Project: Contemporary Issue in Criminal Justice

Historical Issue in Criminal Justice: Police Bias Student Name Institution Course Professor Date Historical Issue in Criminal Justice: Police Bias Current State of Police Bias in the Criminal Justice System The US criminal justice system is still plagued by police bias, mostly due to explicit, but sometimes implicit, discrimination against minority communities. Law enforcement decisions, including stops, searches, and arrests, implicitly favor white people at the expense of African Americans and Latinos are influenced by unconscious racial bias. Excessive force or harsher legal consequences for similar behaviors or offenses are nevertheless far more common to the face of those in these groups than to white individuals, continuing to sustain systemic disparities and social inequities (Duseau, 2019). However, even these explicit racial biases are less prevalent: Policing practices that remain biased. For example, Black and Hispanic drivers are less likely than white drivers to receive discretionary leniency from officers during traffic stops. However, at the same time, this signals that the system is not treated fairly (Goncalves & Mello, 2021). Added to those are systemic biases baked into the processes of routine judicial proceedings, where disparity in sentencing based on race is glaring. Nevertheless, black Americans are still handed down longer sentences for the same crimes by their white counterpart, reinserting the inequity. These practices fuel perceptions of injustice that discredit law enforcement and the entire criminal justice system among the public. Current Data and Trends The latest data adds insult to injury when it comes to racial disparities in law enforcement outcomes: disturbing evidence of how police treat minority communities. Research shows that minority drivers are considerably less likely to be lenient during traf...