8 Facts you should know about racial injustice in the criminal justice system: Racial discrimination has been ingrained in the criminal legal system from its earliest days and persists today.
"The legacy of slavery, racist Jim Crow laws, and hateful lynchings has translated into modern-day mass incarceration and the disproportionate imprisonment of Black people."
1. More than half of death row exonerees are Black.
Of the 185 people exonerated from death row since 1973, about 53% are Black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Historically the death penalty has been disproportionately applied to Black people in the U.S., and they are still overrepresented on death row.
- FACT: Black or African American commit over 50% (53%) of the homicides for the entire country.
- FACT: Black or African American are 58% of the homicide victims (with over 90% being killed by other blacks or African American).
2. Nearly half the people currently on death row are Black
In 2020, about 42% of people on death row were Black...though Black people make up just 13% of the U.S. population overall.
The death penalty is more likely to be used in cases in which a white person is killed...
- When less than 0.5% of the 6% black population of 13% total black or African American population are committing over 50% of the entire nation's violent person crime, it stands to reason that blacks would be overrepresented on death row for the homicides they commit.
- Every year blacks or African Americans kill more whites than vice versa. So, it stands to reason that the death penalty would be "more likely" used in such cases, versus when a white killing a black, which are significantly fewer.
3. Half of the 2,947 people exonerated since 1989 are Black.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 1,471 Black people have been exonerated since 1989.
- Clearly for a multitude of differing reasons on a case-by-case basis.
4. Innocent Black people are seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than innocent white people.
Among Black people exonerated from murder convictions, approximately 31% were wrongly convicted of killing white people, though just 15% of homicides by Black people involved white victims...
- They need to define "wrongly," as there are a multitude of differing reasons; and the other 85% of homicides by black people involved black victims. Intraracial violence is grossly excessive within the black community.
5. It takes longer to exonerate an innocent Black person.
Black people wrongly convicted of murder spend an average of three more years in prison than white people — four if they are on death row. Innocent Black people spend an average of 16 years on death row before they are exonerated.
- The appeals process and filing of motions by the innocence project takes time. No legitimate exoneration happens overnight.
6. Police misconduct occurred in more than half of all wrongful murder conviction cases involving innocent Black people.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, cases of Black people exonerated from wrongful murder convictions were 22% more likely to involve police misconduct than similar cases involving white defendants.
- Vague. Misconduct needs to be defined here; and white defendants sure as shit have been railroaded by police "misconduct" as well.
7. About one-third of unarmed people killed by police are Black.
Of the more than 149 unarmed people killed by the police in 2017, 49 were Black, according to Mapping Police Violence.
- And? It is common knowledge that since then (and even prior to), blacks have become ever more brazen with law enforcement encounters where they immediately become defiant, verbally accosting, resist arrest, flee, fight and even try to harm the police. As such, 90-95% of all shootings are ruled legally justified.
- Cops are approximately 19x more likely to be shot and killed by an armed black person, than an unarmed black person being shot (and not necessarily killed) by police at approximately 2.5-3x.
- In the aggregate, whites and Hispanics are shot more by police, not blacks.
- A Washington State University study has conclusively shown that law enforcement are less likely to pull the trigger on a black suspect than any other race.
8. Black people are more likely to be stopped and searched.
Studies have shown that Black people, Latinx people, and communities of color are more likely to be stopped, searched, and suspected of a crime — even when no crime has occurred.
- FACT: Black and brown people commit a disproportionate amount of crime in this country. Law enforcement go where the crime is, not where it is not.
- FACT: Majority of crimes in the NYC subway system were being committed by black and brown people; Guliani's Stop n Frisk program WORKED!
Racial bias in policing contributes to the wrongful incarceration and conviction of innocent Black people and is also seen in arrest quotas, the use of surveillance technologies like facial recognition software to identify suspects, predictive policing tools, and gang databases.
- FACT: Criminological data conclusively demonstrates that black and brown people commit a disproportionate number of certain crimes, so law enforcement, in being proactive, will target those demographics committing the most crime in order to prevent that crime.
This article by the Innocence Project is nothing short of misinformation and disinformation. It's part of the reason why many on the left carry and parrot the wrong ideas about law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
