¶ … race plays a role in the different sentencing ranges applicable to different crimes.
Race and Sentencing Guidelines
Race has been a consideration in sentencing guidelines for quite some time. Many individuals believe that those who are not Caucasian receive sentences that are harsher and punishment that is stricter than others
Because of this, there is concern that perhaps the sentencing guidelines and the entire criminal justice system is racially biased. This is evidenced not only by individuals of other races who feel that they have been treated unfairly but by statistics which indicate the number of non-Caucasian individuals on death row and within the prison system in general.
The purpose of this paper will be to show that there is disparity between the sentencing guidelines that are given to Caucasians and to non-Caucasians and to look at the extent race plays a part in the prosecution for different crimes. This is not only the case for small crimes or large crimes, but for all crimes across the spectrum. In an effort to be fair, opposing views will be discussed and the problems and proposed solutions will be discussed as well. By discussing all of these issues it can be seen that individuals who are of minority races often meet with harsher punishments than others who come into the criminal justice system.
There are many reasons that this happens, and one of those could potentially be the fact that many of these minority individuals do not have the finances to hire good lawyers
. Many of these individuals end up with public defenders and while public defenders do the best for their clients they are often overworked and underpaid. Because of this, individuals that require public defenders often do not get as good of a chance at being paroled or having a lighter sentence than those that can afford high-priced attorneys. There are many more minorities in the prison system and on death row than there are Caucasian individuals, and there are more men than women. For the purposes of this paper the gender differences will not be an issue. Whether they are male or female will be irrelevant; the only concern will be with what race they belong to. According to the Supreme Court, there should be equal treatment for all individuals who are found to the guilty of an infraction of the law
. This should be true regardless of the race of the individuals but sadly there seems to be loopholes in the criminal justice system which cause many of these individuals to fall into difficulty with the law and then to have trouble getting out of this cycle of scrutiny and arrest
There are Caucasian individuals in this country that would argue that minority races have more crime and that they are not as good of individuals as those of Caucasian ancestry. However, this does not necessarily mean that this observation is accurate. One must consider the possibility that those that are of minority race in this country are not committing crimes at a higher rate, but that they are being targeted at a higher rate and therefore the crimes that they do commit are being discovered more than the crimes that are committed by Caucasian individuals
. Many of these crimes relate to drugs and so the main focus of this paper will be on the issue of drug crimes. However, other crimes will be considered in order to show that this is something that travels across the entire criminal spectrum and is not limited to one area of crime. This is important to understand...
The judge must choose a sentence from within the guideline range unless the court identifies an aggravating or mitigating circumstance that was not adequately considered by the Sentencing Commission. In mandatory minimum drug cases, judges can depart only upon motion from the government stating that a defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person. All guideline drug sentences are indirectly affected by the mandatory minimums.
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