Criminal Justice & Race Disparities

Angelica Conway

I attended Barry Krisberg’s 2-hour talk about “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System” held at NYU Steinhardt’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education (726 Broadway). Dr. Krisberg is the President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and he spoke with us about the relatively significant disparities in our criminal justice system as viewed in the following groups: Whites, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian or Pacific Islanders (API), and American Indian or Alaskan Natives (AIAN). They are working to include all groups but certainly more than simply “Blacks” and “Whites.”

Before sharing specific data with us, Dr. Krisberg spoke a bit about who is in jail and the injustices which sometimes lead them there. Dr. Krisberg pointed out an interested point about there being a sort of cyclical effect because children who witness violence their homes are more likely to become violent themselves. Though this sounds like a logical statement, I know for me it was not something I ever really thought about and certainly nothing I had ever reflected on. It pointed out the importance of the role of teachers in getting to know our students and helping to create a safe space for them within our classroom and working to ensure their safety as much as possible at home.

We heard about racial injustice and how it is impacting immigrant children and how issues of deportation (especially amongst men) have become a cause for concern. We were made aware of a grant from the CDC, though, that will work towards youth violence prevention. Apparently, the NCCD is also working to get into communities as they work to change how things currently operate. Dr. Krisberg also told us about “injustice for some” in which there are racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system at every age and stage and this is ultimately leading our justice system into further disparities.

In order to best understand the data presented to us, we first had to learn about Relative Rate Index (RRI) which is the most effective way to compare rates across race and ethnicity and which “enumerates over- and under-representation of people of color compared to the representation of Whites.” The NCCD is trying to increase the availability of this information, or at least make people more knowledgeable about how they can access it because community groups are becoming increasingly more interested in it but do not know where to find it.

Finally, there is some information I was intrigued by having to do with people of color being over-represented in the U.S. Criminal Justice System. This demographic is more likely to be arrested/prosecuted and more likely to receive harsher punishment and, youth of color are at a particular risk. However, the differences in self-report crime data are not that significant: African Americans report in proportion to their population but they end up being penalized more than Whites in all circumstances. An interesting story Dr. Krisberg shared with us was that probation officers were given identical reports but with different ethnic-sounding names and, based on the names the officers’ reactions varied and the African Americans (or other people of color) were viewed as the “suspect” while the Whites were interpreted to be the victims of circumstance. Similarly, there is a great deal of police racial profiling issues in which they are in complete denial.

In regards to schools, Dr. Krisberg addressed the fact that there is a huge racial disparity in the number of students suspended or expelled and that most of them are for minor incidents such as disruptions or defiance (in comparison to possession of weapons, etc) but the major problems receive more attention. Because of these discrepancies, some parents are often explicitly encouraged to withdraw their children from that particular school (no due process is in practice) which ultimately may increase the school’s scores and get the students out of their hair and onto the streets. WE MUST ADDRESS THESE ISSUES IN OUR SCHOOLS!!! We are already hearing about 6- and 7-year-olds being arrested which is absolutely absurd.

This seminar was certainly eye-opening and brought a few somewhat obvious issues to the forefront and introduced something that I can now work on learning more about. I have not spent much time in the past speaking about the Justice System but especially hearing about the obscene disparities and knowing that we can make a difference, I really would like to look further into this issue.