Americans in general are more likely
than white Americans to be arrested,
convicted and given lengthy prison sen-
tences, according to a 2018 report by
the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit fo-
cused on reforming the U.S. criminal-
justice system. There are many reasons
for the disparity, the report found, in-
cluding racial biases at every level of the
justice system, including among police
officers, prosecutors, judges, jurors and
parole boards. Black and Hispanic de-
fendants are more likely than white de-
fendants to be denied bail, according to
the report, and they’re more likely to ac-
cept plea deals—even if they protest their
innocence— because they’re less likely to
be able to afford costly legal battles. The
recent round of arrests “highlights the ra-
cial double standard here in this nation,”
says Smith, who represents seven arrested
protesters, all of them Black or Hispanic.
The disparities go beyond arrests.
When it comes to employment, an arrest
or conviction can decrease the likelihood
of getting a callback for jobs, especially
if an applicant is a person of color, says
Beth Avery, a senior staff attorney with
the National Employment Law Project
(NELP). That means Black and Hispanic
protesters will be most affected in the
long term if they’re arrested at demonstra-
tions. “These protests going on all around
the country are all about racial inequities
and bias in our criminal legal system, and
it doesn’t stop with the police,” Avery says.
“It permeates throughout all these other
aspects of life.”
If a young protester who was recently
arrested applies now for a job or a student
loan, the pending criminal case will likely
pop up. Criminal- history questions also
appear in the majority of under graduate
college applications. National surveys
have shown that 60% to 80% of private
institutions and 55% of public institu-
tions require prospective students to an-
swer questions about their criminal past
during the admission process, according
to a Brookings Institution report. “One
thing I don’t think the average American
realizes is just how devastating even an
initial contact with the criminal- justice
system can be,” Smith says. “The perfect
storm is for that college- aged student who
is trying to get their lives started.”
Even for someone like Campbell, who
is 31 and has a job, the results of her ar-
rest have been devastating. Prosecutors
dropped Campbell’s unlawful- assembly
charge, but while she was in jail, she
missed a surgery scheduled to remove
her gallbladder. “It’s a really stress-
ful situation,” says Campbell, who suf-
fers from irritable bowel syndrome and
gastro esophageal reflux disease. Because
of COVID-19, she doesn’t know when
she can reschedule the operation. But
Campbell says she felt a duty to protest
^
Police arrest Coricia
Campbell during a Black
Lives Matter protest in
Jacksonville, Fla., on
May 30
ASHLEY N WHITMER
41
