Latino representation in the Judicial system
By Amanda Donohue
An associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center and a visiting professor of the University of Maryland, College Park, spoke about the overrepresentation of Latinos in the criminal justice system through the usage of statistics to educate students.
Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, said that the purpose of the center is to “improve understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the U.S. and to chronicle the growing impact of this population on the U.S.”
Lopez spoke on two topics throughout the afternoon to about 20 students and staff on Oct. 8. He spoke about Latinos’ public opinion on the court system and about the statistics he presented from the Pew Hispanic Center on Latinos in the criminal justice system.
An example of Latino’s public opinion was the public support shown for Sonia Sotomayor, who is the first Latina elected as a Supreme Court of the United States justice and the third female Justice.
The percentage of public support of Latinos and Africans for Sonia Sotomayor made up over 50 percent whereas whites were less than 50 percent, thus showing a disparity in public support.
After sharing Latino public opinion, Lopez presented many statistics to his audience to emphasize how overrepresented Latinos are in the criminal justice system.
Latinos, who make up about 13 percent of the population, were represented in federal courts to be potentially be convicted in 2007 as 31 percent, denoting Latinos second highest to be represented in courts next to African Americans, who represented 37 percent.
Sentencing of Latinos for convictions of drugs went from 14,779 to 25,372 in a matter of 16 years. Convictions for undocumented immigrants went from 2,300 in 1991 when laws were not as strict, to 17,592 in 2007. “Immigration makes up a big share of crimes today,” Lopez said.
Spanish Professor Fabian Faccio believes that conviction of crimes does not necessarily have to do with race all of the time, but rather location and socioeconomic factors. “If Latinos have low level of education, then they have more of a chance to have less of a representation by a lawyer, due to a lack of money,” said Faccio.
Lopez said that 98 percent of non-U.S. citizen Latinos was sentenced to prison in 2007 and 90 percent of U.S. citizen Latinos were sentenced to prison in 2007. Latinos were the biggest shares of offenders in the year 2007, whereas African Americans and Whites were below 90 percent.
The next set of statistics that Lopez showed caused many jaws to drop in the audience. The average prison sentence in 2007 for a non-citizen Latinos was over three years and U.S. citizen Latinos were a little over five years. Drugs-related crimes, unlawful entry and smuggling were the three major reasons for these long prison terms.
Latinos may also find themselves questioned by police even when showing no suspicious activity. 23 percent of Latinos or their family members were questioned in the last five years by police.
Short URL: http://www.lavozlatinaumd.com/?p=213
Posted by admin
on Nov 24 2009. Filed under National News, News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry