Essay Sample on Criminal Justice in African American Societies

Introduction

The use of force is specific depending on the case. Also, excessive force is applied by police officers when they deem what they are doing to control a reluctant suspect. From my viewpoint, excessive force is applied when a police officer arrests mentally ill people. The police officers are said to have violated the constitutional rights of that individual in that manner. Excessive or unjustified force is used in the case when the police officers go beyond the permissible level of exerting force in the arrest of an individual. It also entails the application of unwanted force or extra force which is imposed by police officers on an individual.

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Instances of excessive force involve the use of pepper sprays, batons or nerve gas even though it does not have to be an attack or attack. Excessive force can even go to the point of pulling out a gun so as to intimidate the suspect. It can also be in the case where someone is falsely arrested. Excessive force can be demonstrated when an unarmed person who is walking down a street at night is shot by the police. This was an unjustified force since the suspect has not shown any resistance to the arrest. The person is also not carrying any suspectable and him being shot is a case of police brutality.

Residential discrimination is used to refer to the separation of two or more social or ethnic groups in a specified area. The area can either be a municipality, a metropolitan or a county. This issue is most rampant in the Hispanic - white origin areas where housing is not given to other races. Most of the research explains the extent to which residential segregation is done and the findings explain the discriminations based on the ethnic, national or racial origin in various neighborhoods. Other archived characteristics of housing discrimination include socioeconomic status and the religion of individuals.

Residential segregation contributes to crime as people who live in highly concentrated areas resort to crime due to unemployment and lack of access to the fundamental needs. They resort to crimes such as stealing and drug dealing so that they can earn their livelihood. Research indicates that there is a high rate of crimes in the area which is separated from the rest, based on ethnicity or other determinants (Seitles, 2018). Areas which have high segregation are easily subjectable to crimes.

Instances of residential discrimination include direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, and disability-related discrimination. direct discrimination may be manifested when one person is treated favorably than the other. For instance, the United States has been experiencing racial wars where the blacks are directly discriminated from the whites. There are some areas which are only restricted to the white people since some white people have a prejudice on black people as typical criminals. An example of direct discrimination is when a real estate agent refuses o rent property to a person of Asian origin because the landlord has said so.

Indirect discrimination may be applied when a certain requirement, provision or practice is denied access to a house. This may be on the basis of gender or race which may be considered as a specific disadvantage as compared to other people. Occurrences of indirect discriminations include when a housing authority has a regulation that all applicants must be interviewed but refuses to interview an African applicant on the basis that they do not speak fluent English (Peffley, Hurwitz & Mondak, 2017). A real estate agent who only decides that they will be issuing their property to a family also practices indirect discrimination as he knows that there are several migrant workers who are single. Disability-related discrimination is applied when someone is discriminated against because they have a disability such as being mentally challenged. For instance, a housing group trying to evict a tenant who has been causing disturbances to the neighbors. The associates may know that the person is mentally ill but inconsiderately decide to evict the person.

Systems within the justice system can lead to an extensive scope of poor social and health outcomes. In the past, it was seen that the people of color inappropriately represented in both the criminal justice system and the juvenile systems (Hetey, & Eberhardt, 2018). These patterns exist in recent times even though the clear reasons still remain unexplained. The highly contributing factor to this issue is the historic prejudice on blacks or other races. Even though they have been rampant advocations on solving disparities between races, the racial wars are still prevalent in today's society. It is the prejudice among people that make people resonate to disliking a particular race. There have been various instances where a certain judgment discriminated a person of a particular race. Also, many cases have been reported on African Americans being arrested or excessive force being impacted on them by the police. It is the preconception on American Americans being poor as well as criminals that makes them mostly suffer in cases involved with the criminal justice system.

References

Seitles, M. (2018). The Perpetuation of Residential Racial Segregation in America: Historical Discrimination, Modern Forms of Exclusion, and Inclusionary Remedies. Florida State University Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law, 14(1), 3.

Hetey, R. C., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2018). The numbers don't speak for themselves: Racial disparities and the persistence of inequality in the criminal justice system. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(3), 183-187.

Peffley, M., Hurwitz, J., & Mondak, J. (2017). Racial attributions in the justice system and support for punitive crime policies. American Politics Research, 45(6), 1032-1058.