The criminal justice system in the United States has come a long way since it was first established. Even though there have been major improvements to law to prevent overt systematic racism, there is still a lot to fix for the disparities that persist. Evidence of these disparities is seen in the over-representation of minorities represented in the general population and the staggering difference in arrests and convictions between whites and minorities.
Specifically, the African-American population sees heavier arrest and conviction rates. No longer is there a system-wide discrimination in which minorities are treated unjustly because of the color of their skin, yet, disparities (a general imbalance), are overtly clear when we look at the numbers/statistics of arrest and conviction rates. A close look at these rates and we note that the scales of equality are out of balance. There are several factors that address why victimization and poverty contribute to minority delinquency and criminal behavior.
Some explanations to consider about minority crime and victimization rates include: socioeconomic underclass and its history, the code of the street in inner-cities, victimization rates why they occur, crime rates and types of crimes committed, bias and discrimination, policing and court decisions, sentencing, and the war on drugs. We must first look at the evolution of the socioeconomic underclass, also called the underclass by William Wilson (2012), specifically, how it was created, and how the shift had tied and bound minorities to the lower level neighborhoods, creating a culture of drugs and violence.
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Until the 1940s and 1950s, there was a stable integration of lower, working, and middle-class families that lived in the same community. Starting around the 1960s, the era of the civil rights movement, upper-class black professionals such as lawyers and doctors were now able to, for the first time, easily welcomed and integrated into middle-class neighborhoods creating a shift in the communities. According to Wilson (2012), the presence of minority professionals affected and drove the social norms and behavior of all living within the community.
People looked out for each other and the neighborhood. If a stop sign fell, it would quickly be repaired and be standing erect within a day. The loss of these working professionals moving out of the lower class neighborhoods deeply impacted the culture. Once jobs shifted out of these inner-cities and transitioned from a more goods-producing into a service-producing job market, unemployment became a new normal. The technological advances that had taken place moved manufacturing companies out of the inner-cities, taking away local job opportunities. While the more educated minorities benefited from the civil rights movement, overall it left the majority of the truly disadvantaged(less educated and poor) worse off. These conditions created a perfect breeding ground for an increase in inner-cities crime rates.
As Walker (2012, p.106) states, “the conditions of extreme poverty diminish the human and social capital that young people possess and, as a consequence, contribute to higher rates of criminal activity”. There was already a higher rate of unemployment before the recession of the 70s and 80s, which increased the social isolation due to lack of jobs because they were moved out of the inner-cities, and this in turn, changed the culture of these inner-cities to a lower socio-economic class like society that greatly impacted and continues to impact minorities today. For those unable to afford a car, the prospect of traveling a couple of hours by bus for a minimum wage is demoralizing (Anderson, 2000).
The deindustrialization impacted these communities greatly. Along with the socio-economic underclass minorities now encounter, there is a street culture the prevails. Elijah Anderson dives into this in his book, Code of the Street(2000). He describes the code of the street as an “informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly violence. The rules prescribe both proper comportment and the proper way to respond if challenged’ (Anderson, 2000, p.33).
If someone is challenged, they must never back down and must stand up to and potentially fight with the offender or else they lose respect in their society. They must also dress in a manner that is counter-culture to society to differentiate themselves. If one doesn’t live by the code, you are seen as weak and become a target. To save face and stay alive, one must put up, either by fighting or other acts of violence. They want to have the same opportunities to make money to afford nice things like the rest of society, but due to limited job options as previously described and due to social isolation, they are enticed to follow the drug dealing market, so they can afford nice things for themselves.
This also helps them gain status with girls and their “bols”. They can’t make the same kind of money at a minimum wage job, and if they do get a job, and they happen to have children not under their care as many do, child support gets garnished from their wages, and they end up making way less. This entices them to once again fall into drug dealing. They must also be good at code switching, meaning switching from a “decent person” to a “street person” in and out of various situations to present themselves well and save face. Young men from “decent families” must be able to move in and out of the inner city to both survive and thrive. This puts them in the class with “street people”.
The discrimination of how one dresses or appears gets them stopped and frisked, perpetuating feelings of racial discrimination and leaving them feeling hopeless. According to the Sentence Project, 33 percent of African Americans in their 20s are in the criminal justice system so this code becomes relevant in understanding the culture of the inner-city(Anderson, 2000, p. 134). The disintegration of family structure also becomes problematic. As Anderson (2000) points out, many fathers do not take responsibility for their children which leaves the mothers, who are generally young and incapable to raise the children.
In the past, this responsibility was given by the mothers to the grandmothers but more and more of those are disappearing as the mothers of today are growing into the grandmother roles and incapable of raising them due to financial instability and/or drug use. This is a side of society that most people don’t see, a code that isn’t understood, and that is completely socially isolated from the majority of people. Because race is not included in the data collected in the crime index, it is difficult to ascertain the exact rates at which minorities are victims of crimes. This becomes the main problem when trying to obtain accurate statistics. Despite being able to fully identify race, data sources show that minorities are more likely to be a victim of a crime than a white person (Walker, 2018, p.44).
