Deadline Discussion

In America race is a huge factor in the criminal justice system. Over time, our country has progressed in terms of race relations, except in this area. People of color make up 30 percent of America's population, however they makeup 60 percent of the Prison population, and that one in three black men can be expected to be arrested in his life time. (Statistics found here) These statistics are shocking to say the least, because it doesn't make sense that so many people of one race could be committing all of these crimes. I think that race is a huge factor in capitol cases because today most of the people on death row awaiting execution are people of color. Most of the crimes in capitol cases also involve the murder of white people, while I'm sure there are crimes just as gruesome committed against people of color. Take many of the cases of murder on the south side of Chicago for example, if two black children and their mother are shot and killed in the street it's still a horrendous crime and it upsets people but that doesn't mean much is always done about it. However if this same crime had happened but the victims were white, I can guarantee the criminal would be on death row. From the film I think that this is further highlighted, many of the wrongly convicted men/men on death row were black, honestly I can only remember one white guy (however I don't have an award winning memory so). This is a huge issue that really needs to be fixed, because it's really awful that most of these people are probably where they are because of their skin color, not because of many of the made up reasons their opponents create to explain why they deserve to be killed. As progressive as our country likes to say it is, it's not?? all that progressive so I don't know where that came from, not having segregation doesn't like instantly absolve racism.