2015: The Criminal Justice System — The Baltimore Story

The events of 2015 reinforced the degree to which structural racism tainted all aspects of American life; this racism is especially clear within the criminal justice system. Bonilla-Silva (2018) noted, “a record number of [B]lack people were killed by law enforcement in 2015, more than the deadliest year of lynching in the United States” (p. 34). The anti-Black practices enshrined in American criminology through eugenics, the Hoffman report, and underlying attitudes and ideologies of distrust toward Black people have produced disproportionate arrests, killings, and use of excessive force.

The higher number of African American arrests and convictions do not indicate higher crime rates among that population, they instead speak to “how supposedly race-neutral laws can be applied at the discretion of officers and departments to control the [B]lack population” (p. 36) Especially when looking at drug-related crimes, white antiracist activist Tim Wise (2018) has noted that statistically

White high school students are seven times more likely than [B]lacks to have used cocaine; eight times more likely to have smoked crack; ten times more likely to have used LSD and seven times more likely to have used heroin … What’s more, white youth ages 12-17 are more likely to sell drugs: 34 percent more likely, in fact, than their [B]lack counterparts. And it is white youth who are twice as likely to binge drink, and nearly twice as likely as [B]lacks to drive drunk. And white males are twice as likely to bring a weapon to school as are [B]lack males. (p. 36, as cited in Bonilla-Silva)

The statistical divergence continues across sectors. Research indicates that a Black individuals charged with murder of a white individual have a much higher chance of receiving the death sentence than any other race (Bonilla-Silva, 2018, p. 38). Statistics are similar in cases of rape. African Americans charged with raping a white woman are more likely to be sentenced to death than white on white rape (p. 38). Even beyond sentencing disparities, Black persons face higher arrest rates than whites:

[F]or virtually every type of crime, African-American criminals are arrested at rates above their commission of the acts. For example, victimization reports indicated that 33 percent of women who were raped said that their attacker was [B]lack; however, [B]lack rape suspects made up fully 43 percent of those arrested. The disproportionate arrest rate adds to the public perception that rape is a “[B]lack crime.” (p. 39).

Across the criminal justice system and in the court of public opinion, Black men in particular are routinely seen as “suspicious” and deemed more likely to commit a crime. Distrust, from the street cop to court judge to the general public, reinforce a racist system that keeps the United States locked in a debilitating cycle of incarceration for people of color. As a result, America boasts the largest prison system on the planet, which is shocking considering the prison systems used in China and Russia used to punish political dissidents. Further, as Hinton (2016) noted, “the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population but holds 25 percent of its prisoners” (p. 5). African Americans and Latinos make up 59 percent of the United States’ prison inmates. Together they represent roughly 25 percent of its population (p. 5).