Face it to fix it

Must address racial disparities

Some legislators in the 2017 legislative session turned a blind eye to the continuing racial disparities in the Arkansas criminal justice system. Overwhelming evidence was found in a three-year study completed in 2015 by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law that racial disparities in the punishments for homicide could not be explained by non-racial factors such as education, economics or facts of the crime. Rather, race was the critical, statistically significant factor in blacks receiving harsher punishments than whites for homicides.

Blacks were more likely to receive the death penalty than similarly charged whites (71.4 percent versus 28.6 percent) or life without parole (54.2 percent versus 44.8 percent), and whites were more likely to receive life with parole than similarly charged blacks (53.9 percent versus 44.3 percent). When national attention focused on Arkansas’ rush to enforce the death penalty on four white men and four black men in April, three of the men actually killed by the state were black and one was white.

In response to the continuing racial disparities in punishments in Arkansas, Sen. Joyce Elliott introduced SB237 that, if passed, would have resulted in racial impact statements for criminal punishment bills. Such statements would provide information to legislators concerning possible racially disparate effects of the bill. Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was instrumental in the bill passing in the full Senate. Rep. Clarke Tucker led the effort to pass the bill in the House. SB237 gained the support of the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Matt Shepherd, yet failed in the full House.

Did those who voted no or abstained fear being called racist? Did they defy the findings of this Arkansas-specific study grounded in sound scientific methodology and completed by a highly respected state university because “they believe” that blacks are just more violent and deserve harsher punishments? Are they shirking a chance to lead the South in addressing this centuries-old problem of racially disparate punishment systems? Did they miss an opportunity to provide leadership on not just a Southern problem but a national problem?

While a number of legislators supported SB237, sufficient numbers turned their backs on the scientifically sound findings of highly recognized social scientists with institutions of higher learning, leading to the bill’s failure.

In addition to the Bowen Law School study, social scientists at, for example, Harvard University indicate that continuing racial disparities, what some call racial discrimination or racism, are today less frequently based on conscious racism and more frequently based on “implicit racial bias.” Implicit racial bias results in unintended differences in treatment of black people due in large part to the internalization of race-based stereotypes—a prime one being that blacks are more violent, more criminal and less likely to respond to positive interventions. The state legislators who voted no or abstained on SB237 should have responded to the data. Rather, the bill died in the House because some legislators voted their personal views instead of adopting a mechanism that would assist in guarding against racial bias in Arkansas’ criminal justice system. One legislator said he didn’t believe in systemic racism. Some suggested that the bill insulted them.

Arkansans are insulted when legislators shirk their responsibility to ensure fair, just and equal treatment. Feeling “insulted” is not a legitimate reason to avoid responsibility to ensure fair and equal treatment in the face of empirical evidence. No legislator should be more concerned with upholding the myth that race is no longer a factor that differentiates treatment of people than in attempting to ensure that it is not.

Implicit racial bias contributes to the continuing difference in treatment of white people and people of color. It is unintended, unconscious and yet very real.

WE MUST be committed to creating a state that has in reality overcome the tragic ugliness of racism that includes the documented cruel treatment of blacks from slavery to the convict-leasing system that legally existed from 1846 through the early 1900s. Empirical evidence documents that this cruel treatment continues today with harsher criminal punishments for blacks than whites in Arkansas.

Legislators who supported SB237’s passage in the Senate and those who voted to pass it in the House Judiciary Committee demonstrated that they understand we must “face it to fix it.” We must accept the reality that implicit racial bias is real and has harsh, unfair consequences. We call on legislators and other policymakers to fulfill their duty to ensure “equal justice under the law.”