By: Xavier LeMar
Do you know the sentencing rules when it comes to a person being tried for accessory to murder? In Pennsylvania, a person who was only with or associated with someone who committed murder and is convicted will be sentenced to life without parole. This is just one of the many unfair rules that our justice system has, which needs to be changed. Also, racial profiling when it comes to sentencing perpetrators of different races for the same crimes.
As far as most people can remember white people were treated better or shown more mercy, and favoritism over people of color/minorities. The statistics of black to white inmates in prisons is mind-blowing, also take into consideration that most of these men were charged with the same crimes, but there is a noticeable difference in white to black prisoners. Check out this VIDEO from the Washington Post that explains these racial disparities.
There are 5 times more black men incarcerated than white men, who’ve been tried for the exact same crimes
The average amount of prisoners per race is usually 666 per 100,000 people
The number of White prisoners per person is only 450 per 100,000 people which is 216 less than the average per race
The number of Black prisoners per person is 2,306 per 100,000 people which is 3.5 times more than the average
The number of Hispanic prisoners per person is 831 per 100,000 people which is still way less than black prisoners but almost 400 more than the white prisoners
These statistics show the larger number of minorities who are tried and convicted of the same crimes as white people but the minorities are still in jail and are serving more time than they are.
Line Graph of the number of mass school shootings
All of those shooters from 2013 were white males, knowing this it can only mean 19 of them were convicted. Thinking logically you can infer that all 19 of those life sentences for murder weren’t all for the school shooters from that year. That means more than half of those men are free or will be free even after taking countless innocent lives.
When sentencing, judges look into criminal history, education, and countless other things before giving a sentence. Even when all those things are included, men of color were still given longer sentences than white males. (Graph of Statistics)
From 1998-2003 black men received 11.2% longer sentences
From 2003-2004 black men received 5.5% longer sentences which is the lowest it has ever been
From 2004-2016 the percentage of longer sentences for black men has only grown, it reached 19.1% in 2016
The high for longer sentencing for black men was 19.5% from 2007-2011 which should never be this high when all sentencing should be fair no matter the color of someone’s skin. These problems have been going on for long enough not only in Pennsylvania but around the world, and some changes definitely need to be made.
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