Race gap seen in justice system

[cory777]

Source: Charlotte Observer

When a judge recently opened his courtroom door and asked Mecklenburg County public defender Kevin Tully to look at the people awaiting drug hearings, Tully immediately noticed one of Charlotte's most sensitive and enduring issues: Every defendant was black.

Tully said the judge then told him, "These drug laws are doing more to disenfranchise a whole people than Jim Crow ever did."

The anecdote was among the most pointed moments Friday at the Charlotte School of Law during a panel discussion involving some of the city's most prominent lawyers, public officials and activists.

The story reflected what panelists said was a disturbing national trend. The number of people in U.S. prisons has grown from fewer than 500,000 in the 1970s to more than 2million today, a spike attributed largely to the nation's war on drugs, panelists said. About three-fourths of those in prison for drug crimes are minorities, though usage is spread across all races.



Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/03/05/2112393/race-gap-seen-in-justice-system.html

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[BlueIris]

1. 3/4s? Ouch.

I had no idea the disparity was that bad.

:dunce:

[bemildred]

2. Same old same old.

It isn't a "trend", it's the status quo, which has never changed, it's why criminal drug law was invented.

[azurnoir]

5. +1 n/t

[treestar]

3. Laws are enforced strictly against minorities

Laxly against whites.

Cops could patrol suburbia too. They just don't.

[Webster Green]

4. Hard to imagine.

[msongs]

6. along with the race of attorneys versus everyone who is not an attorney nt

[blackspade]

7. Duh!

It's been obvious for years.
especially bad if you are black and poor.

[devils chaplain]

8. Race gap seen in justice system...again

It's been seen in the justice system every time it's been looked into, for years and years and years. Yet nobody with the power to do so ever seems to do anything to change it.

[HopeHoops]

9. Ya think?

[fishwax]

10. k/r

:kick:

[shanti]

11. you don't say....

:eyes:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Alerting. This is not Late Breaking News

Not really alerting.

But this is old, old, news.

And it's not just in the justice system. That's just the obvious end result of the racial preferences in education, employment, networking.