Thesis on "Convictions Reversed Due to DNA"

Thesis 5 pages (1668 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

DNA Exonerations: Some Racial Considerations

From 1989 to 2003 there have been a total of 144 exonerations in the U.S. connected with DNA evidence (Gross, et al., 2005). This number represents many post-humus exonerations, and is testament to the idea that DNA evidence is the lynchpin to understanding the demographics of those who have been wrongly convicted and incarcerated sometimes for decades. More than 80% of those exonerated had been in prison at least five years (Gross et. al., 2005). The overwhelming majority of those being exonerated are black men who have been convicted of violent crime. The fact that this demographic represents the majority of overturned cases suggests that the criminal justice system is not as fair as many people perceive it to be, and that blacks are more likely to be prosecuted and jailed for crimes they did not commit. However, it should be noted that it is far easier to overturn a rape or murder conviction using DNA evidence, which is often found at the scene of the crime, than it is to overturn other criminal convictions that do not leave such evidence. The fact remains that blacks represent an overwhelming majority of those exonerated by DNA evidence. It is necessary to examine why there are so many blacks in the prison system itself in order to accurately understand why there are a disproportionate amount of blacks being exonerated of violent crimes due to DNA.

An estimated 12% of blacks under the age of 18 were in prison or jail last year, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report (Harrison and Beck, 2006). By comparison only 1.7% of white men under 18 were in prison or jail. Adult black males represent an overwhelming majority of the prison and jail population nationwide, which is very concerning. For adult black males, the rate is even higher and growing. By some estimates, nearly 15% of adult black males in the United States are in prison or jail. While blacks represent a minority of the U.S. population. This suggests that blacks are being prosecuted and incarcerated at much higher rates than people of other ethnicities. Roughly 6% of Hispanics males are in jail or prison, which shows that black men are nearly twice as likely to be in prison as Hispanic men and nearly six times as likely as white men (Harrison and Beck, 2006). This trend began to really increase in the 1970's and 1980's and has continued to this day (Gross et. al., 2005). The types of crimes that blacks are in prison or jail for represent a disproportionate amount of violent crime as well, which suggests that blacks are both more likely to be considered as suspects and more likely to be convicted of violent crimes. This pattern is disturbing, and points to an unbalanced justice system.

The notion that blacks are more likely to become criminals or commit violent crimes has no exclusive basis in fact other than the consideration that more blacks are in prison or jail than any other race and that socioeconomic considerations need to be taken into account when looking at the ethnicity of a particular prison or jail population. DNA evidence has helped overturn hundreds of convictions and has worked to free more blacks than any other ethnic group. This trend could be argued as a product of a racist judicial system, since there are far more blacks in prison one would expect more blacks to be exonerated due to statistical probability alone. But the fact that most are exonerated from violent crimes sometimes a decade r more after the fact shows that perhaps the justice system is biased against putting blacks who are accused of violent crime behind bars without giving them a chance for a fair and trial.

Alfred Blumstein, a sociologist at Carnegie Mellon University argues differently. He feels that the disproportionate amount of blacks in prison, and therefore the disproportionate amount of blacks that are exonerated by DNA evidence represent a larger societal problem, and are the symptom of a broken society and not a broken justice system (Blumstein, 2009). Blumstein says, "Authors attribute the differences to different socioeconomic factors contributing to involvement in crime, different rates of arrest, more intensive police patrol patterns in minority neighborhoods, labeling as a result of early encounters with police, and inevitably racial discrimination. But that discrimination cannot account for more than a fraction of the disproportionality. Any such discrimination should be purged wherever possible, but major changes in the disproportionality will require larger changes in the general society outside the criminal justice system." (Blumstein, 2009). Here he is arguing that the high numbers of blacks in prison, when adjusted for perceived and unperceived instances of racial bias, profiling, or favoritism, would be little changed after statistical consideration (Blumstein, 2009). He feels as though society or culture is at fault for the high levels of blacks being incarcerated and that the high levels of exonerations in this population accurately reflect that. Whether or not Mr. Blumstein is correct in his findings is another story, and people's opinions would likely be based on their own personal experiences with the law. There are also some more simple explanations for the high numbers of blacks in prison or jail, according again to Mr. Blumstein (2009). He argues that blacks are often identified and incorporated into the justice at an early age and therefore would be more likely to come under investigation since their names and information are already in the police database. This is an important consideration when analyzing the racial make-up of the U.S. prison system and suggests that at the very least, from an early age, blacks are more likely to be part of the criminal justice database.

Blumstein (2009) also draws a correlation between the people who are convicted of violent crimes and the surveys that police use to help understand how the criminal was identified and apprehended. The fact that blacks are identified as perpetrators, often times by other blacks living around them, shows that the correlation between ethnic background and the prevalence of criminal activity is strongly related (Blumstein, 2009). The socioeconomic connection between crime and ethnicity cannot be denied, but author Blumstein (2009) argues that there is little to no inherent racial bias in the justice system and that these socio-economic factors are overwhelmingly to blame for the huge and disproportionate number of blacks in prison or jail as compared to other ethnicities. Authors Harris et al. (2009) argue in a similar way that the problem of disproportionate prison and jail populations is not caused by racism inherent in the justice system but instead caused by socioeconomic factors. They argue, "That while there is a need for continued concern with possible racial discrimination in justice system processing, this concern should not distract attention from what arguably is the more important matter -- ameliorating the social environmental conditions that foster disproportionate minority (especially black) involvement in violent crime." (Harris et. al., 2009). This suggests that blacks are not suffering as a group from a racist justice system and that cultural and socioeconomic changes will have a far greater impact on eliminating the disproportionate amount of blacks in prison than any investigation or overhaul of the criminal justice system itself.

Other scholars suggest that the justice system is flawed and very biased against certain ethnicities, particularly blacks. Healey and O'Brien (2007) argue that there is a deeply entrenched racism that pervades the criminal justice system and that the prison and jail systems are set up to incarcerate blacks more than any other race. They use the same statistics discussed earlier to prove their point. The also feel that there is an assumption of guilt tied to black men in particular, which culturally and socially leads more people to point to… READ MORE

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