"The purpose of the criminal justice system is to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, while protecting the innocent" (Collins par 1). It is meant to provide equal protection to all persons under the law and to fairly administer the law. To achieve this, the police and the courts "detect crime and bring it to justice" (par 1). The police do so by making arrests, patrolling, and performing criminal investigations in order to abrogate crime. The courts use acumen to interpret the law and declare who has broken it. Correctional institutions ameliorate lives by separating criminals from society's milieu. In many instances, the criminal justice system is said to favor some racial groups over others. Racial disparities in the criminal justice system exist in the rate of incarceration and in reporting hate crimes. In recent years, it seems as though the criminal justice system has reneged on its purpose. With great verve, it has incarcerated youth and adults in alarming numbers. The rates of incarceration in America is far from exiguous for all races. Startling to many is the realization that African-Americans, specifically males, are incarcerated in higher numbers than Whites. In fact, "African Americans are overrepresented in all stages of the criminal justice system" (Thompson par 9). In the article "The Race of a Criminal Record: How Incarceration Colors Racial Perceptions," written by Aliya Saperstein and Andrew M. Penner, it is revealed that "In 2000, the incarceration rate for young black men was nearly 10 percent, compared to just 1 percent for white men" they also state that "for American men, the lifetime cumulative probability of being incarcerated stands at 6 percent for whites, 17 percent for Latinos, and 32 percent for blacks" (par. 8).
The disparity among rates of incarceration and race exists because of unfair treatment by law enforcement.
