For as long as I can remember, I have distrusted the American criminal justice system. The inability of the system to properly administer equal justice to all American citizens has fostered my skepticism. I have found the concept of "justice" to be conditional, in that the distribution of justice is strongly dependent upon race and class. By justice I mean equal enforcement and protection under the law for those accused of committing a crime.
According to David Cole, author of NO Equal Justice, even though African Americans make up 12 percent of the general population, they comprise more than half of the prison population. Nationally, for every black man who graduates from college, 100 are arrested. Cole contends that African Americans "serve longer sentences, have higher arrest and conviction rates, face higher bail amounts, and are more often the victims of police" brutality than white Americans.
Perhaps the most disturbing statistics are those concerning the death penalty. According to Cole, from 1976-1998 only seven white men have been executed for killing black victims, whereas 115 black men have been executed for killing white victims. A study conducted by Professor David Baldus in Georgia in the 1970s found that defendants charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive the death sentence than defendants charged with killing blacks.
It is important to note that statistics can be ambiguous, as there are multiple factors that could explain the perceived racial disparity in the criminal justice system. However, it is equally important to realize the role that race plays in American society. Race is definitive in that it allows an entire group of people to be categorized according to social perceptions and stereotypes. For minorities, race is often linked with criminality. As long as this link exists, there is always the potential for discrimination in the criminal justice system.
American drug laws also suggest that there is racial disparity in the criminal justice system. Crack cocaine laws severely affect African Americans, who make up more than 90 percent of those found guilty of crack cocaine crimes. Prison sentences for the possession and distribution of crack cocaine are 100 times more severe than the penalties for powder cocaine, according to Cole. Powder cocaine is predominately used by white Americans.
Cole further demonstrates the disparities in drug laws by illustrating the gradual change in marijuana laws over the course of a few decades. Cole argues that when white youth began smoking marijuana in large numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, state legislatures responded by reducing penalties and in some states effectively decriminalizing marijuana possession. This suggests that the most serious criminal sanctions, as far as drug laws are concerned, are reserved for nonwhite citizens.
A racially biased criminal justice system undermines the humanity of those who are victimized by the system. By allowing racial biases to contaminate the criminal justice system, we allow a systematic perversion of justice for many minority citizens. If the purpose of "justice" is to protect the humanity of all Americans, then unequal justice corrupts the whole of society and humanity. By suggesting that minorities deserve harsher punishments, the criminal justice system implies that minorities are more violent and more threatening. In this way, the criminal justice system reinforces the link between race and criminality. It perpetuates the phenomena of guilt by appearance. Such predetermined guilt is an infringement upon the humanity of minorities because it criminalizes them on the basis of factors beyond their control. And as a result, individuals who feel that their rights are being systematically undermined by discrimination are less likely to respect and obey the laws of the criminal justice system.
In this way, as David Cole suggests, the legitimacy of the criminal justice system depends on equality before the law. Cole argues that "where a community accepts social rules as legitimate, the rules will be largely self-enforcing." Laws or social rules "will be acceptedonly to the extent that 'the community' believes that the rules are just and that the authority behind them is legitimate.
The distrust that I described at the beginning of this editorial is a direct result of feeling that the system is unjust. Thus, I am less inclined to obey and cooperate with the system out of respect; rather, I do so out of fear -- fear that failure to cooperate will result in further dehumanization on the basis of discrimination. This sentiment is common to many minorities, and it is a strong indication that the law, as it is applied under the current criminal justice system, has lost its moral force in minority communities.
It is easy to trivialize the significance of problems concerning racial disparity by classifying them as the 'minority problem.' The inequities in the American criminal justice system are an American problem. If increased crime and greater racial enmity are the results of a biased system, then it is a problem that affects all Americans.
