Race Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System

Race in the United States criminal justice system refers to the unique experiences and disparities in the United States in regard to the policing and prosecuting of various races. There have been different outcomes for different racial groups in convicting and sentencing felons in the United States criminal justice system. Experts and analysts have debated the relative importance of different factors that have led to these disparities. Minority defendants are charged with crimes requiring a mandatory minimum prison sentence more often, in both relative and absolute terms (depending on the classification of race, mainly in regards to Hispanics), leading to large racial disparities in correctional facilities.

Race has been a factor in the United States criminal justice system since the system's beginnings, as the nation was founded on Native American soil. It continues to be a factor throughout United States history through the present.

Lynching and Lynch-Law date back to the 1700s when the term was first used by the Scotch-Irish in reference to an act pursued by the Quakers toward Native Americans. The law was originally regulatory, providing regulations regarding how lynching could and could not be carried out. Most crimes of and relating to lynching prior to 1830 were frontier crimes and were considered justifiable due to necessity.

In the construction of the United States Constitution in 1789, slavery and white supremacy were made part of the justice system, as citizens were defined as free white men.

Lynch law was renewed with the anti-slavery movement, as several acts of violence towards people of color took place in the early 1830s. In August 1831, Nat Turner led the slave insurrection in Virginia. Turner, an African-American Baptist preacher, believing that the Lord had destined him to free his race, followed through with his plans to conquer Southampton county through the enlistment of other slaves. He did so by traveling from house to house murdering every white person he could find. Due to this act, many innocent negroes and slaves were killed by the police.

The court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford made it so that African slaves and their decedents were considered non-citizens, further incorporating racism into the justice system.

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