A Brief Summary on "Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System" by David Cole

This article speaks about the inequality in the criminal justice system. Poor and minority citizens are disproportionately victimized by crime. Poorer and less educated persons are the victims of violent crime at significantly hgher rates than wealthy and more educated. Because we live in segregated communities, most crime is intaracial; the more black crime there is, the more black victims there are. African Americans made up about 12% of the general population, but more than half of the prison population. They serve longer sentences, have higher arrest and conviction rates, face higher bail amounts, and are more often the victims of police use of deadly force than white citizens. Nationally, for every one black man who graduates from college, 100 are arrested. Basically a black person's face is stereotypically associated with crime. Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality, and also that there is two systems of criminal justice: one of the privileged, and another for the less privileged. Some of the distinctions are based on race, pthers on class, but in no true sense can it be said that all are equal before the criminal law.