Criminal Justice Administration: Racial and Gender Barriers (Essay Sample)

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Criminal Justice Administration: Racial and Gender Barriers
In matters of Criminal Justice Administration, ethics and a sense of professionalism are quite crucial. The criminal justice administration faces various ethical challenges, implying the need for professionalism no matter how complicated the situation may be. The society, or a part of it, may lose confidence in the criminal justice system if it acts unethically by being bias (Erickson, 2014). Bias in the system may exist on many bases: employment, health, earnings and wealth, housing and localities, and criminal justice. Race and gender remain to be two of the most significant aspects, which pose considerable challenges to effective criminal justice administration in this era (Webster and Miller, 2014).
Many tend to concentrate only on confinement in evaluating the inequality regarding race and ethnicity. Yes, confinement is very relevant when assessing this matter, but it is also necessary to consider levels of the criminal justice administration (Gabbidon, 2010). This paper explores how the United States criminal justice administration system has fallen short in offering justice effectively because of racial and gender disparities.
Discussion
Race and Criminal Justice Administration
Police and the coloured people. The main issues surrounding this matter would be the abusive nature of some police towards coloured people and ‘under-policing’. There is substantial experimental proof that coloured individuals in the United States are more likely to find themselves in detention than the white people are (Hartney and Vuong, 2009). For instance, it is standard practice by the police to pull over non-white drivers for irrelevant searches or use excessive police force on innocent coloured civilians. Regardless of whether some of the opinions coloured people have towards the police, most of them believe that the police have an arrogance about them (Hartney and Vuong, 2009). Furthermore, they claim that the police offer them little security. Therefore, they have little confidence in the country’s police force (Erickson, 2014).
The group that seems to be most affected by this side of the story is the African-American community (Gabbidon, 2010). Reports indicate that police have targeted African-Americans in particular through the ‘fleeing felon rule’ that allows a police officer to shoot at a suspect on the move. In Memphis, for example, there were more killings of African-Americans through fatal shootings by the police than all the other races combined. Most of these suspects were, in fact, unarmed (Gabbidon, 2010).
There is also racial profiling by the police in the United States. There are many scenarios where traffic police stop an individual for searching or questioning just because of their race (Hartney and Vuong, 2009). This police behaviour is not new in the society; it has been a tradition that has lasted for decades. A larger portion of the population believes that agencies charged with law enforcement indulge in widespread racial profiling and that it is wrong and uncalled for (Hartney and Vuong, 2009). Although most of these agencies seem to profile because of the terror threat in the country, racial profiling is emerging to be out of line. Most of the Hispanic and African-American drivers who have reported having been stopped by the police claim that it was for stupid reasons. Most of them also argue that it was conducted in an unfitting manner (Webster and Miller, 2014).
The juvenile justice system. There is considerable inequality on race at various stages of the United States juvenile justice system. Studies show that these differences vary from region to region. The illustrated implication is that different area have varying levels of disparity in the number of juveniles of a particular race arrested or convicted in juvenile prisons (Hartney and Vuong, 2009). The numbers also seem to be fluctuating from time to time. However, what remains constant is that most of the arrests or convictions made in juvenile courts involve African-Americans as compared to other races. Nonetheless, it is important to note that even though such inequality may act as a sign of discrimination, it is not at all an absolute proof of discrimination (Webster and Miller, 2014).
There is an enormous racial disparity in the number juvenile arrested, which is mostly the first instance when they encounter the police (Webster and Miller, 2014). There are at least two African-American youths for every white youth arrested, regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent of the crime committed. Although this does not demonstrate obvious bias on the part of the police, the general notion of the minority of the American population is that these arrests are discriminatory (Erickson, 2014).
Statistics also show that coloured juveniles receive different treatment from white juveniles when under conviction for criminal acts. It seems that the United States justice system offers these juvenile offenders, especially those of African-America descent, harsher punishment (Hartney and Vuong, 2009). Such differences are less evident in the initial stages of the procedure but are popular as they go deeper into the juvenile justice system. It would seem that processing decisions made by the system are more lenient towards white juveniles. For African-American and Hispanic youths, it is not that the rulings are unfair. Leniency exists as the determinant. When it comes to such decisions, law enforcers ought to be considerably lenient in equal proportion to individuals of all races. (Erickson, 2014).
The average income levels of families in particular neighbourhoods also seems to have a hand in the racial disparity demonstrated in the juvenile justice system (Webster and Miller, 2014). It is vividly apparent that there is a tighter surveillance by the police in particular neighbourhoods. Such localities are characterised by low-income families where families have low income. Unfortunately, the minority of the population, especially the Hispanic and African-Americans, dominates such neighbourhoods. As a result, juveniles from such communities are more likely to be arrested and charged in courts just because of their appearance (Erickson, 2014).
Gender and criminal justice administration
Rise in the instances of women incarceration is an attribute of greater forces that seem to have modelled the crime policy in the United States (Buist and Stone, 2014). Such forces may include the unawareness of the structural and social origins of crime. Both the federal and state obligatory sentencing regulations; and the fact that many Americans fear crime despite the dipping numbers of criminal cases over the past ten years (Buist and Stone, 2014).
Presently, the sentencing structure implies that any individual convicted of any crimes poses a risk to the safety of the general public (Buist and Stone, 2014). Such an assumption is what many criminal justice administration professionals hold; that few females offer a threat to public safety. This sentencing model tends to rely on male behaviour and does not consider the reality of the nature of a woman involved in a criminal offence (Buist and Stone, 2014). In discussing women, two distinct approaches may offer detailed exploration in analysing criminality in women based on various aspects. In the first theory, female criminality is studied individually, separate from any ideas regarding male crime. However, such an opinion does not carry many weights as it lacks experimental support but makes use of only the assumptions regarding the general psychological traits of women. The second approach also brings with it more problems. It uses basic old-fashioned theories that tend to generalise the characteristics of male and female criminality (Buist and Stone, 2014).
Equal treatment versus fair treatment. The criminal justice administration system faces a major barrier in ensuring justice administration is effective for both men and female. The main reason is that the stakeholders do not have an understanding of the significance of gender differences (Buist and Stone, 2014). Most of the policies used in the current sentencing model tend to rely on the characteristics of male criminality. Women seem indistinguishable in the correctional structure. Therefore, there would be many more females arrested and imprisoned than before since the current regime has become less lenient to women offenders (Buist and Stone, 2014).
Many women would regard this as unfair but the fact that the statistics are changing does not mean that it is so. The leniency that was shown to women in the past was just a sign of ‘affection’ for the female citizen. In this case, equality is, in fact, fairness.
Management strategies. There are certain standard procedures used in law enforcement than appear to be detrimental to the well-being of some women. Statistics shows that the chances of a man going through any physical or sexual abuse in his lifetime are only a third of that of a woman (Buist and Stone, 2014). When women are subjected to restraints or isolations, it may only serve to trigger memories of a past traumatic or abusive event they might have gone through.
In some cases, gender influences the implementation of disciplinary procedures. More incline to the harm of women (Buist and Stone, 2014). In some prisons, women are more prone to these disciplinary proceedings as compared to men. In these female prisons, wardens show no mercy and punish the inmates for the slightest of mistakes just to make them more compliant.
Life after prison
After leaving prison, the woman is expected to find a proper place to leave in (Buist and Stone, 2014). Meaning, she has to live in a location that would enable her to comply with probat...