African American males in the criminal justice system

Abstract

Criminal Justice system ensures that justice is being delivered to the people in the society. Over the recent decades there has been a rise in the trend of crimes, and most shockingly, people from low income areas of the society are found involved in acts of serious crimes like drug trading. According to various researches, the African Americans are mostly found involved in crimes that serve them long sentences. It has also been seen that the criminal justice system of the USA can do little to stop criminals from committing crimes once they do their sentences. This is largely because of the conditions and the environment in jails that further strengthens the bond between the black Americans inside and outside. There is a dire need to improve the prevailing conditions of the prisons and it is now important to adopt policies that tend to take different approaches for correcting black Americans, by being more lineate as far as sentencing is concerned

Introduction

Justice is one of the many basic rights of an individual in any civilized society. Justice, being delivered is what makes a society prosperous and a better place to live at. Criminal justice system is a system consisting of institutions and various practices with a sole purpose of breaking the backbone of crime by holding up the control of the society and by punishing those who do not abide by the laws of the state and engage in criminal activities.

In the United States, the policy regarding justice follows the 'President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice' of the 1967. According to it, a criminal justice system is a strong mean for a society to enforce standards of conduct, essential for protecting the people and the society, ( PCLEJ,1967).

This paper will be focusing on the Criminal Justice system pertaining to the African American males in the United States of America. According to a research, about thirty percent black men falling in this age bracket of twenty-twenty nine, are under supervision of the criminal justice system, with a cost borne of six billion dollars every year, (Mauer and Tracy, 1995). The research also reveals that at least forty five percent of arrests are disproportionate nationally to their share of the population. During the 1970's, the real incomes of the Americans fell. The gap between the rich and the poor widened in the 1980s. African American men faced a fifty percent fall in their annual incomes, (Casey, 1995). These changes compelled creed and class differences. Since the African Americans are represented in the low income segments of urban communities, the impact was intensified. It surfaced as a rise in unemployment and high rates in crime, (Douglas et al, 1996).

Discussion

The possibility of African Americans entering prisons in their life is almost 28% as compared to that of White Americans (4%) and Hispanic men (16%), ( USDJ,1997). Over the years researchers have become keener to scrutinize the degree to which racial differences in the system ...