The Unequally “Equitable” Criminal Justice System
Racial disparities in the criminal justice system have existed since its institutions were founded and continue to affect racial minorities even today. Even in the field of criminal law which I wish to pursue in the future, racial biases largely impact prosecutors’ decision making in terms of charging an individual, and what they will charge them with. Racial injustices at all levels of the criminal justice system need to be brought forth to the light and addressed so that the system can work on solving the issue. Through extensive research, I have found two artifacts that focus on racial disparities. One is a chapter from a book called Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice by Joan McCord, a sociologist who looks at racial injustices in the juvenile criminal justice system. The other is an interview that was on national television with Professor Angela J. Davis, an adamant civil rights activist, professor, and lawyer. Both the interview and the book serve to inform their target audiences about racial disparities in the criminal justice system, but the information presented vary rhetorically as the authors differ in their professional backgrounds and projected audiences, making Davis’ interview more emotionally vulnerable and the chapter of McCord’s book more scholarship-orientated.
In terms of the approach that the authors take in conveying the information on the racial injustices of the criminal justice system, Joan McCord uses logos, or a logical appeal, through the presentation of statistics based on multiple studies done by expert researchers. For example, McCord notes that research has shown that the percentage of blacks in the criminal justice system is more than double the amount they consist of in the entire population: “Although black youth represented approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population ages 10-17 in 1997, they represented 26 percent of all juvenile arrests and 40 percent of juveniles in public long-term institutions” (McCord 231). The use of statistics in this artifact adds strength to McCord’s argument that racial minorities are in fact discriminated against since they are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. McCord’s contentions are factually backed, and those facts are, in turn, supported by numbers that have been proven to be true by other expert researchers in the field, which enhances the validity of her argument. Further, a description of the book on the National Academies of Sciences Engineering Medicine indicates that commission boards of behavioral and social sciences, law and justice, and juvenile crime aided in putting this book together and that it is geared for educating the professionals within their field (such as social workers, law enforcement, lawyers, and judges) on ways in which they can better their intervention efforts and act in a less racially biased way (National Research Council). Since McCord’s novel is geared towards an academically based audience who want to learn more about the topic and how they can become more equitable, it is highly appropriate that she employs logos throughout the chapter. As the audience is coming from a research-based standpoint, emotion would not be as effective in this artifact. Professionals want to see real statistics and facts showing that their actions are biased and not working and that employing new methods to their practice will prove to be more effective, such as that the relative risk for blacks being formally handled in court is reduced from 2.82 to 1.15 when the racially-biased compound risk of an individual is not taken into account (McCord 257). Although emotion would have some effect on the audience, the impact of statistics is greater because it shows a proven effect that minorities’ will not be treated as harshly in court when compound risk is not taken into account. It is a real-life result that would likely prove beneficial for their work as well. Since McCord is a sociologist, it is no surprise that this chapter simply presents the facts and has little personal emotional take on the issue of racial disparities. In professional situations, sociologists employ high levels of intrapersonal intelligence, or knowing when it is appropriate to express one’s emotions (5 Characteristics of a Sociologist). As the purpose of this book to educate professionals on how rampant racial biases are within their field and illustrate changes they can make to make the criminal justice system more equitable, McCord’s use of logos is the most appropriate way to convey this information. McCord’s background as a sociologist enables her to put her own emotional biases aside and evaluate the issue from a logical stance, which is what strongly differentiates this artifact from the likes of Davis’ interview.
