Racism and the Administration of Justice

Police target minorities as possible criminal suspects solely on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

• A 1998 study of police stop and search patterns in England and Wales by the British Government's Home Office found that Blacks were 7.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites.¹

• In a two year period in the U.S. state of Maryland, blacks constituted 79.2 percent of the drivers stopped and searched by the police on Interstate 95, even though they constituted only 17.5 percent of the drivers who were violating traffic laws.²

• The war on drugs in the U.S. is waged overwhelmingly against black Americans. For example, although there are more white drug offenders than black in the United States, blacks constitute 62.7 percent of all drug offenders sent to state prison and black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 13.4 times the rate of white men.³

• Aboriginal people in Australia are 9.2 times more likely to be arrested, 23.7 times more likely to be imprisoned as an adult, and 48 times more likely to be imprisoned as juveniles than non-Aborigines.⁴

Race influences death penalty decisions.

• A study of the federal death penalty by the U.S. Department of Justice released in September, 2000 found 80 percent of federal defendants who faced capital charges were members of racial minorities, as were 74 percent of convicted defendants for whom prosecutors recommended the death penalty.⁵

• The death penalty is also more likely to be sought and imposed in the U.S. for killing a white person than a person of a different race: 82 percent of capital cases involve a white victim, although nationwide only 50% percent of homicide victims are white.⁶