The Center for Constitutional Rights,
Examples of the racism in the Justice System
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Getting Arrested:
- Although blacks comprise 13% of the population, and 14% of monthly drug users, they account for 37% of drug arrests.
- Black and Latino motorists are more likely to be stopped and frisked by the police compared to whites.
- Blacks are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rates for whites.
- Blacks are more likely to be detained while awaiting felony trials.
- Blacks are more likely to be represented by a public defender, with high caseloads and limited resources.
Trial & Sentencing
- African Americans are routinely excluded from criminal jury service.
- As is true of most defendants, most African Americans never get a trial, and have to make a choice about accepting a plea or risking a possible lengthy sentence.
- The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that black offenders receive longer sentences than white offenders.
- Two-thirds of people in the U.S. with life sentences are non-white.
- African Americans account for 56% of people in state prison for drug offenses.
- The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that a black male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of going to jail; Latino males have a 17% chance and white males have a 6% chance.
The Prison Population
- Despite black youth accounting for 16% of the juvenile youth population, they are 28% of juvenile arrests, 37% of youth in jails, and 58% of youth sent to adult prisons.
- The U.S. leads the world in incarceration and black males comprise the largest share of American prisoners.
- Research shows that 17% of white job applicants with a criminal record received call backs from employers, compared to 5% of black job applicants.
Related articles
- The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States (blackpoppymag.wordpress.com)
- Disparities in Education and Punishment for African-American Students (uzimacommunityblog.wordpress.com)
- The Value of a Black Youth’s Life (tostereotype.wordpress.com)
- why blacks spend more time in jail (orgtheory.wordpress.com)
- Black fathers and sons behind bars together: How common is it (thegrio.com)
