Week 9: Crime and Deviance-Does the punishment fit the crime?

The icon of Justice is a blindfolded woman carrying a double-edged sword and scales: the blindfold is show objectivity, the sword represents the power of justice, and the scales represent the balanced arguments of each side.  Who decides what is and is not crime?  Who decides who is and is not a criminal?  How can the community ensure that the legal and judicial systems are not punitively targeting a specific demographic? In " Study Settles It: Shocking Black & Latino Imprisonment Rates the Result of Racist, Punitive Impulse", the criminalization of minorities in the American penal system is appalling.  The numbers show a systemic targeting of specific racial classes, that helps perpetuate cultural stereotypes.  One researcher calls it “similar to the Jim Crow [segregation] laws.” 

Normally we leave trials, sentencing and punishment of criminals to the judicial system, and most of us assume that one is “innocent until proven guilty”, and that “justice always prevails.”  Thanks largely to popular crime and legal drama television, most of us assume the judicial system is inherently fair and impersonal, imposing punishment on those convicted, and releasing the innocent.  However, many who enter the judicial system understand that one’s social, economic, and racial classes are as important as one’s attorney and PR team. 

What happens when a judge is inconsistent with his sentencing for two individuals, where the defendants’ social and racial classes appear to influence the punishments?  How can we hold judges accountable for these discrepancies within our society?

How do we address this problem of criminalization of targeted racial groups?  Some suggestions from "Confronting the New Faces of Hate: Hate Crimes in America 2009", and “The Study Settles It”  include greater community activism for civil rights, supporting education programs and training initiatives, and more funding for law enforcement to raise awareness of prejudice within their organizations, and to better respond to these types of crimes.

Professor Felton Earls of the Harvard School of Public Health talks about the “cohesion” of communities in his talk with Susan Stamberg on NPR, “Crime Study Challenges Past Assumptions.”  According to Earls, cohesion is created by communities being invested in each other’s lives, especially the lives of children and teenagers.  My main concern is this: how to fund these programs, and implement them in communities.