The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States

The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States

A Look at the Racial Disparities Inherent in Our Nation’s Criminal-Justice System

 

SOURCE: AP/ California Department of Corrections

Eliminating the racial disparities inherent to our nation’s criminal-justice policies and practices must be at the heart of a renewed, refocused, and reenergized movement for racial justice in America.

By Sophia Kerby | March 13, 2012

This month the United States celebrates the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965 to commemorate our shared history of the civil rights movement and our nation’s continued progress towards racial equality. Yet decades later a broken criminal-justice system has proven that we still have a long way to go in achieving racial equality.

Today people of color continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. Further, racial disparities in the criminal-justice system threaten communities of color—disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more. In light of these disparities, it is imperative that criminal-justice reform evolves as the civil rights issue of the 21st century.

Below we outline the top 10 facts pertaining to the criminal-justice system’s impact on communities of color.

1. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.

2. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searchedduring a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.

3. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated. Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.

4. According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates.The data showed that 96,000 students were arrested and 242,000 referred to law enforcement by schools during the 2009-10 school year. Of those students, black and Hispanic students made up more than 70 percent of arrested or referred students. Harsh school punishments, from suspensions to arrests, have led to high numbers of youth of color coming into contact with the juvenile-justice system and at an earlier age.

5. African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. According to the Sentencing Project, even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons.

6. As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percentover the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented. While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.

7. The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses. According to the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American.

8. Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more like to be sentenced to prison.

9. Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color. An estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying13 percent of African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population.

10. Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectory following release from prison. Evidence shows that spending time in prison affects wage trajectories with a disproportionate impact on black men and women. The results show no evidence of racial divergence in wages prior to incarceration; however, following release from prison, wages grow at a 21 percent slower rate for black former inmates compared to white ex-convicts. A number of states have bans on people with certain convictions working in domestic health-service industries such as nursing, child care, and home health care—areas in which many poor women and women of color are disproportionately concentrated.

Theses racial disparities have deprived people of color of their most basic civil rights, making criminal-justice reform the civil rights issue of our time. Through mass imprisonment and the overrepresentation of individuals of color within the criminal justice and prison system, people of color have experienced an adverse impact on themselves and on their communities from barriers to reintegrating into society to engaging in the democratic process. Eliminating the racial disparities inherent to our nation’s criminal-justice policies and practices must be at the heart of a renewed, refocused, and reenergized movement for racial justice in America.

There have been a number of initiatives on the state and federal level to address the racial disparities in youth incarceration. Last summer Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Schools Discipline Initiative to bring increased awareness of effective policies and practices to ultimately dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. States like California and Massachusetts are considering legislation to address the disproportionate suspensions among students of color. And in Clayton County, Georgia, collaborative local reforms have resulted in a 47 percent reduction in juvenile-court referrals and a 51 percent decrease in juvenile felony rates. These initiatives could serve as models of success for lessening the disparities in incarceration rates.

Sophia Kerby is the Special Assistant for Progress 2050 at American Progress.

NYPD:  Shredding the Constitution

James Zogby

President, Arab American Institute; author, 'Arab Voices'

osted: 03/17/2012 11:47 am

The massive surveillance program implemented by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in coordination with CIA officials is shredding the Constitution, putting at risk the rights and freedoms of Arab Americans and American Muslims. If left unchecked, their behavior will weaken the foundations of our democracy and seriously compromise our values as an open and inclusive society.

Revelations by the Associated Press have established that the NYPD, working with a few CIA officials, has been monitoring Arab and Muslim-owned businesses, mosques, and "mapping" areas of the city where high concentrations of Muslims and Arab immigrants are known to live.

In order to accomplish these objectives, the NYPD has coerced and entrapped Muslims to act as spies.

