DISPARITY AND DISCRIMINATION Disparity and Discrimination CJA/344 June 6, 2013
Disparity and is thought to be all throughout the criminal justice system. So much so, that it was brought up as a speaking point at a UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights at a recent session held in Geneva. It transpired that discrimination within the criminal justice systems is not only behavioral but also institutional. Direct discrimination is easy to recognize; it is difficult to discern indirect discrimination, which seriously affects exercise of fundamental rights by vulnerable groups. It is tragic that the poor and the marginalized segments are under- represented in the administration of justice but are ‘over-represented’ in prisons and on death rows. The problem that exists with these two terms within the criminal justice system is that one can and will inevitably lead to the other. If disparity is thought to exist because the criminal justice system has set in motion an act that does not show ample equality based on those within the system then those people who are not being treated equal could be being discriminated against based on the group or orientation to which they belong. There is a fine line between these two terms and the criminal justice system should be trained to be able to recognize when it could appear that either of them will have a possible potential to rear their proverbial heads. They are similar in the sense that they both represent treatment that is unfair to the person within the system. Disparity would be where a person is not being treated equal; discrimination would be where a person is being treated specifically based on what group they would fall into. Each of these would result in treatment that is unfair to them or to the process to which they are involved. They are different in the sense that not all disparity is based on negative terms. If a person has a particular job and they make more of a wage per hour than another person that does not necessarily mean that the other person is being treated unfairly. There could be logical reasons as to why a person earns more money than another. The problem with these two terms is that disparity could lead to discrimination. If a man were to be hired and given a higher wage than another man simply based on the group that he belonged to then the disparity that exists would have lead to discrimination. To put it into terms so that it could be recognized within the criminal justice system, two men have a parking ticket, one man is fined a base penalty, and the other is fined three times as much. This does not seem fair, right? The disparity could exist in this case because this was the first mans offense, for the other mans