one that is racist. This debate continues to be a topical area in both the academics and professional fields. The findings will therefore come as authoritative stand in establishing the facts behind the arguments. What is more, it is expected that the conclusions that will be drawn from the findings will help in formulating a set of recommendations, which when taken up by the nation’s judiciary and criminal justice system and implemented would ensure that there is the promotion of fairness in the system. Once such recommendations are implemented, it is even believed that the international reputation that the United States holds in terms of the practice of judicial justice will be enhanced. Indeed, investors coming to the United States from other racial backgrounds would want to be assured that their rights and freedoms will be protected under the criminal justice system of the country and so this research shall also serve an economic advantage for the country. Section II: Literature Review—5 SOURCES Section III: Findings The demographic data collected from the respondents may be given from four (4) major dimensions namely race, sex, age, and socioeconomic status. In the first place, it was found that of the ten (10) respondents who were sampled for the study, two of them were each from the following races: White, African American, Hispanic, Indian, and other. These five racial backgrounds were used because in most of the literature reviewed; those were the groups of races tested. In terms of the sex of respondents, the researcher purposefully selected five (5) males and five (5) females. This proportion was used in order to have a very fair representation of criminal justice issues from both sexes, so as to ensure fairness of opinions and a balance in the responses. The ages of respondents ranged from 18 years to 32. There were however several respondents whose age fell in the early 20s. The table below is a full display of the ages of respondents. Age Number of Respondents 18 19 20 21 27 31 1 2 1 4 1 1 Total 10 The table below shows that greater percentage of the respondents was below the age of 25. This was because most of the respondents were students who were either at the college level or first degree level. Most of these respondents also took academic courses that related to criminal justice and law in one way or the other. Finally, greater percentage of the respondents was not financially independent as they depended on their parents for their upkeep. However, a good number of them were from economically viable homes. Apart from the demographic information gathered on the respondents, data was also collected on the respondents in relation to their experience with crime cases. As the respondents were expected to answer question boring the criminal justice system of the United States, it was important and necessary that their personal experiences be tested so as to know whether their answers and opinions will be from primary and empirical sources or from secondary sources. In this, it was found that all the respondents had at one point in time or the other in their lives come across a police stoppage or inspection before. Six (6) of the respondents also reported of cases of experience with either personal arrest or arrest of someone close to them. Two (2) of the respondents had bailed an arrested person before. With this experience gained by the respondents, they were able to give various views, opinions and perceptions of the criminal justice system that was based not on hearsay or secondary sources but on their personal experiences with the law. More importantly, the respondents shared their experience not only on what they had experienced at the hands of the criminal justice system as individuals but also what they had experienced in relation to people of other race. With this experience, the researcher was confident that the responses that were to be sampled from the respondents on the two major questions being considered were going to be very empirical and factual, rather than one that was answered from personal sentiments and sensationalism. The first major question posed to the respondents wanted to seek the opinion of respondents in terms of the relationship between race and crime. It was obviously expected that the most outright answers would be either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Indeed, as many as eight (8) of the respondents answered that ‘yes there was a relationship between race and crime’ whiles two (2) disagreed with the former, saying ‘no, there was no relationship between race and crime’. It is interesting to point out that, even though the racial background of the respondents will not be identified in accordance to their responses, it is worth noting that the two (2) respondents who answered ‘No’ did not belong to the same racial group. This confirms how unanimous most people from different and varying racial backgrounds were when it came to the perception of whether or not crime and race related. The follow up question to the major question was on the factors that accounted for the disparities in crime rates among people of different racial backgrounds. This question was only posed to the eight (8) respondents who agreed with the saying that race and crime were related. In their responses, majority of the respondents stressed that there are lines of races that have been associated with low levels of education and that they lower the level of education among a racial group, the more likely it is that people in that race will be associated with crime. There were some people who also associated the trend to biological factors. Generally, low levels of education was the major cause raised as to why certain racial groups could be more crime prone than others. The second question that was posed to respondents had to do with whether or not the criminal justice system was racist. The idea behind this question was to find out if due to the said relationship between race and crime, the various law enforcement agencies treated some people from identified racial background differently from others. To this end, a straight forward question was posed as, “is the criminal justice system racist?” out of the total of ten (10) sampled respondents, nine (9) of them answered ‘Yes’ whiles one (1) answered ‘No’. Respondents were made to give some brief explanations behind their answers. Some of the responses that were given as to why the respondents thought the criminal justice system was racist included the fact that they said in most random police search, people from Black and Hispanic backgrounds were targeted more than people from White and Indian backgrounds. Specific examples were given with traffic offending searches and inspection by the highway police. Some respondents shared personal experiences where they pointed out that the police would normally approach people from Black race and inspect them as against people from other racial backgrounds. It was further explained that even in cases where both a Black person and a White person were stopped by the police, more time was spent on the Black person as against the White person. What was more disturbing was when some respondents said that they had personal experiences of situations whereby people from certain racial backgrounds were spared when they had committed the same level of crime or atrocity that people from different racial background committed, for which the latter were penalized. Having noted that there were so many people who experienced concern over the racist nature of the criminal justice system, the researcher became interested in asking the respondents if in their opinion they thought the perceived bias had any negative repercussions. In this, all nine (9) people who said the criminal justice system was racist said ‘Yes, the racist nature of the criminal justice system had negative repercussions on the people of the United States’. The researcher began highly interested in this line of response produced and so asked the respondents to explain further. In their elaboration, the respondents pointed out that when there is favoritism and bias in the criminal justice system, chances are that a lot of people who should really be apprehended for various criminal offenses will be left off the hook. This means that there was the likelihood that people from specific racial background who felt they are treated softly by the law will abuse the law and become the core faces behind crime in society. For some of the respondents, a more resounding caution was giving, stating that the continued portraying of the criminal justice system of the United States will make the country loss its international justice reputation. Once this happens, investor activity activity will also be affected negatively. According to the respondents, this is because investors who are of different racial backgrounds other hand White American will have a perception that their legal interests will not be protected and so they will refuse to direct their investments to the United States. Section IV: Conclusions Greater part of the research paper was committed to answering two major questions, which were posed as follows: 1. Is there a relationship between crime and race 2. Is the criminal justice system in the United States racist? In a bid to answering these important questions that were posed, a number of research activities were undertaken by the researcher. Generally, there was the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research were combined. Qualitatively, literature was reviewed from existing secondary sources that had a bearing on the research topic selected by the researcher. The use of qualitative review did not involve any respondents or the use of mathematic indexes. On the other hand, the use of quantitative research demanded that the researcher set up a sample size, among which the researcher would collect very vital data on the criminal justice system of the United States. Both forms of data were critically examined and presented as findings. Based on the findings, a number of conclusions can be drawn on the state of the criminal justice system of the United States in terms of race and racism. Given the goal of the criminal justice practitioners to be the provision of equitable system of criminal justice and the debate as to whether or not the criminal justice system is racist, a thesis was formulated that indeed, the criminal justice system is racist and until there is equity of justice, crime can never be brought down to expected levels. In congruence to the thesis, the results obtained from the ten (10) respondents and the literature review suggests that greater percentage of the citizenry is of the opinion that the criminal justice system is racist. Imperatively, it can be concluded that the aims and aspirations of the criminal justice practitioner to distribute criminal justice equitably and fairly to all United States citizens and other indwellers has woefully failed. These findings and conclusion notwithstanding, there remained a larger proportion of literature that gave counterarguments, suggesting that the criminal justice system is not bias per se but that it is because there is an imbalance in the rate of crime among people of different race that there seem to be an ideology that the criminal justice system is biased. Indeed, when all available statistics show that a particular race is more likely to be involved in criminal activities, it would only be prudent that more attention is focused on that race when talking of crime combat and this practice does not in any way constitute partiality in the criminal justice system (quote). Based on all the conclusions made above, there are two major recommendations that are made by the researcher to the criminal justice practitioner, and for that matter stakeholder in the execution of the criminal justice code of the country. First, it is recommended that civic education on the role of the criminal justice practitioner and the modalities that guide their duties should be intensified. This is because there is a sharp contrast between what is held in theory and literature about partiality in the criminal justice system and what is held in principle by indigenes. Whereas the theories and literature defend most of the stands taken by people in terms of focusing much attention on crime combat on a specific racial group because incidents of crime among this group is higher, because on the ground see this as a practice that could be equated to partiality in the delivery of criminal justice. Finally, it is recommended that various criminal justice agencies should continue to be as pragmatic as possible in coming out with new statistics that affect the rate of crime in the country. This is because depending on old records and statistics all the time will result in a situation whereby there will be a shift in the trend of crime without the notice of appropriate authorities. Read More