In contrast, Angela J. Davis takes more of an emotional approach throughout her interview with the Washington Journal about racial issues across the criminal justice system in relation to a book that she edited: Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment. Although Davis does use factual information to support her arguments, the way that she conveys such information takes a more emotional angle than the logical style of McCord. When discussing how blacks are charged and sentenced much more harshly than whites, and police officers who murdered black men and boys were treated with leniency, Davis highlighted that “police officers [who commit crimes are often not] convicted by a jury, and [that] Tamir Rice and Eric Garner’s killers were never charged.” Although the words that she speaks relay facts, it is the way in which Davis gives this message that makes it so visibly emotional. Davis leans forward towards the interviewer and her voice quivers as you can hear both the anger and sadness in her voice as she goes on to detail the criminal justice system’s inaction as “horrifying.” She pauses for just a moment and closes her eyes, perhaps hoping that the audience will come to understand the suffering that her people have endured for hundreds of years. At this moment, Davis was clearly overtaken by her own personal emotions towards the subject, which is so powerful in its effect on the audience. By mentioning individual, real-life stories of blacks affected by racial disparities, such as Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old boy who was murdered by police officers when he was playing with a toy gun, Davis is able to incite sympathy and anger in those listening to her interview as she exemplifies that she feels this way as well. To hear that those police officers would go to the extent of killing a child purely due to racial stereotypes that perceive black children as violent, and that prosecutors would not convict white cops because of their privilege is likely infuriating to the audience. In addition, Davis’ audience in comparison to Joan McCord’s is filled with a wide variety of people as the interview was featured on a series of the Washington Journal that featured key authors in 2017. Davis in this case has to appeal to a broad audience of avid readers of various texts, which indicates that some would be educated on the subject and others not. So, taking an emotional appeal on top of facts to entice the audience is much more beneficial than being solely logical as people who are uneducated on the topic are even more likely to relate to and sympathize with the issue when emotion is involved. Davis uses a unique take of making a point of her own emotional vulnerability to the subject of racial disparities in the criminal justice system in order to advocate for changes that need to be made to the system and bring an empathetic understanding to her audience on the issue, which is due to the fact that she is a civil rights activist. Civil rights activists are highly passionate in their speeches and use emotional appeals extensively to get their points of equality across. It makes sense that Davis would use those same tactics in her interview. The use of emotional vulnerability makes this interview largely different from McCord’s emotionally-lacking text.
Further, although McCord and Davis are both addressing the topic of racial disparities in the criminal justice system, the tones that they employ throughout are quite different. The tone that Davis maintains throughout her interview is much more didactic, which is similar to McCord’s in that it provides information on racial disparities, but is starkly different in that its purpose is to teach a lesson that provides a model of what Davis believes to be morally correct. When discussing how prosecutors and law enforcement make decisions in regard to criminal justice issues, Davis describes how our society “needs to widely implement training and reform in the criminal justice system, especially in the recognition of implicit biases.” The use of the word “need” demonstrates a didactic tone as Davis is prescribing a change that could largely change this societal issue as long as it is followed through. Such diction indicates that she feels that through learning about these unconscious biases, members of the criminal justice system could resolve their problems. Davis further goes on to say that police departments “should not tolerate the membership of white supremacists in their police force,” and that they “must take action to ensure these measures are met.” Words such as “should not” and “must” also emphasize a didactic tone in that Davis is trying to ingrain in the audience that if these critical changes are made, then our criminal justice system will be much more equitable. Further, Davis’s didactic tone is clearly emotionally charged throughout the interview as she is visibly upset that she is has to press so hard for these changes. Although she explains each need in a calm and cool manner, her voice strongly emphasizes words such as “need” and “must,” and she leans forward while slightly nodding her head. Davis’s mannerisms she employs demonstrates how emotionally vulnerable she is about the matter and being so upfront about how she feels enables her to provide moral advice to her diverse audience whose level of knowledge on the subject varies, rather than pure information like McCord, making this interview unique. In addition, a didactic tone is fitting for Davis in this interview in relation to her background as a professor at the American University Washington College of Law and a civil rights activist. Davis wants to teach the audience different objectives that can incite change, which she has done constantly throughout her life as a civil rights activist and a teacher. Throughout her interview, Davis draws on the core belief that through informatory and eye-opening reforms to the criminal justice system, racial disparities can be alleviated and potentially solved, which emphasizes a didactic tone and her civil rights activist background.
Since McCord’s purpose is to present information to an audience of professionals with some prior knowledge in an academically based book, her tone is informative but in a much more factual sense that lacks emotion. McCord’s tone is much more middle of the road than Davis’s didactic tone which is actively pressing for change in the criminal justice system. Instead of using words such as “need” and “must” when referring to issues of social change, McCord rather says that “acquiring empirical knowledge to understand and reduce problems of unwarranted racial disparity in the juvenile justice system is suggested” (259). The word “suggested” is less forceful and carries less emotion than “need” or “must,” as those words carry the connotation of being imperative and present. “Suggested” is more passive, and carries a more informative feel. As McCord is educating her professional audience on reforms that could work, she does not want to strongly impose any ideas that are not proven as fact. Further, a factually informative tone is much more appropriate for an audience that is researching a topic, which is another reason why McCord’s tone differs from that of Davis. McCord’s tone is informative in terms of the facts, it does not carry any feeling behind it, which is connected to her writing the text in relation to her background as a sociologist as she uses intrapersonal intelligence to separate fact from feeling.