In one instance, the police scoured records of taxi drivers looking for those who had unpaid tickets and other violations. Those who also had immigration status issues were given the option of acting as spies or facing possible deportation. Once turned into informants, they were then asked to go to popular gathering places (coffee shops, stores, etc.), attend religious services, and other community events in order to report on who was present and what was said. This material has been entered into extensive surveillance files, even when the activities attended and the words spoken have been innocent and protected by the First Amendment.

The reports which have been compiled and are categorized as "SECRET" are, at best, trite. At the same time, they are dangerous, since they represent ethnic profiling at its worst and an extension of the long arm of the state into the normal everyday activity of an entire community.

One report, for example, on "Egyptian Locations of Interest" purports to map "centers of activity" or "hangouts" for Egyptian Americans that can be used as "listening posts" where informants can go to "listen to neighborhood gossip...[and] get a feel for the community." The report goes on to present a demographic profile of where persons of Egyptian descent live in New York City and describes, with pictures attached, all of the restaurants and other businesses where Egyptians and other Arab immigrants to the city congregate or shop. [There is another similar report on "Syrian Locations of Concern" which includes such noteworthy information about a travel agency as -- "Observed a female named 'Rasha' working in the travel agency, she recommended the 'Royal Jordanian Airline.'"]

While it is expected that law enforcement should be on guard and should be proactive in countering potential threats, as Attorney General Eric Holder has said, police should only monitor activity "when there is a basis to believe that something inappropriate is occurring or potentially could occur." The "SECRET" reports on the Egyptian, Syrian, Palestinian, and Shi'a Muslim communities which have been leaked and released by the AP clearly violate Holder's criterion.

As disturbing as this behavior has been, is outright denial by New York officials that anything untoward has occurred and the public's apparent tolerance for these flagrant violations of rights. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly claims that "the value we place on privacy rights and constitutional protections is part of what motivates the work of counterterrorism. It would be counterproductive in the extreme if we violated those freedoms in the course of our work to defend New York." For his part, Mayor Michael Bloomberg denies that any profiling is involved saying "we don't stop to think about religion. We stop to think about the threats and focus our efforts there," ignoring the statements in the beginning of each of the "SECRET" reports that they are targeting specific ethnic and religious communities. Finally, a recent poll of residents of the City concluded that "New Yorkers brush aside the gripes about police surveillance of the Muslim community."

In addition to the violations of the fundamental and guaranteed rights of citizens to be free of intrusive government surveillance as they go about their normal everyday activity, there are other troubling issues that must be noted. First and foremost is the fear and suspicion generated by this behavior. As a result of this NYPD/CIA program, Arab and Muslim immigrants have become increasingly fearful of law enforcement. Trust has been broken. And trust between the community and the police is the key to any successful crime prevention strategy. Another by-product of this effort is the suspicion it has created about the community, reinforcing prejudice and negative perceptions. Some might say "if the police think that they are all a threat, they must be."

It must also be pointed out, especially after reviewing the "reports" what an enormous waste of resources this has all been. Not only has it alienated the community from the police, it has also expended countless hours of valuable labor to produce files and reports that are of no value. In fact, it can safely be said, that the net result of all this work has been of zero benefit to the effort to keep New York safe.

I have long argued that Arabs and Muslims were the weak link in America's civil liberty chain. When the rights of vulnerable minority groups are threatened, we recognize the need to demand a halt to abuse, because we have learned that when the rights of any group are compromised, the rights of all are at risk. It is worrisome that in the post-9/11 era the challenge to constitutional rights has all too often been met with silence -- because it was Arabs and Muslims who were the targets. What we have failed to recognize is that if the rights to assemble, to speak freely, to be secure from unwarranted search, to due process, and more are put at risk by the NYPD and CIA in New York, then these rights may ultimately be threatened for all Americans.

http://www.aaiusa.org/dr-zogby/entry/nypd-shredding-the-constitution/
Dr. James J. Zogby is the author of "Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters" (Palgrave Macmillan, October 2010) and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American-community.

 

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