Racial Disparity in the Criminal Juastice System in the US and State of Iowa

“Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System of the US and Iowa”
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In the American criminal justice framework, race refers to the different experiences that people of various races go through concerning prosecutions and policing. Different racial groups have for long suffered different fates regarding the sentencing of felonies and general convictions. Defendants from minority groups appear to be charged more with crimes that require no more than a minimum sentence in prison than their white counterparts. This pattern has led to an enormous racial discrepancy in incarceration systems in America. This article discusses the racial disparity in the criminal justice system of the US and Iowa.
The population of the United States is diverse in terms of race and ethnicity. The country’s last official census acknowledged six racial groups that exist in the country (Colby & Ortman, 2015). In August 2016, the US had a population of 324,227,000 people; the third highest population of all the countries in the world (Colby & Ortman, 2015). The census bureau of the US defines white people as those that have any origins in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The whites are the largest racial group in the US. They are approximately 77.7% of the entire population (Colby & Ortman, 2015). However, when Hispanics are distinguished from this category, then the United States has a 62.6% population of whites. The African American community constitutes about 13.

2% of the US population and is the biggest racial minority in America (Colby & Ortman, 2015). The Latino American and the Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority at 17% of the total population of the US. The white Americans are the racial majority in every state apart from Hawaii. Going by the 2010 census data, 91.3% of the population of Iowa is made up of whites (Colby & Ortman, 2015). Out of this, 88.7% are non-Hispanic (Colby & Ortman, 2015). The African Americans make only 2.9% of the population, followed Asians who constitute about 1.7% of the population (Colby & Ortman, 2015).
In every state in the US, there is some degree of racial disproportion in the criminal justice framework. The frequency at which African Americans are incarcerated in all the state prisons throughout the nation is approximately five times higher than the degree at which the whites are incarcerated. Iowa has the largest racial difference in the US when it comes to incarcerations. “An African American in Iowa is eight times more likely to be arrested for illegal possession despite the fact that the rate at which the blacks and whites use and possess illegal weapons and substances is almost equal” (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012).
A study by the American union for civil liberties, ACLU, discovered that the rate at which white Americans use Marijuana is nearly the same as the rate at which blacks use the substance. However, there is a huge disparity in the number of arrests made (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012). The report by the ACLU is based on information obtained from the U.S Census Bureau and the FBI (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012). It discovered that in 2010, on average, an African American was 3.7 times more vulnerable to incarceration for the possession of marijuana than a white citizen. According to the report, blacks in specific counties of the nation were 15 to 20 “times more likely to be arrested than whites for” general reasons (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012). In term of possession of Marijuana, Iowa has the highest degree of racial disparity in the rates of incarcerations as a white person is 8.34 times less prone to arrest than a black person for that reason. “Washington D.C., Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Pennsylvania,” follow Iowa in that order (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012).
As mentioned before, the blacks make approximately 3 percent of the population of Iowa. Going by the 2010 rates, 1,454 out of every 100,000 blacks were arrested for possession of Marijuana in Iowa while only 174 out of every 100,000 whites were arrested for the same reason (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012). These numbers are devastating, and even the ACLU legal director agrees. Lawyers have for many years pointed out the disparity in arrest patterns in the state and the report acts as evidence to their constant claims. The state has been a leader in civil rights advocacy, and it is a shame that it has the worst national ranking regarding racial disparities in incarcerations.
In 2007, a research based in Washington D.C. ranked Iowa last in terms of the ratio of whites to blacks in prison. According to the 2007 study, Iowa was found to incarcerate African Americans at a rate 13.6 times greater than that of whites (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012). This fraction was greater than two times the national rate of racial disproportion in the justice framework. Across the United States, whites were jailed at a rate that was six times lower than that of the blacks while Latinos were imprisoned at a rate that is nearly twice that of the whites (Walker, Spohn & DeLone, 2012). However, the rate at which the Latinos were arrested was not included in the 2010 ACLU report because the FBI provided no ethnic breakdown of their arrests.
In conclusion, one can clearly see that racial disparity is a major issue in the United States. The issue is not only evident in the population of the country; it is also a major concern in the criminal justice framework of the country. Iowa ranks highest in many studies in terms of its racial disproportion in the detention rates. The ACLU report is a good piece of evidence that can be used by stakeholders in the criminal justice system to initiate a process that would bring more equity in the system.
References
Colby, S. L., & Ortman, J. M. (2015). Projections of the Size and Composition of the US
Population: 2014 to 2060. US Census Bureau, Ed, 25-1143.
Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2012). The color of justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime in
America. Cengage Learning.