Many may feel that the United States has overcome its racist history; on the contrary the legacies of colonialism, slavery and racism still affect our policies and practices today. Although people of color commit most crimes at the same rate as Whites, the unequal targeting and treatment of people of color throughout the criminal justice system – from arrest to sentencing – results in the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color. Racial Disparity is not something that can easily be rid of, it will take years and years for the Criminal Justice System to purge in equality. .
Data Supporting the Existence of the Problem.
The biggest crime in the U.S Criminal Justice System is that African Americans are directly targeted and punished in much more aggressive ways than white people. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked. When blacks and Latinos are stopped 85% were frisked according to information provided by the NYPD. Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice.
African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites - according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch. Usually when African Americans are arrested, they are more likely to stay in prison than a white man who was arrested for the same reason. Following the Rodney King incident, the report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (also called the Christopher Commission) (1991) found that there was excessive use of force by LAPD officers and that this was compounded by racism and bias. There has been a great issue in policing research with how police use their powers against minorities.
