Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System?

[FSUBecker]

As you may have noted from my name I attend Florida State University, FSU, and on Tuesday one of our star football players was arrested on drug (pot) charges and a concealed weapons charge. Though what happen before, during, and after the car stop and search are unclear, I have raised the question to some of my friends on whether or not race could have played a role, which was mostly met with jokes and totally tossing away the possibility that the reason the player was stopped was because of his race. Though details now show the police officer had probable cause for both the car stop and the search, I still think the idea of discrimination within the criminal justice system is a debate that must be waged.

Basically do any of you think that the criminal justice system is discriminatory?

I personally believe that it may not by out rightly discriminatory, but many of the policies utilized by police officers, in all levels are law enforcement, lead to higher rates of non-whites being arrested and inprisioned.

[conley]

I don't think the system itself is discriminatory, but certainly there are people who discriminate within the system.

I also don't think that are a disproportionate number of discriminators in the criminal justice system, it's just that these effects are magnified by the stakes (Death penalty, life in prison, etc), the violent/sensationalist nature of crime, and real or perceived differences in crime rates among different groups in our society.

[Mr. Dirlewanger]

I think that the drug laws have resulted unfairly in higher rates of non-Whites being arrested. I think it’s easier for suburban Whites to get off easy on possession charges particularly if they have never been in trouble before. This has been the case for some people that I know and since I’m judging by my own experience here so I may be wrong.

[Vermouth]

Welcome FSUBecker! It's likely that discriminatory practices lead to higher arrest rates for nonwhites. What are the actual policies you refer to?

In many cases, it's legitimate to stop someone based on skin color, for example searching for a suspect who has been described. It's one immediately distinguishing characteristic, like gender and age.

In cases where an officer uses his own judgment to pull someone over, what criteria (conscious or subconcious) does he consider? I'd think skin color would be fairly meaningless in this situation compared to other criteria such as the actions of the driver, the condition of the vehicle, the dress of the driver, the volume of the music, the behavior of passengers, etc. It's all discriminatory to some degree, as the officer is simply making a guess as to someone's criminality.

But I thought college athletes had immunity?

[wow]

Welcome FSUBecker! It's likely that discriminatory practices lead to higher arrest rates for nonwhites. What are the actual policies you refer to?

In many cases, it's legitimate to stop someone based on skin color, for example searching for a suspect who has been described. It's one immediately distinguishing characteristic, like gender and age.

In cases where an officer uses his own judgment to pull someone over, what criteria (conscious or subconcious) does he consider? I'd think skin color would be fairly meaningless in this situation compared to other criteria such as the actions of the driver, the condition of the vehicle, the dress of the driver, the volume of the music, the behavior of passengers, etc. It's all discriminatory to some degree, as the officer is simply making a guess as to someone's criminality.

But I thought college athletes had immunity?

The ACLU, Jesse Jackson, Hussein Obama and Al Sharpton are going to get you for these words. 

[FSUBecker]

I don't think the system itself is discriminatory

The system at face value is not discriminatory, but there are a number of policies that are used to discriminate. For example the out of place doctrine (the idea that an officer can stop a person if they see that person as being in the wrong place) is often used to stop young, African-American males are no reason other than the office thinks that they shouldn't be where they are. Another policy, which can't really be blamed on law enforcement but is worth mentioning, is the disparity in mandatory sentences for the possession of crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Even though the only difference is only the avenue of administration and the fact that baking soda is added and then cooked into crack cocaine, crack cocaine has a mandatory minimum of 5 years for 5 grams while to get the same 5 year minimum for cocaine you would have to possess 500 grams. And proof of this disparity can be found in federal cases against crack cocaine dealers, where 85% of the cases involving crack cocaine involve African-Americans. 

In terms of the war on drugs, this is one of the main avenues of racial discrimination in the United States today. Instead of going after the large scale providers or drugs, law enforcement instead takes the easy road and simply arrests petty users and sellers in open air drug markets, which in inner cities are manned by down and out African-Americans.

[Mr. Dirlewanger]

The disparity in crack vs cocaine penalties is the direct result of Black activism in the 1980s. It was thought that the authorities were not doing enough to stem the violence on inner city streets. The Feds cracked down (no pun intended) on crack cocaine and put lots of Black people in jail. Who couldn’t see that coming a mile away? Unfortunately, this exacerbated the much older problem of Black communities not trusting the police.


I think law enforcement goes after everyone big and small. If there wasn’t so much violence involved with the drug trade in the inner city so much attention would not be focused there.

