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Postgraduate Assignment Cover and Feedback Sheet

   

Added on  2020-04-13

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Postgraduate Assignment Cover and Feedback Sheetto be submitted with the front page of every assignment Registration number _______Mb16199___________________Module code ___________SC555___________________ Essay Question: ____________________________Class tutor ____Dr Isabel Crowhurst ________ Date of Submission __16th of January 2017_____________Title of essay: Assignment Two________________________________________________________________ xI understand that my work may be submitted to a plagiarism detection service such as Turnitin, and that use of the service complies with UK Data Protection Law. www.essex.ac.uk/records_management/policies/students.aspxMain StrengthsYou can improve your work in future byFinal mark

There is a general agreement to the fact that any form of discrimination towards race orethnicity violates the principle of equality are morally incorrect. According to the principles ofequality, those who are equal should be treated equally based on the level of similarity and racemust not be an element to access such similarities(Feltham, 2009). Therefore, morally peoplecan be treateddifferently if there is a factual difference but not based on traits like sex, race,religion or disability. The term equality is non-specific which means that it has no meaning untilit has been applied. One of the fundamental elements of a fair and just criminal justice system isequality. Discrimination is a term contrary to equality and therefore where discrimination ispresent the principles of criminal justice cannot be established(Feltham, 2009). This means thatpeople possessing a certain trait would be treatedless favourably as compared to others who donot possess such traits (Siegel and Worrall,2013).According to Kivel (2017), race depicts a group of people who are reasonably alike inbiological inheritance and can be distinguished from other groups of the same basis, wherepeople are discriminated based on race it results in racism. The presence of racism in thecriminal justice system has been argued by people of the minority groups since the 19th century.According to the argument, Afro-Americans have been subjected to significant unjust anddetrimental treatment when it comes to criminal justice. There is a perception that a lack ofuniformity exists in prosecutorial decision-making regarding criminal cases involving minoritypersons and the criminal justice system provides inadequate protection, access, support, andservices to minority victims of crime. Likewise, research has consistently shown that legalfactors such as offence seriousness, evidentiary strength, offending history, the direct context ofdecision making, victim charging preferences, as well as extra-legal factors such as

socioeconomic status account for most (but not all) of the variation between different ethnicgroups(Cunneen 2006; Blagg et al 2005; Bowling, Phillips and Shah 2003). The purpose of this paper is the critically discuss contemporary examples of racism anddiscrimination in crime control practices by engaging with the relevant literature. The papercompares and contrasts various journal articles aboutdiscrimination and racism in the criminaljustice system to come to an appropriate conclusion.According to a highly critical report prepared by MP David Lammy as requested by theprime minister, the prosecution of some minority-ethnic and black suspects should be dropped ordeferred to tacklediscrimination against them in the criminal justice system of England andWales(Dodd and Bowcott 2017). In addition, it had been suggested by the report that the youngdefendants’ criminal records and immaturity have to be sealedto provide support to formercriminals to find work as the statistics of discrimination in the UK is worse than the US in certaincases (Dodd and Bowcott, 2017). In his report, it had been stated by the MP that minority-ethnicand black individuals are still subjected to Bias in the country which includes overtdiscrimination in the criminal justice system. The facts which have been argued by peoplehaving a minority background for decades with respect to discrimination in the system have beensupported by this report(Dodd and Bowcott 2017).In England and Wales, the population of black people is only 3% whereas they make a12% part of the prison. There is a “greater disproportionality” in their number in prison as inE&W as compared to that of US. In the America, the percentage of black people in thepopulation is 13% whereas their presence in the prisons is 35%(Dodd and Bowcott 2017).Pakes (2014) indicated that the rate of overt racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is

declining. However, as highlighted by Jee-Lyn García and Sharif (2015) the level ofdiscrimination because of a person belonging to a particular race is still significantly high inprisons as well as perceiving them as criminals. Where an argument is provided that there is aconsiderable decline in the practice of racism and discrimination in the criminal justice system,there must be some kind of policies and procedures in place which has triggered the decline. Inthis context, it has been stated by Kappeler and Potter (2017) that the criminal justice system inthe countries like UK and US do not have any considerable and express policy or regulation tocombat discrimination in the criminal justice system. In the UK the Equality Act 2010 is presentwhich has the objective of eliminating discrimination. However, the provisions of the legislationare practically only applicable in workplace relations between the employee and the employer(Equality Act 2010).An argument has been raised by Johnson, Farrell and Warren (2015) that equality cannotbe restored in the criminal justice system where no right or proper opportunity is provided to theinmates to escalate any issue which is contrary to basic human rights. Although the issue is notdirectly related to issue of racial discrimination in hand, it can be derived that where suchfundamental rights are not provided there would not be any scope for those who arediscriminatedagainst. However, statistics depict that the level of racial discrimination in thecriminal justice system has declined from where it was in the last decade due to the interventionsof Human Rights Commissions and other NGOs. These organisations have been working hard togive rights to people who belong to the minority races which they are deprived by othergovernment bodies. However, Rudin (2016) argues that there is no substantial evidence to verifythe authenticity of such statistics as most of the cases of racism and discrimination in thecriminal justice system go unreported. This is because there are no platforms which have been

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