Sample Essay On Criminal Justice

Summary of the news item:

The article by Hunt (2015) in the North Dallas Gazette made a revealing disclosure about the ordeals of Black women rape victims who suffer from injustice and discrimination in the criminal justice system. The article showed how Black women sexual assault survivors suffered from the pressure of protecting their race, their children, community and the reputation of Black men at their expense of not getting justice. They are constrained from talking about their suffering from sexual assault and other forms of violence in the hands of Black men, mainly because of distrust in the law and the criminal justice system. The same article cited the report from the Institute of Medicine indicating that ethnic disparity in Black women is apparent, especially in the health care services they receive due to prejudice, bias and stereotyping. Such disparity and prejudice may also account to the fact that Black women feel that they are denied their humanity, and they become subject to violence without any recourse in obtaining justice and adequate health services to cope with their mental and emotional anguish. The article shared some of the grueling experiences of Black women about the harsh treatments they receive from the law enforcers themselves and in the administration of justice on the account of their race and ethnicity.

Essay

The article is both sociologically and criminologically interesting because the actual sufferings of Black women within their own community, customs and criminal justice system are not expressly heard. What constitutes to be socially, politically and humanly significant from this article is the fact that ethnical disparity remains to be prevalent in the community and the justice system in general. Consequently, the black race, more particularly women, suffer the greatest discrimination and are deprived of a humane treatment that they deserve. We should care about this issue because it is constitutionally and morally wrong that this kind of system will continue. Political intervention and reforms in the justice system have significant implications in recoginizing equality in law and access to health care service for this ethnical group. Moreover, they should not be stereotyped by the society and must not be treated differently by the law enforcers, which are reasons why black women chose to keep their tormenting experiences from violence silently to themselves.
I chose to write about this article because of the strong message it conveys to the public that there are minority groups who are members of the community who continue to suffer in silence from discrimination, injustice and deprivation of their constitutional right to due process and the right for a humane condition to live. The issue involves the human rights of every individual and it is interesting to find how the criminal justice system promotes equality in law when there seem to be shortcomings in the administration of the same to the ethnical minority group.
The ethnic group may have been treated poorly and unfairly by the criminal justice system because of racial and ethnical prejudice that may be traced back in the US history, where blacks were treated as slaves with no legal rights in the eyes of the law. Although this concept about black people have changed dramatically in the modern time, and they were given equal rights as the whites, it cannot be denied that ethnical and racial disparity continues to persist in the criminal justice system. Contributory to this factor is the pervasive stereotyping of blacks as prone to criminality and they are overrepresented in the criminal justice system either as victims or offenders (Rosich, 2007). Economic inequality and the culture of poverty among this group can also account for the poor treatment they obtain from the criminal justice system.
This article shows the proof that although legislative reforms were exhausted in order to improve the justice system, more particularly in addressing racial disparity and inequality of ethnic groups, there are still loopholes and shortcomings in its implementation because many still suffer from inequality and distrust to the current justice system.

References:

Hunt, J. (2015). The loud silence of rape survivors. Retrieved from http://northdallasgazette.com/2015/03/25/the-loud-silence-of-rape-survivors/.
Rosich, K. (2007). Race, Ethnicity, and the Criminal Justice System. Washington, DC: Americal Sociological Association.