Racial Inequality and the Criminal Justice System in the US

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Racial Inequality and the Criminal Justice System in the US
Racial inequality has long been a significant issue affecting blacks in the United States. The problem of racial discrimination among the black people in the United States stems back in 1700 when Africans experienced horrible mistreatments by the white Americans. Most of the African-Americans rights were curtailed through the restrictions of human rights. There are several ways in which racial inequality was experienced by the black people in America which included unfair practices like literacy tests before the black people could be permitted to vote or own a house and unjust sentences. Today the black people have made progress in some of the areas including equal civil rights and voting rights. However, there is still a discrepancy when it comes to the criminal justice systems where some of the races are subjected to longer sentences than the others. For this reason, this paper will highlight light some of the racial inequalities regarding the criminal justice system in the United States.
One cannot look at the issue of race and criminal justice without looking at American history so that it can be understood why the issue of racial inequality has not diminished in the country. The country has had an infamous history concerning slavery, the laws instituted by Jim Crows and many other policies that were instituted against the black people, which form the basis of the inequality in the criminal justice system (Wildeman 1465). Some of these laws were discriminatory, and they were aimed at mistreating the black race. The history shows how the black people have all along been abused by the criminal laws legislated by the white people.
The American government made some steps to try and abolish involuntary confinement and slavery. However, slavery was still acceptable as a form of punishment for the criminals who broke the laws made by the white. It followed that many black people changed from slaves to criminals and this made their freedom to be quickly taken and overturned by the same laws and constitution that claimed to abolish slavery. The whites kept on amending the laws so that the black could not entirely be free under the law which led to an unfair criminal justice system (Brewer). The number of blacks in the prisons continued increasing in the prisons more than the number of white counterparts, and this paved the way for the racial inequality of the United States’ criminal justice system.
The black people and other minority races in the 1950s and 1960s realized that their rights had to be respected and they had to be treated fairly. The realization of black rights led to a time of significant eruptions demanding fair treatment and equality in the criminal justice system (Wildeman 1465). This time produced great leaders such as Malcolm X who helped the African-American to bargain for their rights collectively (Brewer). They also motivated millions of people to demand the change of the principles and laws of American discrimination, racism, segregation and unfair criminal justice system such as differences in the length of sentences. The movement did contribute to an improvement in the law...