The discussions concerning discrimination in the medical and legal professions have attracted much attention in modern societies. The critical, controversial issue is that different population groups and categories of demography are given different treatment in these disciplines. Some people believe that the system of justice discriminates against the marginalized, the punishments are harsher, the sentences are longer, and the care system in hospitals is of low quality. On the other hand, most of the population believes that the systems in both fields are fair and that the challenge comes from the overburdened legal and medical fields. Withstanding the allegations of discriminatory practices against African Americans, Indigenous people, and people of color, as well as LGBTQs in these fields, and this includes seeing such practices as unfair treatment, it is essential to look at the evidence objectively to find the truth of the fact that inequality does exist. The paper aims to critically examine the concept of discrimination in legal and medical systems and substantiate this argument with facts and evidence from valid sources.
Disparities in Legal Treatment
Sentencing Discrepancies
The legal system is often perceived as a place where justice reigns and people are considered innocent until proven guilty. Nonetheless, the vast body of facts discloses that the ideal of justice, which serves as a rule, is not always applied. Disparities in law, primarily based on the lines of race and social status, are still there despite the principle of treating people equally. One of the prevalent issues is sentencing disparities. Perhaps the most widespread effect of legal injustice is the discrepancy in sentences that are passed on to individuals from disadvantaged communities and their white counterparts. There have been numerous studies that have proven that race plays a role in sentencing.
Black people face more severe punishments than white people for the same crime. Despite comprising just 6% of the adult population in the US, black males account for over 35% of the prison population and have an incarceration rate that is six times greater than that of white men, according to research by Rehavi and Starr (2014). At least one black guy out of every three will spend time behind bars. The federal system is one of the US’s biggest and fastest-growing prison systems. Sentences meted out to black male criminals in federal criminal cases tend to be substantially longer than those meted out to white males. In 2008 and 2009, federal judges handed down sentences averaging 55 months for white defendants and 90 months for black defendants. The extent to which these discrepancies are the result of variations in criminal behavior as opposed to differences in treatment is an issue that has been debated for a long time in the fields of law and economics. To put it another way, do black and white arrestees who are otherwise comparable and who are caught participating in the same illegal behavior receive different jail terms, respectively?
Their findings add credence to the idea that black males apprehended by the federal government typically serve longer prison sentences than whites arrested for the same offenses with identical histories. This finding results from the research overcoming sampling problems and other constraints seen in earlier studies using new connected data. Disparities in the harsh but not the broad margin of imprisonment are the source of this inequality. Although observable case and defendant variables can account for the vast raw disparities in imprisonment, they cannot account for the length of incarceration. We find a conditional black-white phrase gap of almost 9% across all deciles in their primary sample. According to the conditional distribution of these examples, if the gap is 9% overall, then the conditional mean effect of race is likewise about 9%. The federal prison population now includes 95,400 black males (Rehavi & Starr, 2014).
Discriminatory War on Drugs
The biased war on drugs is another pressing concern. With a comprehensive view of the criminal justice system, Taifa (2021) brought more than four decades of experience as an activist, academic, lobbyist, legislative counsel, and policy analyst. For this reason, she did not seem surprised when, in a 1994 interview with John Ehrlichman—a former domestic policy advisor to Richard Nixon—she acknowledged the “War on Drugs” was born out of a racist effort to discredit the anti-war movement and black people.
Before the War on Drugs, overtly racist lynching and other types of prejudice were the primary means of oppressing black people. Mass incarceration, which was an inevitable consequence of many bills approved by Congress, subsequently made it considerably easier. The number of senior convicts rose when the Comprehensive Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1984, which eliminated parole in the federal system, took effect. Included in the now-famous 100:1 divide between crack and powder cocaine, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 established mandatory minimum sentencing programs. Its expansion in 1988 brought an overly broad definition of conspiracy. Because of these rules, the federal system became overwhelmed with individuals convicted of minor, nonviolent drug offenses.
The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Safe Streets Act stands out among them. Taifa was behind this bill, which she had lobbied against several omnibus crime bills in the early 1990s. With the passage of this bill, there was a drastic rise in racial profiling as well as other alterations, e.g., the biggest modern death penalty expansion, the abolishment of the exclusionary rule, the prosecuting of minors as adults, and the hiring of 100,000 additional cops. Federal three strikes law, financial assistance to prisoners Pell Grants, and state incentives to approve harsh laws on imprisonment buildings, jail sentences, and institutions of harsh attitude were created due to the prison building, jail period, and the establishment of severe attitude.
