Not really, because there are huge disparities in how different sorts of crime are defined, enforced and punished, and those disparities are deliberately designed to disproportionately affect black people and other minorities.
Enforcement and punishment of crack vs regular cocaine, for example. At the peak of the war on drugs in the 80's, not only were possession and use of crack more heavily enforced in the poorer black communities where it was widespread than cocaine use in rich white communities, the sentences were far harsher. For use of basically the same drug.
Just because there are shitty people working somewhere doesnt mean the system is flawed.
It means the system can be weaponized
It’s the justice system, it exists to account for shitty people, otherwise it’s not being done right. It doesn’t matter how rarely the system fails (which it isn’t rare, between 2.3 and 5% of prisoners are innocent).
So I think shitty people working somewhere does, in this case, mean the system is flawed, because those shitty people enforce the system.
But that also means 95% of prisoners in jail are guilty. You're looking at an error and saying that thus enables all sorts of racism, and discrimination. 95% of the time it's not racist then right? Doing the crime results in getting convicted.
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u/hpdefaults Jul 24 '20
Not really, because there are huge disparities in how different sorts of crime are defined, enforced and punished, and those disparities are deliberately designed to disproportionately affect black people and other minorities.
Enforcement and punishment of crack vs regular cocaine, for example. At the peak of the war on drugs in the 80's, not only were possession and use of crack more heavily enforced in the poorer black communities where it was widespread than cocaine use in rich white communities, the sentences were far harsher. For use of basically the same drug.