Week 5, Entry 1: Race and the Criminal Justice System

Many of you have probably heard about the decision of the Justice Department not to prosecute members of the Black Panther Party who were accused of voter intimidation. For those of you who may not be aware, members of the Black Panther Party were accused of hurling racial slurs and one member was brandishing a nightstick outside of a polling location during the 2008 elections. The case was prosecuted and the government won a default judgment against those accused when they failed to show up for the court date. The Justice Department has since dismissed the charges after one member agreed not to carry a deadly weapon near a polling place until 2012. As a result of this decision, an attorney at the Justice Department has resigned in protest, accusing the Justice Department of racial bias by not prosecuting non-whites in voting intimidation cases.





If this accusation is substantiated, it would represent a definite departure from the overall trend in the justice system. As of 2009, the majority of inmates at local jails throughout the country were members of racial minorities. At least 55.4 percent were either black or hispanic, with 39.2 percent black and 16.2 percent hispanic. Blacks were incarcerated in the prison system in 2009 at a rate 6 times higher than the white non-hispanic population. The links provided with these statistics provide much more detailed information and I won’t bore you all with the details, but it definitely indicates a problem. If blacks only account for 12.8 percent of the population, how can they be 39.2 percent of the jail population and 35.4 percent of the prison population?

While there may be many explanations for racial disparities in the prison population, there is little doubt that prosecutors declining to prosecute non-whites (as the former Justice Department attorney alleges in the Black Panther case) is not a problem we’ve had in this country. In fact, the demographic data indicates a possible zeal on the part of prosecutors for the prosecution of racial minorities. Pair that with high poverty rates and lower educational achievement by some racial minorities and you have a recipe for injustice. In the next few posts, I’ll explore some of the issues which explain these disparities and ways in which we can ensure that all Americans are treated equally under the law, without regard to the color of their skin.