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Amy Dersh
Professor Jackie H
English 115
8 December 2014
The Injustice of the Justice System
The justice system in the United States, ideally, is supposed to protect and serve its
citizens, free from racial bias. In October of 2013, reporter, Saki Knafo, of the Huffington Post,
wrote an article depicting the racial injustice that is taking place in America by law enforcement.
Knafo reveals in his article that African-American males have a higher incarceration rate than
any other type of person in America. His statistics that one in every three black males will be
sentenced to time in a penitentiary in their life, comes from a report by the Sentencing Project, a
group based in Washington, D.C. who wishes to change the prison systems. This outrageously
high statistic was reported to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, showing that the justice system
is unfair towards countless amounts of people. Although it may not always be intentional, it is
clear that police officers and other law enforcement racially profile citizens, which is why
Caucasians are far less likely to get arrested than minorities. Being that police must make quick
judgment calls, this causes their subconscious to affect their decision making, and often times,
people associate certain races with crime. It was stated that, Once arrested, they [AfricanAmerican men] are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to face
stiff sentences. The United States is abusing and going against the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. American citizens are supposed to obtain equality from law
enforcement, but unfortunately this is not what is actually going on. Based on information given
from the U.S. government, it was revealed that African-American and, to a lesser extent,

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Hispanic men, are more likely to spend time behind bars than their white counterparts. The
reasoning behind this data is argued by many, but reports want to let it be known that one
ethnicity does not commit more crime than another, so why is it that African-American men get
targeted by police the most? Information was announced by the Justice Department stating that
throughout the country, between the years of 1980 to 2010, police arrested black youth for drug
crimes at more than twice the rate of white youth. Now interestingly enough, a few years later,
in 2012, a study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that white high-school
students were slightly more likely to have abused illegal drugs within the past month than black
students of the same age. The increase of imprisoned drug offenders jumped exponentially
from 42,000 in 1980 to nearly half a million in 2007. It was reported that black males make up
almost half of the men in jail for drug convictions. After this data was brought to light, the
Justice Department decided to cut back on the intense prison sentences for low-level drug
offenders. Along with many other American citizens, Knafo has made his voice clear, in that
changes within the Justice System must be made (Knafo).
Reading Knafos article and looking at it from a skeptics point of view, one could argue
that minorities do, in fact, create more crime than white Americans. For example, looking back
at the Los Angeles riots in 1992, the amount of crime committed by black Americans, sky
rocketed. After the beating of Rodney King, African-Americans tore up, mainly, their own
communities, loitering and robbing wherever they could. People may believe that, after
witnessing historical catastrophes such as this, police have had a changed mentality in the
strength and aggression of the African-American communities, thus causing the tight watch on
certain races. Although Knafo made strong points in his article, doubters may look at the reports
and still believe that there are factors not being looked at as to why these statistics are so.

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Work Cited
Knafo, Saki. "1 In 3 Black Males Will Go To Prison In Their Lifetime, Report Warns." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 04 Oct. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2014.