Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Name of event: Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Speaker: Dr. Barry A. Krisberg
Location of event: The Metropolitan Center for Urban Education
726 Broadway, 5th Floor Room 542
Amount of hours of event: 2 hours

This past Tuesday, I attended a lecture given by Dr. Barry A. Krisberg on the topic of racial and ethnic disparities that are present in the United States Criminal Justice System. Dr. Krisberg is part of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, an organization that emphasizes applied research in relation to policy programs. One of the goals of Dr. Krisberg and others is to attempt to retrieve the rationality that has been lost in the system, in turn searching for systematic ways of dealing with various issues which include but are not limited to violence, child protection services, immigration policy, etc. The majority of his work, however, has to do with bringing about justice to the social inequities that remain ever so present.

The core of Dr. Krisberg’s presentation was a comprehensive assessment of racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system – “injustice for some.” At one point he stated, “The further into the system one delves into, the heavier/harsher the penalties become.” What exactly did all of this mean? It was slightly difficult to grasp the underlying connection to education and how it is applicable to us as future educators. Prior to presenting statistical data, we were introduced to the five racial/ethnic categories that individuals were grouped into: White, African American, American Indian or Alaskan Native (AIAN), Asian or Pacific Islander (API), and Hispanic. The data was expressed in terms of RRI (Relative Rate Indices). It was brought to our attention that this was the most efficient way to compare and evaluate rates across race/ethnicity. It is a way of “enumerating the over and under representation of people of color compared to the representations of Whites.” RRI allows one to interpret the data in terms of the statement – for every one White person, there are [i.e.] three AIAN. What this is essentially doing is making possible for the verbalization of a phenomenon that is rather complex. Dr. Krisberg presented data with regards to various categories. Some included arrests, court processing, offense types, incarceration under state and federal jurisdiction, and death penalty. A large portion of the data had discrepancies ranging from slight to great as this was noted by the RRI value. A RRI value greater than one indicates the presence of a disparity. For instance, the RRI for incarceration under state and federal jurisdiction is as allows: 1 White, 3.9 AA, 2.7 AIAN, and 0.4 API. Dr. Krisberg pointed out a significant flaw with the data. He stated that merging smaller groups (i.e. people of Vietnam, Cambodia) into larger groups (API) may result in data with greater disparities than present in reality. This illustration, I felt, was analogous to the situations that often arise in school settings in which students of different ethnicities/races are perceived as a single unit.

Truth be told, injustice in the criminal justice system is hardly ever an issue that crosses my mind as it is not an issue that is relevant to me on a personal level. This lecture, however, was certainly an eye opener that has allowed me to become better aware of racial and ethnic disparities both in and outside of the context of the justice system. As a closing thought, Dr. Krisberg spoke about the “menaces to society,” quoting someone who was unsympathetic towards a particular race. “In California, there is a sea of “Hectors.” I’m not going to defend them.” This statement struck me hard as it brought me to put these injustices in terms of the education system – which led to this question:

How different is a school from any criminal justice system?

Without taking offenses, crimes, etc into consideration, both are similar in that they house social injustices. I learned from this lecture that teachers (as well as lawyers, judges, etc) are “ill prepared” to deal with these issues. Though oversimplified (and frankly, meaningless as merely a statement), it is crucial for us as future educators to work towards change to alleviate such racial disparities.