COMMENTARY: Injustice in the Criminal Justice System

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.) (UNDATED) At a recent church service, a literacy […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J., and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute in Princeton, N.J.)

(UNDATED) At a recent church service, a literacy program utilized by many of the inmates at my prison was among several outreach programs lauded for outstanding community service.


The program, Learning Is For Everyone (L.I.F.E.), was developed in recognition of the fact that the inability to read and write is often associated with a life of crime. Studies show that along with a host of other factors, including drug use, illegitimacy and unemployment, illiteracy is a significant determinant in criminal behavior.

Even more important, however, the above factors are determinants in the perception of criminal behavior. That is, even when detained for the same offense, persons who fit the above description are more likely to be perceived as guilty than those who do not.

That, I believe, is among the lessons to be learned from the new report, “And Justice for Some.” Commissioned by the Building Blocks for Youth initiative, a national project advocating fairness in juvenile justice policies, the report provides hard data to underscore a truth many of us already knew: Black and Hispanic youth are over-represented at all levels of the juvenile justice system.

The report found that while white youth constitute the majority of young people arrested, black and Hispanic youth are arrested at levels disproportionate to their numbers in the general population.

Among juveniles charged with the same offense and not previously incarcerated, African-Americans were more than six times as likely as whites to be sent to prison. Hispanic juveniles were three times as likely to be incarcerated.

In addition, blacks accounted for 40 percent of youths sent to adult courts and 58 percent of youths sent to adult prisons.

Nationally, custody rates for black juveniles were five times greater than their white counterparts. Custody rates for Latino and Native American youth were 2.5 times the custody rate for whites.


In sum, then, though white kids constitute the majority of juvenile arrests, kids from minority groups are more likely to do time.

Thus we come to the issue of perception. As William Raspberry of The Washington Post noted recently, most of us “respond to the pictures in our heads. Mention Littleton or Jonesboro and the picture is likely to be of `troubled’ teen-agers perhaps from families that gave them too little attention, from schools where they are put down as nerds or geeks, or from other circumstances that `explain’ their aberrational behavior.”

“Mention a shooting in South Central or Hough or Southeast Washington, and the picture is likely to be of an armed thug bristling for trouble and richly deserving of the full weight of the law.”

In other words, our perception of the individual reflects the value we place on the individual; that is, whether he or she is worth redeeming. Our perceptions become all the more important when we consider that such descriptive terms as “illiterate,” “illegitimate” and “drug addict” are often code for “black” or “minority,” in spite of the number of whites to whom such terms might rightly apply.

Nor can we wash our hands like Pontius Pilate, by distancing ourselves of the whole sordid mess. The truth is neither the justice system or the criminals whose face it determines are entities wholly “other” than ourselves.

Lest we forget, the laws and policies governing the justice system are enacted by persons either elected by us or appointed by those we elect. In theory, then, they reflect our values and are designed for our protection. Such are the implications of “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”


However, what we often fail to remember is that criminal offenders, whether young or old, black or white are part of the “people” too. Thus, in the same way that law-abiding citizens have a vested interest in the safety of their homes and communities, criminal offenders have a vested interest in a system in which the standard of justice is greater than the capricious nature of human perception.

Until we do that, the justice system will be no better than those it incarcerates.

KRE END ATCHISON

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