Is the Criminal Justice System Color Blind

 

Is the Criminal Justice System Color Blind

                                                                                     

The range in which racial discrimination still exhibits itself in interracial nations such as the US implies that the matter is deeply rooted within the society and getting rid of it proves impossible. Racial prejudice or racism is the unfair treatment of people who belong to a particular race or ethnicity. Alternatively, the term race is defined as the grouping of individuals based on their physical or social attributes. The physical qualities include the color of the skin, the condition of the hair, and the body structure. On the other hand, the social difference is primarily caused by the diverse cultures existing among people of the same area. Therefore, it is perceptible that racism has established itself in societies and is infiltrating most organizations. The criminal justice system, consequently, is no exception to the intrusive racial bias (Neville, Miguel & Derald 3). However, some people disagree that the criminal justice system is discriminatory as they believe it is a color-blind institution where race does not play a significant role in people’s life. On the contrary, there have been cases of racism within the system due to the instance of having more African-American and Hispanic prisoners than the white Americans. Hence, I tend to disagree with the ideology which renders the criminal justice system fair with regards to racial equality. In this context, the paper will discuss some of the arguments and statistics provided to illustrate the racial disparity that pervades the criminal justice system.

When I hear someone mentioning the word color-blind, I conclude that they meant the inability of a person to distinguish the difference between certain colors. Therefore, people who indicate that the criminal justice institution exercises color-blindness, they regard the system to be non-racists. In this case, such personalities believe that the today society has moved beyond racial prejudice and the color of a person does not matter anymore. Nonetheless, the ideology is up for debate since there is a remarkable difference in how black and white folks perceive this agency that was established by the government to control and impose penalties to those who violates laws. Conducted research shows that there is still a considerable gap that separates the black and white viewpoints on justice. When the black person is skeptical about the exercise of fairness within the system, the white people, on the contrary, believes the criminal justice institution is essentially color blind.

Also, some statistics provided by implies that approximately twenty-five percent of the white Americans compared to the sixty percent of African Americans disagreed with the notion that courts always give a fair trial to all persons. In this case, it is apparent that few white people doubted the bias in the justice system, while a high number of black people illustrated their skepticism on the same. The difference in the viewpoints is because most people draw their perceptions from either personal or vicarious experiences with the police and courts. Besides, those who think that race does not matter in a person’s life usually associate the statement with a vague reference to the famous Martin Luther King’s speeches.

Mounting data are illustrating how racial inequality evidently occurs in all aspects of criminal justice. This is attributed to the fact that more black individuals than whites are likely to be incarcerated for a crime committed by both parties. As a result, most African Americans especially the youth are likely to be arrested or harassed by police who already conclude that they have committed the offense even before accessing the situation. Reason being that the justice system and more so the whites assume that blacks are more inclined to do a crime or are unlikely to abide by the state rules and regulations. Consequently, the white individuals rarely undergo this kind of unfair treatment and thus, the reason for their acknowledgment on the criminal justice system being color blind.

According to Neville, a survey indicates that in the United States, the criminal justice system distinctively works on three different groups and that is, for the wealthy, the poor and the people of color. Due to the social gaps, the rich people are mostly protected by the system while the minorities become disadvantaged by the institution that does not favor them. Therefore, the African Americans who are not only black but also contributes mainly to the group that is seen to be poor, are overrepresented within the criminal justice system. The occurrence of such incidents implies that the disparity is more extensive and systemic than the obviously discerned racial discrimination. Moreover, when people begin to adopt the power-evasion perspective of color blindness on the reality of racism, they are merely ignoring the issues surrounding the people of color. Furthermore, they continue to support the social injustice that continues to create racial problems.

In conclusion, it is evident that racism continues to occur in societies. The criminal justice is one of the many institutions in the United States that still depicts racial inequality. However, the white people believe that the current trends do not judge people by the color of their skin and thus, they find the justice system to be color blind. On the contrary, the blank individuals disagree with the statement since they still affected by the racial disparities within the criminal justice system.

 

Work Cited

Neville, Helen A., Miguel E. Gallardo, and Derald Wing Ed Sue. The myth of racial color blindness: Manifestations, dynamics, and impact. American Psychological Association, (2016): 3-19.