“Race in the United States Criminal Justice System”
“Race in the United States Criminal Justice System”
Back some years ago, back when I had some hair, I was interest in history and the law and doing some research on “Race in the United States criminal justice system” when I ran across this description found in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, that I want to open up for discussion on Black In America. I feel like I want to break this definition into parts for your review. So, let of explore these first three laws here’s what I found.
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 incarceration. 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 an factor throughout United States history through the present.
Now, I am not going to quote the hold definition, because I can get a little long-winded with my comments but I found some and want to share briefly some cases that got my interest in the history.
Historical Timeline:
Legal background (1763-1829)
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.
Antebellum (1830-1860)
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, in which 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.[6] 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 descendants were considered non-citizens, further incorporating racism into the justice system.
Postbellum (1865-)
When slavery was abolished after the Civil War through the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the constitution, violence against African Americans increased tremendously and thousands of African Americans experienced lynching.
During the same time period, unequal treaties towards Native Americans led to a large decrease in Native American land holdings, and Native Americans were forced into 160 acres or about(65 )- reservations.
Latin Americans entering the country were also a target for the penal system during this time
I will stop here for a moment so that you can make your comments to this post. In “Race in the United States Criminal Justice System PART II” We will discover how law developed for The Black American during Reconstruction Period (1865-1877)