Finding reliable studies that agree with each other are difficult to find, yet they all agree that minorities are victims and are over represented, especially when it comes to household and personal crimes. Victimization is tied to lower income and socio-economic status mainly due to little to no education, single parent homes, and poor parenting skills. This leaves more minorities, specifically African American males in their 20’s, with little to nothing to do, and difficult for them to obtain employment. Drug trade becomes a main source of income, which leads them susceptible to being a victim of crime as well as an offender.
The youth are more likely to be socially isolated, part of a gang, and come from broken and loosely structured home lives. African Americans are arrested at a disproportionately higher rate even though the typical offender, except in cases of robbery and gambling, is white (Walker, 2018). According to the Uniform Crime Report of 2016, 52% of African American juveniles were arrested for violent crimes and 52% African American adults were arrested for murder, while only 45.4 of those arrested were white. According to the latest census in 2017, the US is made up of 76.6% white and 13.4% black. It is apparent that the arrest rates are skewed, and minorities, specifically black minorities and their communities, are being targeted, arrested and convicted at a higher rate than whites.
Unfortunately, some crimes go unreported by minority victims, some cases are not pursued by the courts, and in some cases, arrests aren’t being made. Until we have better data defining crimes by victims, it is difficult to make accurate assessments of any discrimination or misconduct, although a quick look at minority population versus those being arrested, one could make the conclusion that there is at least contextual discrimination occurring. We do need to implement strategies to get better data sources so we can have equal justice under the law for all.
To understand the crime rates of African Americans, we need to address arrests being made and conviction decisions. Due to the lower socio-economic status in minority neighborhoods, there is more crime in those areas, and as a result, more police patrol cars being dispatched to these areas. Because of this, African Americans are more likely to have run-ins with police officers than white people. In addition, African Americans are more likely to report crimes than whites at a rate of 60.2% vs 47.1% (Walker, 2018, p.139). Because of the higher run-ins that occur, the police officers are less likely to be respectful as seen in the documentary, Law and Disorder in Philadelphia. They believe they need to have a authoritarian attitude to show them who is boss.
More contact with police in these areas, leads to a better chance of arrest due to the high concentration of drug trade and use in inner cities like Philadelphia. Studies show that attitudes and how a civilian being stopped and frisked can go substantially better if only the officers were polite, treated them with respect and listened to them (Walker, 2018, p.138). According to one study, over half of African Americans felt that they were not treated fairly by the police and 37 percent said they had been stopped for no reason as opposed to 4 percent of whites.
In addition, the studies show that African Americans are victims of excessive force by police to include being shot and killed and arrested at a higher rate than whites. (Walker, 2018). African Americans are more likely to be stopped by police in a predominately white neighborhoods under suspicion of appearing to be out of place. These numbers are hard to ignore. Before the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, possession and use of crack cocaine was penalized from a ratio of 100:1. It is still disproportionate in contrast to that of cocaine laws but at a lower rate of 18:1. The act has also since eliminated a mandatory five year sentence.
It was argued that before the law was passed, that the crack laws were targeting minorities, specifically African Americans. Unfortunately, all those previously convicted are still serving the stricter sentences. According to Walker, the war on drugs is one of the major contributors to racial disparities in arrest (2008, p. 151). Some of this is tied to the conviction rates before 2010 and some due to police having a heavier presence in the underclass areas where minorities are targeted. There is also the pressure politicians place on police and courts to crackdown on crime which then results in higher arrests.
Once arrested, unable to make bail due to not being able to afford it, this has a negative impact on their outlook once they get to court. While is is unlikely now that African Americans would be on trial with a jury of peers of all white people, peremptory challenge is still a way in which prosecutors can shift a jury in their favor making it difficult to have a completely racially neutral jury. This becomes important to look at because as Delisi (1999, p.551) states, “The chance of a Black male going to prison during his lifetime was greater than one in four (29 percent), while a White male only had a one in twenty-three (4 percent) chance of being incarcerated”.
The war on drugs is not necessarily reflective of the increased drug presence or drug usage, but results in higher arrest and incarceration rates for minorities. Conclusions and Future Study Ideally, our criminal justice system should be representative of all, yet no matter how far we have come, and laws that protect certain rights, there are still disparities that exist within our system that should be addressed. We need to start by creating a tighter job market to bring back jobs to the poorer inner-cities, and thereby making them more accessible.
Citizens need to urge and vote in politicians that will create policy that promotes economic growth as well as training and full-time employment for minorities in the inner city. We need to bring back manufacturing jobs from the suburbs to the inner-city and destroy the social isolation that has been created from the loss of job opportunities in the inner-cities. Laws need to be changed making them all equally distributed like drug laws and addressing the war on drugs which targets minority groups.
Prison reduction policies and death sentencing policies need to be addressed and changed to be more fair like that of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act and retroactively reducing prison sentences for drug offenses that have changed. There needs to be additional oversight to ensure that disparities aren’t driving decisions in police policies. Budgets in police departments need to be addressed, ensuring that there is enough personnel to respond to calls but not so many that police are being dispatched to the inner-cities, unfairly targeting minorities.
Community policing reform has improved relations with community members and police, but there isn’t a quick fix, and they need to stay consistent. They need to address and listen to the complaints of citizens. Body cams on every officer and accountability for their actions would go a long way in restoring trust. We have come a long way, but there is still much work to be done, and by addressing these issues, perhaps we can close the gap and make this a more equal society for all.
