14 Shocking Facts That Prove the Criminal Justice System Is Racist

The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based  institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much  more aggressive way than white people. 

Saying the US criminal system is racist may be politically controversial in some  circles.  But the facts are overwhelming.  No real debate about that.  Below I  set out numerous examples of these facts.

The question is – are these facts the mistakes of an otherwise good system, or  are they evidence that the racist criminal justice system is working exactly as  intended?  Is the US criminal justice system operated to marginalize and control  millions of African Americans?

Information on race is available for each step of the criminal justice system -- from the use of drugs, police stops, arrests, getting out on bail, legal  representation, jury selection, trial, sentencing, prison, parole and freedom.   Look what these facts show.

One.   The US has seen a surge in arrests and putting people in jail over the  last four decades.  Most of the reason is the war on drugs.  Yet whites and  blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales, at roughly comparable  rates – according to a report on race and drug enforcement published by Human  Rights Watch in May 2008.  While African Americans comprise 13% of the US  population and 14% of monthly drug users they are 37% of the people arrested for  drug offenses – according to 2009 Congressional testimony by Marc Mauer of The  Sentencing Project.

Two.  The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than  whites.  In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the  population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos.  When whites were  stopped, only 8% were frisked.  When blacks and Latinos are stopped 85% were  frisked according to information provided by the NYPD.  The same is true most  other places as well.  In a California study, the ACLU found blacks are three  times more likely to be stopped than whites. 

Three.  Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close  to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S.  Department of Justice. 

African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher  than the rate for whites – according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug  arrests by Human Rights Watch.

Four.  Once arrested, blacks are more likely to remain in prison awaiting trial  than whites.  For example, the New York state division of criminal justice did a  1995 review of disparities in processing felony arrests and found that in some  parts of New York blacks are 33% more likely to be detained awaiting felony  trials than whites facing felony trials.

Five.  Once arrested, 80% of the people in the criminal justice system get a  public defender for their lawyer.  Race plays a big role here as well.  Stop in  any urban courtroom and look a the color of the people who are waiting for  public defenders.  Despite often heroic efforts by public defenders the system  gives them much more work and much less money than the prosecution.  The  American Bar Association, not a radical bunch, reviewed the US public defender  system in 2004 and concluded “All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if  they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is  occurring…The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to  everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for  countless people across the US.”