Thus black boys are five times and Latino boys nearly three times as likely as white boys to go to jail.
The largest evidence of racism prevailing from the criminal justice system is the gross over population of people of colour in the system. Whites comprise the majority of the American population, blacks about 12.7%, and Latinos represent about 11.7%. In 2003, blacks comprised 48.2% of the adult members in prisons and jails. Furthermore, 42.5% of death row prisoners were black. (How is the criminal justice system racist, 2005) The disparities found in these statistics are seen at all stages. People of color are stopped more frequently, arrested more often, convicted more often, more harshly sentenced, and sentenced to death more often (How is the criminal justice system racist, 2005). .
The US has seen a surge in arrests and subsequent jail terms over the last four decades. Most of the reason for this is drug related. Yet whites and blacks engage in drug offences, possession and sales, at roughly comparable rates (Human Rights Watch 2008).While African Americans comprise 13% of the US population and 14% of monthly drug users they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offences ( Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.) African Americans are arrested for drug offences at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites. (Human Rights Watch 2009). On arrest, blacks are more likely to remain in prison awaiting trial than whites. For example, the New York state division of criminal justice did a 1995 review of disparities in processing arrests and found that in some parts of New York blacks are 33% more likely to be detained awaiting trial than whites.
Once arrested, 80% of the people in the criminal justice system get a public defender for their lawyer. Race plays a big role here, with the justice system giving public defenders a much heavier caseload with much less funds to work with than their compatriots on the prosecution benches.
