THE PRISON SYSTEM

African American Men and the Prison System

African American Men and the Prison System

The insight lingers that justice continues far from color-blind. James B. Eaglin, chairman of the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, was quoted as saying, there is a view in this country that if you're poor and black or Hispanic or Native American, you won't get a fair deal; and the basic contentions that there are biases at every level of the system are well founded. Awards for black victims in civil suits are a third or sometimes half the amount of those given to white plaintiffs. Other studies display that judgments for very dark lawless persons are inclined to be longer than those handed down to whites convicted of like crimes.

Defenders of the existing system say that sentencing decisions are based on objective measures such as prior arrests, employment history and stability of family background, factors that are commonly believed to predict whether the culprit will err again. Critics argue that these standards stack the deck against the member of a minority group; they are likened to the literacy tests once used to prevent Southern blacks from voting. Some of the criteria that sound neutral and non-racially discriminatory are in effect proxies for race (Cameron et al., 2004).

More very dark faces on the bench, or even at the stenographer's table, might verify to be just as helpful. Franklin Williams, chairman of the New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities, was quoted as saying, when a black person walks into a court and sees a white judge, white prosecutors, white clerks, white stenographers, do you think they are going to believe they are going to get justice? Black attorney frequently complain that they are not accorded the same respect that their white colleagues receive. Archibald Murray, executive director of the Legal Aid Society in New York City, says black members of his staff have been stopped and searched because court officers assumed that a black entering the courtroom was a defendant. Only 500 or so blacks sit among the neatly 13,000 judges currently on the bench nationwide. Many are discovered in states where referees are voted into office rather than appointed. Justice Kenneth N. Browne was the first elected into the New York Supreme Court in 1973, and he is an outspoken advocate for the need for more black judges. He states that he never would have been a judge if he had waited around to get appointed, so he went out and got himself elected. He feels that no judge is infallible. They all bring to their jobs their predilections and their know-hows. There can be no progress in the criminal justice system without the contribution of men of color (Davis, 2000).

The American pattern of social and economical progress by blacks is much more complicated. A large portion of the black population is becoming much more fully assimilated into American economic and social life. Black/white gaps in education, household income, residence patterns, and various health ...