White Privilege In and Out of the Courtroom

After comparing the two cases of the college athletes we have to find out if there there is a common occurrence between certain receiving more time than others and if so why?

It may be the judges or the lawyers or even the eye witness testimony. But if we take all of these into consideration, it still does not explain the extreme difference in sentencing.

Let us consider the fact that it was the color of their skin.

Why are the prosecutors and the district attorney offices allowing these types of sentencings to occur?

To understand why these types of sentencing occur, we must examine statistics of similar cases but defendants of different races. According to The American Civil Liberties Union, “Sentences imposed on Black males in the federal system are nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes” (ACLU 1). This statistic is disheartening, yet it show that white privilege exists in the justice system.

This means that two men convicted of the same crime can be given significantly different lengths of time to serve in jail all because of the color of their skin.

If you do not think that twenty percent is that big of a deal, let us put it into real numbers. A white man convicted of stealing can serve ten years in prison while a black man convicted of the SAME crime will get twelve years.

The black man will be spending two more years of his life in prison FOR COMMITTING THE SAME CRIME!

Unfortunately, this same white privilege is not just black and white. The American Civil Liberties Union also stated, “Black youth are serving the sentence at a rate that is 18 times higher than the rate for white youth, and Latino youth are sentenced to life without parole five times more than white youth” (ACLU 4). Let us take out the black youth for a second.

If we take the same idea that Latino youth and White youth are committing similar crimes and are both prosecuted in front of a jury of their peers, why do they have different sentencing lengths?

This means that there is a problem with the criminal justice system. Is it the fact that the jury is not really the defendants’ peers? The makeup of these juries may not reflect that of the peers of the defense, “A recent study of capital trials in North Carolina, for example, showed that prosecutors used peremptory strikes to remove qualified Black jurors at more than twice the rate that they excluded all other jurors.42 Of the 159 prisoners on North Carolina’s death row, 31 were sentenced by all-white juries and another 38 had only one person of color on their sentencing juries” (ALCU 7).

This is not a jury of people of color’s peers, there is already some bias before the defendant is allowed to present their case. In some cases white defendants have an advantage over defendants of color because the jury for their case is most likely truly their peers. But this cannot be the only reason why there’s a difference between sentencing lengths. Maybe the issue is with the defense attorney.

Is it because some people can afford better attorneys than others?

This may be the case in some instances but what about the cases where both defendants use a state appointed defense attorney. However, I believe that the issue is deeper than that. It believe that the issue has to do with the district attorney’s office and the judges who are the people that actually give the sentences to these defendants. It should not be okay to let these people take more years away from certain defendants’ lives than others.

If we examine each case individually it may not seem that the sentences these people are handing down has to do with race but when we look at the statistics there is overwhelming evidence that race is a major component of the criminal justice system.

At the end of the day we must keep in mind that these people are criminals but it is not fair that one race is able to receive less time because of this concept of white privilege.