Criminal Justice System - Institutionalized Racism
“Institutionalized racism is a form of racism which is structured into political and social institutions. It occurs when institutions, including corporations, governments and universities, discriminate either deliberately or indirectly, against certain groups of people to limit their rights. Race-based discrimination in housing, education, employment and health for example are forms of institutional racism. It reflects the cultural assumptions of the dominant group, so that the practices of that group are seen as the norm to which other cultural practices should conform (Anderson and Taylor, 2006). Institutional racism is more subtle, less visible, and less identifiable than individual acts of racism, but no less destructive to human life and human dignity. The people who manage our institutions may not be racists as individuals, but they may well discriminate as part of simply carrying out their job, often without being aware that their role in an institution is contributing to a discriminatory outcome.”
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, for a variety of reasons, rates of violent crime, including murder, rape and robbery, increased dramatically, especially in urban areas. Behind much of the anti-crime rhetoric was a not- too-subtle racial dimension, the projection of crude stereo types about the link between criminality and black people. Rarely did these politicians observe that minority and poor people, not the white middle class, were statistically much more likely to experience violent crimes of all kinds. The argument was made that law enforcement officers should be given much greater latitude in suppressing crime, that sentences should be lengthened and made mandatory, and that prisons should be designed not for the purpose of rehabilitation, but punishment.
Statistics:
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, for a variety of reasons, rates of violent crime, including murder, rape and robbery, increased dramatically, especially in urban areas. Behind much of the anti-crime rhetoric was a not- too-subtle racial dimension, the projection of crude stereo types about the link between criminality and black people. Rarely did these politicians observe that minority and poor people, not the white middle class, were statistically much more likely to experience violent crimes of all kinds. The argument was made that law enforcement officers should be given much greater latitude in suppressing crime, that sentences should be lengthened and made mandatory, and that prisons should be designed not for the purpose of rehabilitation, but punishment.
Statistics:
- Since 1971, there have been more than 40 million arrests for drug-related offenses. Even though blacks and whites have similar levels of drug use, blacks are ten times as likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes.
- "There are more blacks under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began."