[FSUBecker]

The disparity in crack vs cocaine penalties is the direct result of Black activism in the 1980s. It was thought that the authorities were not doing enough to stem the violence on inner city streets.

That may be the case but, I think it was in 1995, the United States Sentencing Commission recommended to the President Clinton to decrease the penalty for crack cocaine to even out the punishment between the two and Clinton refused, marking only the second time a President has gone against the findings of the Sentencing Commission. The first time was in the 70s, when the commission recommended Marijuana depenalization to Nixon.

I was not arguing about the cause of the disparity, I am simply saying by continuing to do nothing to change the disparity we are only allowing the disparity to continue.

[Mr. Dirlewanger]

The disparity in crack vs cocaine penalties is the direct result of Black activism in the 1980s. It was thought that the authorities were not doing enough to stem the violence on inner city streets.

That may be the case but, I think it was in 1995, the United States Sentencing Commission recommended to the President Clinton to decrease the penalty for crack cocaine to even out the punishment between the two and Clinton refused, marking only the second time a President has gone against the findings of the Sentencing Commission. The first time was in the 70s, when the commission recommended Marijuana depenalization to Nixon.

I was not arguing about the cause of the disparity, I am simply saying by continuing to do nothing to change the disparity we are only allowing the disparity to continue.

Agreed.

[they call me MR. GRUMPY god damn it!]

i sense a lot of people nodding their heads yet no one has detailed "discriminating practices".  blacks disproportionately commit crime, violent crime and are because of this disproportionately represented in our  prisons.

[FSUBecker]

I have already described atleast one discriminatory practice, the use of the out of place doctrine which allows police officers to stop non-whites simply for being in the wrong part of town.
 
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_43.html

That link is from the latest UCR, Uniform Crime Report, data from arrests. Here whites make up almost 70% of the arrests in 2006 with African-Americans only making up 28%. With the exception of murder, robbery, and gambling offenses the number of whites arrested FAR exceeds the number of African Americans arrest. If you go back this same trend is apparent throughout the last decade. Even though whites are being arrested at an exceedingly higher rate than African Americans, African-Americans still make up, I think at last poll, was 48% of the prison population while only making up around 25-30% of annual arrests.   

 

[Vermouth]

The out-of-place doctrine sounds completely discriminatory to me. How is it applied? If someone is merely "out of place" I can think of no legitimate reason to stop him. If someone is loitering or acting suspicious, that's reason enough to stop him without an additional policy, isn't it?

[Mr. Dirlewanger]

I have already described atleast one discriminatory practice, the use of the out of place doctrine which allows police officers to stop non-whites simply for being in the wrong part of town.
 
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_43.html

That link is from the latest UCR, Uniform Crime Report, data from arrests. Here whites make up almost 70% of the arrests in 2006 with African-Americans only making up 28%. With the exception of murder, robbery, and gambling offenses the number of whites arrested FAR exceeds the number of African Americans arrest. If you go back this same trend is apparent throughout the last decade. Even though whites are being arrested at an exceedingly higher rate than African Americans, African-Americans still make up, I think at last poll, was 48% of the prison population while only making up around 25-30% of annual arrests.   

 

Hispanics are being counted as Whites.

[Vermouth]

Hispanics are being counted as Whites.

This causes all sorts of confusion when comparing stats. Lately, demographers have attempted to split Hispanics into White hispanics and Nonwhite hispanics since "Hispanic" technically isn't a race. Of course, most Hispanics are a mix of European and New World blood ...

[FSUBecker]

I have already described atleast one discriminatory practice, the use of the out of place doctrine which allows police officers to stop non-whites simply for being in the wrong part of town.
 
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_43.html

That link is from the latest UCR, Uniform Crime Report, data from arrests. Here whites make up almost 70% of the arrests in 2006 with African-Americans only making up 28%. With the exception of murder, robbery, and gambling offenses the number of whites arrested FAR exceeds the number of African Americans arrest. If you go back this same trend is apparent throughout the last decade. Even though whites are being arrested at an exceedingly higher rate than African Americans, African-Americans still make up, I think at last poll, was 48% of the prison population while only making up around 25-30% of annual arrests.   

 

Hispanics are being counted as Whites.

That is one of the problems apparent in using the UCR (most other crime statistics I have encountered outside the UCR have a separate category for both Hispanics and Native Americans). But the point, I think, is clear. African-Americans are not arrested as much as people think and the real point is that African-Americans, with some variations, account for less than 1/3 of the annual arrests yet still are over represented in prison populations.