Discriminated Criminals Essays - Abuse, , Term Papers

Discriminated Criminals The Criminal Justice system has always had discrimination in it. Discrimination can come from the police, courts, or even from lawyers. For example, in the Gideon vs. Wainwright case the court ruled that the state must provide a public defender but it did not rule that the public defender must be good or competent. (?Too Poor? N.Pag.). In most cases where a public defender is provided the defendant loses the case because the lawyer is new or incompetent. Thus the criminal justice system needs reform. The Criminal Justice System discriminates against the economically challenged and minorities because of police discrimination, unbalanced sentencing and incompetent public defenders. Police discrimination is a major factor in the criminal justice system. Police can discriminate towards different people and in different places at anytime the officers want. White police discriminate in jails and on the streets, which can be called racial profiling. In jail a white officer could give a black man a harder time then he would a white man. On the streets a white officer will stop a black man for no reason, ask where the black man is going, and often the officer will search the black man's car of belongings (Cole 7.). White police will go through poor neighborhoods to stop and search anyone the white police want (Cole 7.). A black man has a chance of getting picked up by the police for a DWB, which is Driving While Black which is impossible for most white people to even comprehend (Cole 7.). Another form of discrimination is from the black police. Sometimes the black police can discriminate just like the white police. Black police will discriminate against all ethnic groups like whites, blacks and other minorities. The black police discriminate against other blacks because the police believe that the black criminals are keeping the rest of the black community down. Black police also discriminate against the other minorities, not just the black criminals. Some black police feel the same way about Mexicans as some white police feel about blacks, that the Mexicans are what make this country bad. Another reason why there is talk about discrimination in the criminal justice system is because of unbalanced sentencing. Black men are more often sentenced for a first offense and usually get a longer sentence for something that the white men would only be getting a fine for (?One-Third? 25.). A California study showed that one out of six of six hundred twenty-five thousand black men were arrested, black men make up three percent of the population but account for forty percent of the prison population (Miller N. pag.). Black men usually pay twice as much bail as whites and usually get jailed before trial (?One-Third? 25.). Twelve percent of the American population is black and thirteen percent of blacks have used drugs but blacks account for thirty-five percent of arrests for drugs possession, fifty-five percent of convictions and forty-four percent of prison sentences (?One-Third? 25.). Most crack users in the United States are white but most prosecuted are black (Carter 290+.). On ly four of the first thirty-seven death penalty prosecutions from the Anti-Drug Abuse Act have been white (Carter 290+.). Unbalanced sentencing, besides affecting black people wrongly, can also effect poor people wrongly. Poor people can get harsher sentencing just because a judge does not like the person for not being able to keep a job or for not paying taxes. Poor people could get a harsher sentence because the poor person does not have the money to pay a fine of a mere fifty-dollars. The judge knows that the poor person could not pay the fine. Even though misdemeanors and fines are small to most people, to a poor person it could mean imprisonment. Judges can also be swayed by the appearance of a person and a poor person cannot show up to court battered or in a suit. Incompetent public defenders are the biggest form of discrimination in the entire Criminal Justice System. The biggest problem is the funding for the public defenders. Even though it is less than two percent of the total spending on law enforcement and only ten percent of spending on all judicial and legal sources, people can still