The Declaration of Rights Article 7 states that all are equal before the law and are entitled to no discrimination and equal protection of the law. Additionally, Article 8 states that everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. However, the criminal justice system in the United States has proven in numerous ways to diverge from these that it claims to stand for, first in the evidential prejudice against people of color, in this case, African Americans as well as the death penalty in the United States.
It is no secret that the United States' justice system is preputial against people of color and, most notably, the African American community. While there is not so much evidence that racial profiling is a blanket issue across the United States, there have been valid reasons to believe that its indeed a menace. Evidently, the rate of incarceration for black people is higher than for other races in America. Arrest, conviction, and sentencing are also done differently for different these communities. For instance, African Americans were 37.5% of the total incarcerated population in America out of an overall population at that time of less than 13% of black people in the country. What was more astonishing was that one in every 33 black men in the same year was in prison while a significantly lower I out of 205 white men was in prison. This disproportion stands out as a red flag in the justice system.
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Furthermore, several attempts have been made that explain this disparity, with many suggesting that police officers, who primarily up until recently are white, tend to over-arrest African Americans and ignore criminals that are white. The fact that there are more arrests of
African Americans create the negative illusion that most crimes are carried out by African Americans, which is not valid. This thinking has, in turn, influenced the justice system, This belief is not only held by black people but also white folk who believe that the justice system works against the black community, In a statement made in May 1999, Justice Sandra O'Connor stated that black people believe that they are treated worse than other races and that many white people believe the same as well. Therefore, inclusive action must be taken to eradicate this racial bias in the system.
The same issue also extends to juvenile cases where young black folks are overrepresented in juvenile courts. For instance, in the year 2016, 90% of the juvenile cases recorded in New Jersey were from minority communities, with most being African Americans. These cases were of back people that committed crimes as minors but were being tried as adults. This, therefore, demonstrates a slowness in the justice system to deal with cases involving the black minority. This is contrary to the Sixth Amendment, which is intended to protect people accused of a crime, stating the accused has a right to a speedy and public trial, trial by an impartial jury which should be made up of jurors from the state in which the crime allegedly happened. Additionally, the accused has a right to call their witnesses as well as face the witness of the plaintiff face to face. The accused also must be informed of the exact charges against them.
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