African American

African American

African American

Outline

Introduction

Discussion

Traffic Stops

Arrest

Jail Bookings and Length of Stay

References

1. Introduction

Punishment and Crime are contentious topics in US society, and questions of justice relating to who is imprisoned have long plagued the American justice system. African Americans previously have born poor dealing at the hands of the criminal justice system, a reality reflected in their higher rate of incarceration than other ethnic groups. This trend has noticeably hastened in modern years, a progress that intimidates to weaken the social fabric of many African American people.

US imprisonment rates are greatly higher than the rest of the world, plus within the US, African Americans are imprisoned at least eight times as frequently as European Americans, while American Indians and Hispanics are imprisoned at two to three times the European American rate (Kennedy, 1993). (Asian American incarceration rates are usually lower than European American rates.) About a third of African American men are under the direction of the criminal justice system, as well as about 12% of African American men in their 20s and 30s are incarcerated. These astronomical incarceration rates have enormous social plus economic consequences for black women, black children, as well as black communities (Harvey, 2004).

There is irrefutable evidence that blacks comprise a disproportionate share of the U.S. prison population. At the end of 2005, there were 1,525,924 persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons; 40 percent of these inmates were black, 35 percent were white, and 20 percent were Hispanic (Harrison & Beck 2006). Blacks, in other words, comprise about 12 percent of the U.S. population but two-fifths of the prison population. The disparities are even more dramatic for males, and particularly for males in their twenties and thirties. In 2005, 8.1 percent of all black males age 25 to 29 were in prison, compared to 2.6 percent of Hispanic males and 1.1 percent of white males. Although the absolute numbers are much smaller, the pattern for females is similar.

The crimes for which racial minorities and whites are imprisoned also differ. Although the proportions held in state prisons in 2005 for violent offenses were similar, blacks and Hispanics were much more likely than whites to be imprisoned for drug offenses. Twenty-four percent of the blacks and 23 percent of the Hispanics were imprisoned for drug offenses, compared to only 14 percent of the whites (Harrison & Beck 2006). These disparities are noteworthy given that drug offenses constitute a larger share of the growth in state prison inmates for minorities than for whites (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2000).

Other statistics confirm that racial minorities face a disproportionately high risk of incarceration. Blacks are incarcerated at 5.6 times, and Hispanics 1.8 times, the rate of whites (Mauer & King 2007). There also are substantial racial and ethnic differences in the “lifetime likelihood of imprisonment.” If incarceration rates remain the same, one in three black males born in 2001 will go to prison during their lifetime, compared to one in six Hispanic males and one in seventeen white males (Bonczar ...