Disparity_and_Discrimination

Disparity and Discrimination Essay Angela Rosado CJA/423 AUGUST 9, 2010 David Deenihan Disparity and Discrimination Essay The American criminal justice system was designed for the sole purpose of equal rights among American’s, which is why we have due process, and fair and equal treatment for all individuals that live in America. However, disparity and discrimination are still a part of our criminal justice system today, especially with the professionals’ that work within our criminal justice system and those that deal with the public. Here I will show the contrast and the differences that are between disparity and discrimination as they both are related to the justice system today; it will show how discrimination and disparity plays a role within our criminal justice system as it is today. First to understand about our criminal justice system, we must first learn what the terms Discrimination and Disparity mean in our justice system, the term discrimination means- An act of discriminating against another person or group of individuals, Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination (unionlearders.com) The term disparity means -lack of similarity or equality; inequality; difference: a disparity in age; disparity in rank (dictionary.com). In today’s society discrimination still exist; there are many changes that we as a nation must overcome. One of the worst problems that we see in today’s society of America is discrimination of race. Racial discrimination has been around for centuries, discrimination can be seen all over the nation and we see just how much it has affected our justice system. For example, there has been many reported cases of the police racial profiling different people; many believe that the police main focus is with the African American and Mexican decent or anyone that is considered a minority .Although the minority group(s) have a larger criminal rate than those who are within the white community, they do not need to be labeled automatically without reasoning or just cause. And they should not be treated with the same respect as a non- minority. Discrimination is also happening in our court systems. For example, there are many minorities whom cannot afford to get a good lawyer, must of them are provided a public defender who really does not care about the case, the public defender works for the state and in most cases, the defendant will plead guilty because they may feel that they have no other options. Whereas most non-minorities can afford a good lawyer where’s they would have a better the charge of getting their cases dismissed or they get a lesser sentence. We could also say that the minorities will have a higher bail and this could be because the judges may believe that a person on African decent or another race cannot afford the bail. We can say that disparity simply means that there is a difference among groups that are being represented. For instance if a jail holds 200 criminals and 85% of them are minorities then one could quickly jump to the conclusion that the justice system is being racist and discriminates because it’s more minorities behind bars. This may not always be the case. To truly understand we must take a step back and investigate the crimes that have been committed, and look at the seriousness of the crime that was committed, and we must really take into account the history of the criminal that is on trial. The justice system cannot release a certain number of criminals just because they may want to keep an equal amount of criminals between the races in jail; but to do this they would be discriminating against themselves. When people see disparity they begin to think that it must involve some kind of discrimination of sort, but this is not the case. Disparity is mostly seen in our Criminal Justice System in smaller populated communities that has wide range population consisting of majority and minority races. Disparity is most presented when a more dominate group's population is then compared to a less dominate of minorities and the groups interaction within the Criminal Justice System today.