Running head: DISPARITY AND DISCRIMINATION ESSAY

Disparity and Discrimination Essay Jeremy Este University of Phoenix Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice CJA/423 SHOMARI GILFORD August 01, 2011

Disparity and Discrimination Essay There are many situations that occur in the criminal justice system. However the ones being used are the ones involving law enforcement and court proceedings. The situations that will be discussed in this paper are Disparity and Discrimination existing in criminal justice today. Disparity and discrimination can be referred to as the something depending on the situation. Disparity in criminal justice refers to inequity of arrests and sentencing for certain groups of people, it almost always refers to racial and ethnic disparity. Racial disparity has been definitively verified, though it may not always be related to intentional discrimination. Webster's Dictionary, defines discrimination is as follows: 1 a: the act of discriminating b: the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently 2: the quality or power of finely distinguishing 3 a: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment (2011 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2011). Discrimination has been around for centuries and even though there have been improvements in the way society deals with discrimination, we still have a long way to go. One of the biggest problems in America today is racial discrimination. We see it happening all over the world and also we see how it affects our criminal justice system. For example, there have been many problems with police officers using racial profiling with mostly people of African American and Mexican decent. Police officers do pull over minorities more than they would if the person was white. Even though the minority races have a higher criminal rate compared to the white community, we should not be labeled automatically without reason or just cause. And we should not be treated any differently when you are comparing the two.

Another example of discrimination is what can happen in our court systems. For example, minorities may not be able to provide for a good lawyer, which leaves them to a public defender and in most cases, they end up pleading guilty because they do not have any other options. A non-minority would be more likely is able to afford a good lawyer and have the charges be dismissed. The word discrimination comes from the Latin "discriminare", which means to "distinguish between". To discriminate socially is to make a distinction between people on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit. Examples of social discrimination include racial, religious, sexual, sexual orientation, disability, ethnic, height-related, and agerelated discrimination. (Wikipedia, 2006) Discrimination is used in everyday life. There are many times when a police officer who is white pulls over an African American. Sometimes because of the discrimination, the African American will plead in court that the only reason that he got pulled over was because of his color. In this day and age, many people who go to court claim that it is because of their color. There have been examples of white vs. black, Hispanic vs. black and Muslim vs. white, which goes to court. This student believes that many people use the color card to get out of jail. An example of discrimination being used by law enforcements is the Rodney King Story. Disparity in criminal justice refers to inequity of arrests and sentencing for certain groups of people; generally referring to racial and ethnic disparity (Moore, n.d.). Disparity consists of two factors, legal and extralegal and do not necessarily mean discrimination. Legal factor include the seriousness of the offense and prior criminal record. The factor is legitimate for disparities because they pertain to criminal behavior. For example, in a court proceeding when deciding on the sentence or the length of time that the individual will serve is based on breaking the law by

murder or other serious crime. Another example of the legal factor would be when police arrests an individual because of the prior criminal history of the individual and that they can be connected near the crime scene. The extralegal factor which includes lifestyle, gender, nationality, and class status are not legitimate factors to make decisions because they relate to group membership and not criminal behavior. Based on the example above regarding a court proceeding when deciding on the sentence or the length of time the individual will serve will not be based on nationality, but on statistics of that population and community, and the appearance of the individual. The causes of disparity are varied and can include but are not limited to differing levels of criminal activity, law enforcement emphasis on particular communities, legislative policies, and decision making by criminal justice practitioners who exercise broad discretion in the justice process at one or more stages in the system. Disparity starts the men and woman of law enforcement, the Police exercise broad discretion in their decision of whom to arrest and who not and this can be problematic if safeguards are not in place to protect the community from tendentious law enforcement. For example, in court, deciding on the sentence for the crime that was committed murder, robbery, ECT. In law enforcement when they arrest someone based on their criminal history, not to mention they are not far from the crime scene when the crime took place. In addition extralegal factors that are taken into consideration would be race, gender, and lifestyle none of these are legitimate reasons to base a decision on.

References: 2011 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. (2011). Discrimination. Retrieved on 8-1-2011 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discrimination