The American criminal justice system, according to a section of the population, is not flawed but operates just as its designers intended. The United States incarceration system is understood for its harsh penalties, notorious inmates, and guards who are just as culpable as the inmates they are supposed to supervise. Its second-most notorious device is the program for jail reform. The criminal justice system shows something different for a nation so eager to assert that its inhabitants are its first concern. There is a long and unsurprising connection between the US and criminal justice.
When the nation was first founded, policing did not exist. Given the impression that policing originated as a night-watch task that was occasionally used as punishment, a good number of Americans were indeed slow to embrace it. Slave patrol, which was initially established in 1704, essentially consisted of a continuous chase for liberated or fugitive slaves. As one would expect, slivers of an oppressive past will always be present in a police system whose origins are actively entwined with their perpetuation (Saltzburg 991). Despite its development and evolution, police have a history that many citizens are not fortunate enough to ignore.
Racism, bias, and socioeconomic class all have a bright and vital part to play in the incarceration process of an individual. For very many years, the US has been plagued by the controversy of whether or not there is racial prejudice in the criminal justice system. Even those who provide unfavorable responses are likely to admit a sense of racial prejudice exists in communities. The vice may be related to the idea that communities often compare their arrest and incarceration rates to those of the white population. The claim that the country’s Criminal Justice System is a biased structure should not be debated; rather, it should help determine how quickly this important institution requires fundamental reforms.
America has the highest imprisonment rate globally. Perhaps the most notable feature of the criminal justice system in the United States is the fact that it has a disproportionately negative impact on the lives and families of persons of African descent. To provide just one illustration, in 2017, the percentage of adult Blacks who were incarcerated was about six times higher than the percentage of adult Whites who were incarcerated. Over twenty-five percent of African-American males are incarcerated by the time they reach the middle of their thirties, and the rate of those incarcerated at any one time climbs to roughly two percent (Gottlieb and Kalen 14).
It has been hypothesized in both public and scholarly discourse that the United States’ participation in the slave trade is at least partially responsible for the present high rates of incarceration and the disparities that exist within the field. This argument claims, in a nutshell, that incarceration is a continuation of the usage of punitive institutions in the United States in order to construct a racial hierarchy. Slavery was the primary instrument used to maintain racial hierarchy until the time it was abolished (Alexander 2010). Soon after slavery was abolished in the United States, a new set of regulations known as the Jim Crow laws were enacted to preserve the existing segregationist order. After Jim Crow laws were overturned, a supposedly color-blind mass incarceration system was implemented to maintain the racial difference in the United States.
In examining whether certain fundamental demographic changes in the age structure across racial groups might help explain the incarceration rates in the United States, Campbell and Vogel, one significant element in the United States’ increased imprisonment rates is closely tied to demographic differences or the expanding gap between blacks and whites ages (51). This study showed that imprisonment rates rose along with ideological extremism and religious fundamentalism in areas with more significant age gaps between African Americans and whites. The authors analyzed how generational influences may affect law and policy and argue that historical causes define how communities react to later societal issues and suggest solutions. They contend that states with older white and younger black populations fostered harsher political and judicial practices (Keene). The society evaluates whether variations in the median ages of blacks and whites through time led to shifting imprisonment rates within states using decennial state-level data from 1970 to 2010. People contextualize racial bias within a larger body of work that has explored the intricate relationships between race, religion, political conservatism, and criminal justice (Campbell and Vogel 51). However, taking long-term transformation in social structure into account when analyzing more recent changes in legislation and policy.
Many individuals in the US criminal justice system, such as John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County District Attorney, have long been worried about racial inequality in American jails. In his home district, where blacks account for just six percent, the problem is particularly relevant since 37 percent of state jail inmates are blacks. Based on research from the Wisconsin-Milwaukee University, over two times the country’s average of 6.7% of the said population of working-age males were imprisoned at the time. Moreover, half of the County’s African-American males aged 30 and above have spent time in state incarceration facilities. More white accused were taken to court with substance possession compared to blacks, and more African-American female accused were more likely to be prosecuted than white counterparts (Toobin: Keene 71). Additionally, in cases relating to police arrest resistance or obstructing the same, most of the defendants charged were this minority group.
Currently, the criminal justice system in the United States seems to be stymied by competing demands. It has been shown, for example, that the jail administration willfully ignores court rulings that properly read the law. In the case “Brown v. Plata: The Struggle to Harmonize Human Dignity with the Constitution,” Justice A. Kennedy wrote the ruling for the Supreme Court of the US in the case of Plata, which established that even when prisoners are detained legally, they nevertheless have some level of human dignity. Consequently, even if it results in freeing some people from detention, federal courts should uphold the fundamental rights of detainees when they are violated. The contrasting verdict is the earlier instances when the federal courts just bowed to the decision-making of prison authorities (Krolikowski: Demleitner V. “Human Dignity 6). Plata resoundingly confirms the judiciary’s responsibility for upholding inmates’ rights, pointing out that notwithstanding prison officials’ protests and the undoubtedly radical nature of the proposed solution, the court’s inactivity in the face of continued and chronic constitutional breaches cannot stand.
The question is whether the recent adjustments signify a reevaluation of the penalties’ fundamental concept in favor of one that places a higher value on human dignity or if more financial security will reinstate incarceration. In the end, the question is whether rehabilitation and therapy concentrate on the person in regaining her liberties and status in society, or if they are only utilized as instrumental purposes to avoid crime and benefit society. Should the modified new method not increase public safety, the pursuit of efficiency and efficacy may swiftly lead the population to more imprisonment (Demleitner V. “Human Dignity 6). The long-term course is still uncertain, but at the very least, it is time for America to accept responsibility for the incarceration institutions built by treating the inmates as human beings and members of the greater society.
Works Cited
Campbell, Michael C., and Matt Vogel. “The demographic divide: Population dynamics, race and the rise of mass incarceration in the United States.” Punishment & Society 21.1 (2019): 47-69.
Toobin, Jeffrey. “How to Stop Mass Incarceration.” The New Yorker, 11 May 2015, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/the-milwaukee-experiment.
Krolikowski, Benjamin. “Brown v. Plata: The Struggle to Harmonize Human Dignity with the Constitution.” Pace Law Review, vol. 33, no. 3, 2014.
Wheelock, Darren, and Douglas Hartmann. “Midnight Basketball and The 1994 Crime Bill Debates: The Operation of a Racial Code.” The Sociological Quarterly., vol. 48, no. 2, Southern Illinois University Press, 2007, pp. 315–42, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2007.00080.xLinks to an external site.
Demleitner, Nora V. “Human Dignity, Crime Prevention, and Mass Incarceration.” Federal Sentencing Reporter., vol. 27, no. 1, Vera Institute of Justice,, 2014, pp. 1–6, https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2014.27.1.1Links to an external site.
Gottlieb, Aaron, and Kalen Flynn. “The Legacy of Slavery and Mass Incarceration: Evidence from Felony Case Outcomes.” The Social Service Review., vol. 95, no. 1, University of Chicago Press, 2021, pp. 3–35,
Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration.” American Civil Liberties Union, 2011, www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration.
Keene, S. “The Influence of Implicit Racial Bias in Police Stops.” HeinOnline, 35 GPSolo 70 (2018), 8 Mar. 2021, heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/gpsolo35&div=80&id=&page=.
Saltzburg, Stephen A. “TERRY V. OHIO: A PRACTICALLY PERFECT DOCTRINE.” St. John’s Law Review., vol. 72, no. 3/4, St John’s Law Review Association, 1998, pp. 911–74.
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