culture prone to violent acts. Finally, the frustration/aggression theory states that minorities get frustrated when goals cannot be reached due to prejudice, economic disadvantage or other situations, and they become aggressive to either obtain them or vent their anger. These theories all seem somewhat plausible in explaining the disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates of minorities. Katheryn Russell agreed that the aforementioned evidence can account for a high percentage of the racial disparity in the American justice system. However, she believed that there still remains a 25% gap in unexplained disparity that can only be resolved by allowing for prejudice and racism (The Color of Crime, 31). Marvin Free noted a study by McNeely and Pope (1980) that said ...the use of official statistics can distort the actual involvement of African Americans in crime because...there may be overt discrimination in the enforcement and application of criminal sanctions (African..., 5) It may even be argued that the previous evidence for deviant behavior and the resulting aberrant arrest/incarceration statistics are the result of hundreds of years of overt prejudice and racism. Minorities may be poor, violent and demonstrate other anti-social behavior because they have learned this response according to the environment whites have created. Mark Fuhrman and his perjured testimony in the O.J. Simpson trial (regarding his prejudice against blacks) happened only a few years ago. Racism has not been extinguished in the American justice system and its continued presence has adversely affected minorities. Racial disparities in the process by which justice is served is evident in the statistics involving arrests, incarceration rates, sentencing and capital punishment. Minorities represent a much higher percentage of the above statistics than their percentage in the population. There are several reasons for this. Undereducation of minorities ...
