Citizenship - What Is the Human Rights Status in Your Country?

Citizenship Midterm Report: United States D0393920        - Robert A. Spearman

What is the human rights status in your country ?

        use your own word, make a brief introduction to the status and / or development of equality rights and social rights of your nation. Are there things to do to make improvement for the status?

        Guidelines:        

•         Equality between sexes
•         Racial equality
•         Religion equality
•         Classes equality
•         Education right
•         Property Right
•         Environmental Right
•         Right to Privacy

The United States of America is a country where its foundation was built up by a large diversity of religion and races from all parts of the globe. A major portion of the population however, is consisted of Caucasians, or in simpler words, white people. The US history was and still is full of conflicts between different races and major disputes between people of different skin colors. One of the major issues from its past is the slave system before and during the Civil War. We also had a deep history of keeping balance between sexes and justice rights. These problems are still addressed in the present day although compared to the past being fewer, still remain occurring in the country’s barriers and are in need to be resolved.  

        The United States is far from being a perfect country, it never was one, and still needs years to come in order to improve. One of the key topics to be addressed in this article is the abuse of the justice system, and its use towards the minor groups. Within this area, victims are mostly immigrants, racial or ethnic minorities, and even prisoners themselves. The country has one of the, if not highest, count for incarcerated populations in the world. Averaging about 2.2 million people just by the end of 2011. Just for the start, it has way more harsh sentences causing high numbers of life sentences or life sentences without parole. Some of these sentences even result in improper judgment of death penalty. These hard penalties are even encouraged by certain attorney generals for varies reasons.

        One of the main and in my opinion the highest issue of human rights in the US is the preposterous difference in how white criminals are judged or prosecuted compared to other racial minors. In other words, blacks, Latinos Asians, are more likely to be convicted of crime compared to Caucasians. In one example, African Americans are about 4 times more likely to be arrested due to having marijuana compared to whites, by which both parties have the same equivalent amount. African Americans represent about 41% of the entire prison population, while they are only about 13% of the US population. In the year of 2014, August, a federal court found that the “stop and frisk” policy of the New York Police Department violated the rights of the minorities. This was later appealed and the issue was resolved.