Additionally, the two artifacts use different styles of syntax to make their points on the topic, although they are in regard to the same thing, racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Davis applies a more unconventional use of syntax to get across the point of how unfairly law enforcement in particular treats minorities. The most basic form of syntax that is typically used by writers begins with a subject and is then followed by a word and a predicate. Davis takes a different route when she says “12 year old Tamir Rice’s killing was seen by us,” to the interviewer. Instead of the subject being first, the sentence starts with the descriptor “12 year old,” which places an importance on the fact that Tamir was only 12 years old when he was killed by police. The sentence structure by design makes the listener’s mind focus solely on the victim, Tamir, and elicits emotion as he was murdered at such a young age. Such sentence structure also highlights how the police got away with killing Tamir, as they would typically be the subject of the sentence since they did the killing. Davis’s choice of syntax in this case puts an emphasis on how minorities are disparately affected by the horrors of the criminal justice system, and is no surprise due to her background as a civil rights activist who wants to focus on the tragic stories of her people in hopes to spark change in the system and general public. In contrast, McCord’s use of basic syntax when explaining why the risk factors that make racial minorities prone to disparities in saying “these youth experience the effects of enduring chronic poverty and stigma” has a large impact on the way the reader views the subject (242). Addressing disparately affected minorities as the subject “these youth” categorizes the victims into a general group without a face or name, which essentially makes them a statistic. On the other hand, by using Tamir Rice as an example, Davis shows that it is not a group that is affected, it is real people with a name and a background. By lumping the minorities into one group, McCord is diminishing the emotional impact that such facts would have on the reader. Although, this tactic by McCord can be expected as in the text she is practicing intrapersonal intelligence due to her background as a sociologist and her audience being largely professional. She likely does not want to cloud the important facts with personal stories. The ways in which the artifacts present the victims of the criminal justice system within their sentence structure differs largely as a function of Davis and McCord’s differing professional backgrounds and the light in which they want their audiences to view the victims.
In conclusion, despite the fact that the two artifacts are of different genres--McCord’s being a text-based chapter in a book and Davis’ being a non-text based televised interview--they both contribute to the same purpose, which is to highlight racial disparities in the criminal justice system and make people more aware of them. It is interesting to uncover, though, that genres that cover the same topic can go about similar yet also entirely different ways of rhetorically bringing them to light, especially when the person is of a particular profession. Although McCord and Davis had some similarities in the way they expressed their views, Davis employed many different rhetorical strategies as she was speaking in an interview and being emotionally vulnerable about her feelings toward racial disparities in the criminal justice system, which can be attributed to her being a civil rights activist. The slightly less formal nature of her interview, audience, and emotional vulnerability allowed her to use tactics such as pathos, a didactic tone, and untypical syntax, while McCord’s formally academic purpose made it imperative that she used logos, an informative factual tone, and normal syntax throughout her book. McCord’s formality throughout her text can be tied back to her profession, sociology. It is now evident that both of these artifacts effectively call attention to the issue of racial disparities on all levels of the criminal justice system, including law enforcement and criminal lawyers, namely prosecutors.
Works Cited
“5 Characteristics of a Sociologist.” Affordable Schools, 9 Mar. 2020, affordableschools.net/lists/characteristics-of-a-sociologist/.
Davis, Angela J. “Washington Journal: Angela J. Davis Discusses Race and Criminal Justice Reform.” C-Span, 27 Dec. 2017, www.c-span.org/video/?438867-3%2Fwashington-journal-angela-j-davis-discusses-race-criminal-justice-reform.
McCord, Joan, et al. “Race, Crime, and Juvenile Justice: The Issue of Racial Disparity.” Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice. National Academy Press, 2001.
National Research Council; Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Institute of Medicine; Committee on Law and Justice; Board on Children. “Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice.” The National Academies Press, 13 Sept. 2000, www.nap.edu/catalog/9747/juvenile-crime-juvenile-justice.