Race In Our Criminal Justice
Today I am going to speak about the relevance of race in our criminal justice system. I am going to compare two different cases, People v. Brock Allen Turner and Brian Banks case. These two cases are great examples of why many people believe our criminal justice system is inherently bias in favor of the white privileged and against blacks.
To begin with, there is many factors that are effects of racial perceptions of crime and that also lay the structure for more crime control policies. For instance, media, researchers, policymakers, and criminal justice professionals. Media is one main factor that can fuel racial perceptions of crime. They usually make racial misconceptions about crime by presenting African Americans in a non-individualized and threatening way. Compared to White Americans, African Americans are perceived as crime suspects while whites are usually presented as crime victims. In addition policymakers also fuse crime and race in their policy initiatives and statements. They have crafted harsh policies that can create an impact in the lives of people of color.
According to Nazgol Ghandnoosh research, Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Policies, “Race influences public opinion about criminal justice policies in two ways. First, … the race of respondents is a strong predictor of punitive sentiment. Second, the perceived race of offenders — as in, people’s mental image of who commits crimes — shapes views about criminal justice policies.”
Also, implicit bias tests have shown that the general public holds negative associations of blacks. We are aware that many African Americans have experienced these biases throughout their life. They might experience this with police officers. Implicit racial bias has been revealed through police stops, prosecutorial charging, bail, and sentencing decisions.
According to a study from Keith Payne, Ph.D. in Psychology from Washington University, on implicit bias. He found that priming subjects with the image of a black rather than white face improved the speed at which the public and police officers identified guns but also reduced their accuracy by causing them to mistake tools as weapons. This research was conducted in order to understand implicit bias in our criminal justice system.
It is important to distinguish the rate at which whites and blacks are charged. According to David Abrams, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, 38 percent of sentenced inmates in the United States were black. African-Americans make up only about 13 percent of the US population. In that same year, black males were incarcerated at six-and-a-half times the rate of white males. Abrams and his team of researchers then tried to find the racial gap between judges’ sentences and their black and white defendants. Even though Abrams was not able to find racial difference between blacks and whites in terms of sentence length, he did discover a gap in incarceration rates between white and black defendants.
This gap increased by 18 percentage points when moving from the 10th to 90th percentile judge in the racial gap distribution which means that many of the judges had racial predispositions against African-American peoples. (broadly.vice.com) Abrams believes his results does not prove that racial bias in sentencing does not exist since it has to do more with his sample.
There is many crimes that fall under the umbrella of sexual assault; when comparing two different cases it’s essential to note the defendants’ charges. Brian Banks case has be held into comparison with Brock Turner’s case.
Ex- football player Brian Banks was only sixteen years-old when Wanetta Gibson wrongfully accused him of rape. He served five years in prison for a crime he did not commit and was also registered as a sex offender. Bank’s was tried as an adult, at sixteen and with no prior record.
Stanford University student Brock Turner was twenty-two years old when he was convicted on three felony counts — assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, sexual penetration of an intoxicated person, and sexual penetration of an unconscious person. Brock only served six months in county jail. (broadly.vice.com)
The difference in their sentencing outcomes comes down to their charges and not just bias. Banks was charged with forcible rape and kidnapping, while Turner wasn’t even charged for rape. (broadly.vice.com)
Banks faced 41 years to life in prison and first turned down plea deals for 25, 18 and nine years. Which was considered a better option than a young colored kid facing an all-white jury. Brian Banks said that his defense attorney told him, “When we go into that courtroom the jury is going to see a big black teenager and you are automatically going to be assumed guilty.” While Turner faced fourteen years max but his judge, Persky, sentenced him to only six months in county jail. Persky believed a prison sentence would have a severe impact on the twenty-two year old, Brock Turner.
Even though Banks and Turner had different charges this is an example how racial bias can be a real part of our criminal justice system. Researcher and analyst, Nazgol Ghandnoosh, states,”… Judges are more likely to see a white defendant as a candidate for rehabilitation than they are a defendant of color.”
Ghandnoosh also states that it’s impossible to tell how race affects sentencing because it’s impossible to isolate it from the other factors that could be at play in the courtroom. There is other factors that might affect the sentence length. For instance, how the defendant presents themselves in the courtroom. (e.g. what they wear and how they speak… ) She believes it is not necessarily about race but are probably correlated with it.
It is made clear through cases such as, Brock Turner’s case and the Brian Bank’s case that our criminal justice system can be be bias in some cases. However, we should not allow race to be a factor that influences the judge’s sentencing.
Links:
http://www.expertcop.com/Prejudice%26Perception.pdf
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/brock-turner-rape-case-sentencing-racial-bias
