Black Mens Sentences 20 Percent Longer Than White Mens For Similar Crimes

[marble falls]

A new report provides more evidence of the racism in the criminal justice system.
By Sarah Ruiz-Grossman

<snip>

A report released last week from the USSC ― an independent agency of the U.S. judicial branch ― looked at federal prison sentences in the United States from Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2016, and found that black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than those of “similarly situated” white male offenders.

The commission also factored in offenders’ criminal histories to look at whether violence in offenders’ pasts could account for the racial disparities ― and found that it did not. Looking at 2016, the only year for which such data was available, the commission found that, after controlling for criminal history, black men still received 20.4 percent longer sentences than did white men.

This report’s findings match those of a previous USSC report from 2007 to 2011, which found a nearly 20 percent gap in sentences between black and white men.


The percentage difference in sentence length between black and white male offenders has increased from 1998 to 2016. Red is 1998 to 2003, green is 2003 to 2004, blue is 2005 to 2007, black is 2007 to 2011 and yellow is 2011 to 2016.

The racial disparities in sentencing appear to have increased over the last two decades, worsening specifically after 2005.

According to older USSC reports, the gap between black and white men in sentencing was about 11 percent for 1998 to 2003 and 5 percent for 2003 to 2005. But it jumped to 15 percent for 2005 to 2007 and to nearly 20 percent thereafter.

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Overall, sentencing is just one part of the broader problem of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system: Black people are incarcerated in U.S. state prisons at more than five times the rate of white people.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-white-sentencing-criminal-justice-report_us_5a0f8295e4b0e97dffed66a0

[LuckyLib]

1. Read "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stephenson.

Nationally and in small town America, what African Americans (and Latinos) face in our criminal injustice system.

[marble falls]

2. Its an issue that screams out unfairness and has no justification whatsoever....

it just drives me nuts even thinking how it is so apparent, well documented and ignored.

I will read "Just Mercy" thank-you for making me aware of it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I just finished reading

Newjack by Ted Conover. He's a reporter who underwent the training to by a correctional officer in New York State and then spend 8 months as a CO at Sing Sing. Absolutely fascinating. The book does not at all discuss discrepancies in sentencing, although it does touch on racial issues. He did this in 1998 or so, and I have no idea if things have changed very much in the nearly two decades since. My guess is, not much.

I have a good friend who (while he doesn't express it this way, this is the right language) has a prison ministry, in which he communicates with a number of men who are incarcerated. He likewise read that book recently, and it's helping him have a certain perspective on the entire topic.

There is a lot wrong with the prison system. I could possibly offer possible alternatives, but I realize I don't know all that much, and so I won't. I do know there is something very wrong with a country that imprisons so many. And the entire racial thing makes it even worse.

[marble falls]

4. I've never heard of this book, but I am VERY interested in a CO's training and perspective ...

I know some of the jailers in our county jail and there is at least some degree of racism not all intentional in most of them.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Please see if your library has it.

I was alerted to it by my friend who works with prisoners. Understandably, my friend has one take on things. This book offers another, and my friend totally gets it.

The book is totally amazing. Those of us the world outside of prisons have whatever take we have on prison life. I'm not about to assume we all have the same take. I will say that I know very little about the world of prisons, even with my friend's dealings in that world.

He has one particular inmate friend who is, not to put too fine a point on it, the son he never had. He (my friend) has a very strong connection to that young (now 40 years old) inmate, and I get it.

I think the most important thing to take from that book is that nothing is black and white. The whole history of prisons and how we treat inmates is a long and complicated history. At various times while reading that book I was thinking, What can we do to improve things? I certainly didn't figure that out, and answering that question isn't at all easy or simple.

Oh, and as everyone reading this post should understand, racism is a huge aspect of the prison system. So many inmates are young men of color. Some enormous percentage of black men spend time in prison. It's not only horrifying but a huge blight on our culture. As a liberal I can quickly think of solutions that probably aren't entirely workable, but the essential problem: how do we create a society in which going to prison isn't normative for a certain (by which I mean African American) group isn't the norm. How, indeed?

[marble falls]

8. The first step is own up to it ...

there are programs to use prisoners to work in local businesses here. The fist thing is that a large portion are black and latin. Way, way out of proportion with the demographics. Some do come from other areas "farmed" out because our jail is less crowded and some actually sent here because our jail is seen as less dangerous to at risk prisoners. The second is how basically good the vast majority most of these people are. I mean so good I'd rather be around them than most of the people who've never been in "stir".

Some have kept their jobs here.

Most Christians out here have forgotten Christ's call for us to minister to prisoners.

[DFW]

6. The French have an old joke about sentencing the USA

It probably originated in the states.

Three black guys meet up in the prison yard.
One asks another, "How long are you in for?"
The man says, "Twenty years."
"What did you do?" asks the first one.
"I stole a steak out of a supermarket. How about you?"
"I'm in for fifteen years."
"What did you do?"
"I was convicted of littering."
They turn to the third one and ask, "And you? How long are you in here for?"
"I got ten years," the third man says.
"What did you do?" ask the other two.
"I didn't do anything," the third man answered.
"Quit your lying, man!" the other two answer. "If you didn't do anything at all, it's only five years."

[uponit7771]

7. +1