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Study shows 95 pct of U.S. elected prosecutors are whites

Xinhua, July 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

Of all the elected prosecutors in the United States, 95 percent of them are white, and 60 percent of U.S. states have no elected black prosecutors at all, a new study found.

The study, recently released by the San Francisco-based group Women Donors Network, also found that while making up 31 percent of the U.S. population, white men account for 79 percent of the 2, 437 elected prosecutors nationwide.

In stark comparison to the predominance of white male prosecutors in the criminal justice system, the study said that only 4 percent were minority men and 1 percent were minority women.

The findings of the study were released at a time when the country was convulsed by widespread protests against police brutality in the wake of death of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Staten Island, and Baltimore, etc.

For a long time, public attention had been focused intently on the racial makeup of police forces across the United States. However, the study for the first time placed the issue of paucity in diversity of prosecutors under scrutiny.

In the U.S. criminal justice system, prosecutors wield tremendous discretion over whether specific case would be pursued, how severe charges would be and how convicts would be sentenced.

The study concluded that the racial disparity in the country's pool of elected prosecutors led to "an epidemic of mass incarceration" which had been confronting the blacks for decades in the country.

According to official data, while one in 214 white men is currently imprisoned, about one in every 35 African-American men is now in prison.

Speaking on Tuesday at the annual national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Philadelphia, U.S. President Barack Obama admitted that legacy of the U.S. past history of slavery and segregation and structural inequalities continued to haunt the country.

When it comes to the criminal justice system, Obama said minorities, especially the Blacks and Latinos, were discriminated against due to their race.

"In too many places, black boys and black men, Latino boys and Latino men experience being treated differently under the law," said Obama. "African-Americans are more likely to be arrested. They are more likely to be sentenced to more time for the same crime." Endite