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Hailey Thomas

Professor Hatfield

ENGL.1302.SCHS3

April 21, 2020

SAR 4

In the Washington Post article published on September 18, 2018, “There’s

overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof,”

Radley Balko claims that the criminal justice system is racist and goes into incredibly

broad detail of situations and cases that showed to have been racially driven.

Firstly, he talks about systematic racism, which means there are systems and

institutions that produce racial outcomes. In this article, Balko thoroughly explains how

the criminal justice system is racist, since they’ve shown was to protect the racial order

— keep blacks in their place. Balko includes an incredibly large collection of studies he

found where the criminal justice system was unfair to black people, which further

proves his point. He claims that the criminal justice system is definitely racist, so

minorities, especially African Americans, are more likely arrested or victims of police

brutality because of their skin color and racial policing.

He supports his claim by stating facts and compiled a long list of studies that

have proven the criminal justice system is racist. In this article, Balko puts his evidence

into eleven different sections, which are: Policing and profiling, Misdemeanors, petty

crimes and driver’s license suspensions, The drug war, Juries and jury selection, The

death penalty, Prosecutors, discretion and plea bargaining, Judges and sentencing,

School suspensions and the school-to-prison pipeline, Prison, incarceration and solitary

confinement, Bail, pretrial detention, commutations and pardons, gangs and other
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issues, and The dissent — contrarian studies on race and the criminal-justice system

(Balko). In one of these sections, “Misdemeanors, petty crimes and driver’s license

suspensions,” he states a lot of evidence and studies that prove his claim. He states,

Between 2001 and 2013, blacks and Latinos made up 51 percent of the population

of New York City, but about 80 percent of the misdemeanor arrests and

summonses (Balko).

A warrant of this article is that police brutality is influenced by racial profiling, a

criminal justice system that cares for their police officers instead of prosecutors and

victims of violence, systematic racism, and a system that refuses to hold police officers

accountable for their actions. This article shows deep rooted evidence for this warrant.

For example, it is implied that the assumption previously stated is true because Balko

states,

Of particular concern to some on the right is the term “systemic racism,” often

wrongly interpreted as an accusation that everyone in the system is racist. In fact,

systemic racism means almost the opposite. It means that we have systems and

institutions that produce racially disparate outcomes, regardless of the intentions

of the people who work within them. (Balko)

Conclusively, Balko uses formal language and states a convincing argument that

is proven by studies, facts, and evidence. Every time signals an impending claim, he

backs up his claims with evidence and facts to support his argument. He uses the

phrases “racism, criminal justice system, and racial bias” to effectively support his

argument, and overall, he uses it in a way that makes his argument more powerful and

hard to make a counterargument.

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Works Cited

Balko, Radley. “There's Overwhelming Evidence That the Criminal-Justice System Is

Racist. Here's the Proof.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 Sept. 2018,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/09/18/theres-overwhelming-

evidence-that-the-criminal-justice-system-is-racist-heres-the-proof/.