Throughout the war on drugs, mandatory sentences were raised, and as a result, the neural and cardiac approaches were used to give more severe sentences than usual. Sentence lengths of ten, twenty, thirty, or even life in prison for drug crimes were seldom questioned (Taifa, 2021). The tragic practice of punishment became the norm, causing immense suffering for towns, families, and children. Crack cocaine possession and distribution have resulted in a disproportionate number of black people being arrested, convicted, and imprisoned since the late 1980s. Policies, procedures, and legislation at the federal level contribute to this discrepancy in applying the law. The five-year term was the same for five grams of crack cocaine (equivalent to about two packets of sugar) and five grams of powder cocaine (equal to around 500 grams) for sentencing purposes (Taifa, 2021). Although National Institute for Drug Abuse household surveys indicated more significant proportions of white crack cocaine users, the disproportionate impact of the apparently impartial but arbitrarily harsh crack sanctions on black neighborhoods led to the bulk of arrests.
Disproportionate Representation
According to the American Bar Association (ABA), women comprise just 37% of the legal profession, while men constitute 63% (Stetson Law, 2023). Among equity partnerships, men outweigh women five to one. The percentage of black attorneys is 4.7%, compared to 13.4% of the overall population of the United States (Stetson Law, 2023). Membership in other minority groups is relatively low among attorneys, at approximately 10%. Disparities are quite evident. Even though white individuals only account for 58% of the population, they constitute over 85% of the attorneys presently working in the US. More importantly, studies reveal that these figures have been relatively static. Not a single minority lawyer or female lawyer saw a growth of more than 1% between 2009 and 2016 (Stetson Law, 2023). Even in contemporary media, such as news reports and political speeches, people of color are skewedly portrayed as criminals. The criminal justice system is fundamentally racist, and these misconceptions about black crime contribute to and sustain it. There has been evidence that erroneous assumptions about the criminal behavior of persons of color, together with racial prejudice, fuel demands for more funding for the criminal justice system and harsher enforcement methods. Theoretically, implicit dehumanizing prejudice may significantly impact judgments leading to racial inequality, exacerbating preconceived notions about the criminality of persons of color. According to Nembhard and Robin (2021), those in power in societies write the rules that ensure their continued rule and that diverse groups can enjoy varying degrees of protection from the state.
Disparities in Medical Treatment
There is a noticeable trend toward more diversity in the United States. Minority groups continue to face discrimination, which in turn leads to unequal treatment and unfavorable results for both patients and healthcare providers. Healthcare providers have to eliminate healthcare disparities. To better serve patients from varied backgrounds, this exercise defines “diversity” and “discrimination” and emphasizes the importance of the interdisciplinary team. One definition of discrimination in healthcare is the unwarranted and biased treatment of a person or group based on their perceived or actual characteristics. Not being a member of the oppressed group is no guarantee that a person will not be a victim of prejudice. Perceived membership can lead to discrimination. In addition, suffering is not a necessary condition for prejudice to exist. When one group is treated less favorably than another group based on factors such as race, gender identity, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, handicap, sexual orientation, language, or place of residence, it can be said that discrimination has occurred. Both macroaggressions and microaggressions fall under the umbrella of discrimination. Systemic or societal racism takes many forms, the most extreme of which are macroaggressions. The internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, the passage of legislation barring women from voting, and the Tuskegee study, in which black men were purposefully led astray and refused syphilis treatment according to standard of care, are all examples of macroaggressions (Togioka et al., 2021).
Overt racism in healthcare has diminished due to laws that ban discriminatory treatment based on race, sex, and disability, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Microaggression awareness has grown in communities where overt racism has diminished. Microaggressions are small, subtle, and sometimes unintentional forms of discrimination that target members of marginalized groups and have a detrimental impact on those individuals (Togioka et al., 2021). Unconscious prejudice is often the source of microaggressions, which can occur inadvertently. They may be subtle, hard to spot, and unintentionally conveyed through speech or body language. Although macroaggressions usually have systemic roots, microaggressions tend to be delivered in more intimate settings, such as one-on-one conversations.
There are six major types of healthcare disparities. The primary emphasis is on mortality rates. Research published in JAMA Network shows that racial disparities in death rates among the elderly persist. In the previous 60 years, the disparity has shrunk for city dwellers, according to USC (2023). White males and rural black men, on the other hand, had widened the gap significantly by that time. The National Cancer Institute has stressed the importance of racial and ethnic disparities in cancer death rates. The risk of dying from colorectal cancer before the age of 65 is higher for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, regardless of race or ethnicity.
Secondly, the typical number of years expected to live. There was a fourteen-year disparity in life expectancy between white and black Americans in the early 1900s, according to USC (2023). Due to more discretionary income and easier access to healthcare, the gap has narrowed to four years. The advancement has been halted due to the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 virus. All demographics have seen a one-year decline in average life expectancy. According to research that was published in the esteemed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, black and Latino populations have seen a decline that is four times greater than the norm.
The burden of disease is the third. Among the many health conditions that suffer disproportionately from racial and socioeconomic inequality are asthma and diabetes. In the United States, those of Hispanic and black descent have a higher asthma prevalence rate than the general public. Puerto Ricans “have the highest rate of asthma prevalence” in the United States, according to research by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. According to the paper, asthma disparities are “majorly grounded in multiple complex social and systemic determinants,” while genetics could contribute to these discrepancies. The CDC reports that among all ethnic groups, American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest prevalence of diabetes. You should also consider the location. According to the National Cancer Institute, the rates of colorectal, cervical, and lung cancers were much higher in rural Appalachian regions compared to the rest of the country.
The fourth area is mental health. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 51.5 million Americans, or about 20% of the adult population, were coping with a mental illness in 2019. This issue affects a disproportionate number of people; for instance, the National Center for Youth Opportunity and Court (USC, 2023) reports that 70% of youth offenders have a diagnosable mental illness. Childhood trauma and untreated mental health problems disproportionately affect members of this juvenile justice population. Mental health is another area where men and women differ; whereas 16.3% of men and 24.5% of women have received a diagnosis of a mental condition, respectively, this is according to data from USC in 2023.
Fifth, insurance coverage. Before the Affordable Care Act, almost a third of Hispanic Americans did not have health insurance, according to Brookings. One in five black Americans did not have health insurance (USC, 2023). Another factor is where the health insurance gap has the most significant impact. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that regions with large Black American populations, including the South, have a far higher rate of uninsured people. The main cause is that those states mainly disregarded the Medicaid expansion under the ACA.
Before all else, healthcare accessibility. Many people in the US have trouble getting the medical treatment they need because they live in rural areas, are poor, or belong to a protected racial or ethnic minority. The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) reports that low-income rural Appalachia has a 35 percent decrease in mental health practitioners and a 28 percent decrease in medical specialists compared to the national average (USC, 2023). Lower-than-average internet membership rates in the area might limit potential telehealth benefits in enhancing access to healthcare.
Conclusion
The paper’s core argument provides concrete evidence that discrimination exists in legal and medical fields. Even though theoretically, fairness and equality are the cornerstones of the criminal justice system, there are minority people who do experience discriminatory practices within the system. From sentencing disparity and wrongful conviction to overrepresentation, structural and systemic bias and injustice have perpetuated the unequal treatment of black and Indigenous peoples of color, as well as others. The findings, however, point out the racial gap in sentencing that is not only accentuated by the fact that blacks are more often convicted but are also the ones who suffer their communities’ punishments most. In addition, the racist war on drugs, which is only effective in the incarceration of black and brown communities, has increased mass incarceration, thus causing adverse effects among individuals and cultures. The inequalities in medical treatment are also displayed in many aspects, such as mortality rates, access to care, life expectancy, mental health, burden of disease, and insurance coverage. Structural racism and ethnic disparity are the reasons that explain how inequalities in health occur, such that the vulnerable groups are the ones prone to chronic diseases and have limited access to medical services. Programs are initiated to fill in the gaps in health disparities. However, barriers remain for people coming from rural areas, low-income families, and minority races that may affect their access to quality health care.
References
Nembhard, S., and Robin, L. (2021). Racial and ethnic disparities throughout the criminal legal system are a result of racist policies and discretionary practices. https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/104687/racial-and-ethnic-disparities-throughout-the-criminal-legal-system.pdf
Rehavi, M. M., & Starr, S. B. (2014). Racial disparity in federal criminal sentences. Journal of Political Economy, 122(6), 1320–1354.
Stetson Law. (2023). Inclusivity and discrimination in law and the legal profession. https://lawblog.law.stetson.edu/inclusivity-and-discrimination-in-law-and-the-legal-profession
Taifa, N. (2021). Race, mass incarceration, and the disastrous war on drugs. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race-mass-incarceration-and-disastrous-war-drugs
Togioka, B. M., Duvivier, D., & Young, E. (2021). Diversity and discrimination in healthcare.
University of South California (USC). (2023). Six examples of health disparities and potential solutions. https://healthadministrationdegree.usc.edu/blog/examples-of-health-disparities
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