Does white privilege exist?

White privilege is present in the justice system

Question: Does white privilege exist?
Position‹2 of 2: Yes, white privilege exists
Argument‹3 of 4›: White privilege is present in the justice system

The U.S. Justice System favors white people over people of color. This bias means that white people are less likely to be unfairly arrested and imprisoned.

The argument

The US justice system has a historical legacy of institutional racism which benefits white people and discriminates against people of color. White privilege in the justice system begins with the way they are treated by the police compared to other races. Black people in Minneapolis are 8.7 times more likely than white people to be arrested for low-level offenses. White people are also less likely to be wrongly convicted than other races. For example, white people are about 7 times less likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than black people, white prisoners serving time for sexual assault are 3.5 times less likely to be innocent than a black sexual assault convict, and white people are about 12 times less likely to be wrongfully convicted of drug crimes than black people (despite evidence that white people and black people use illegal drugs at about the same rate). According to the Death Penalty Information Center, murders with white victims are much more likely to result in execution than murders with black victims. These statistics show that the US justice system prioritizes white people as victims and give white people better justice than other races.

Context

People of color have worse outcomes within the justice system than white people. This inequality is indicative of white privilege in the justice system.

Premises

[P1]The US justice system carries a legacy of institutional racism: Black people in Minneapolis are 8.7 times more likely than white people to be arrested for low-level offences, and white people are several times less likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder, sexual assault or drug crimes despite comparable drug-use rates. [P2] Sentencing patterns compound this, with murders involving white victims far more likely to result in execution, showing the system affords white people better outcomes as both defendants and victims. [C] Because the justice system systematically advantages white people, white privilege exists.

Counter-arguments

White privilege in the Justice System varies between countries. It is Americancentrism to assume that all white people have privilege over people of color. Some white people believe that political and cultural developments in recent years are giving rise to anti-White bias. This anti-White bias extends to the justice system.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The figures are strong evidence of racially unequal outcomes, but the premise moves from disparity to privilege without the intervening step. Being less likely to be wrongly convicted describes an accurate outcome rather than an advantage conferred, so an equally available reading is that one group is treated as everyone should be while another is not — a claim about disadvantage, and the argument never says why the privilege framing is the apt one. [Rejecting P2] The death-penalty pattern concerns the race of victims, so it speaks to whose deaths the system treats as grave — a different claim from the one about defendants that the rest of the premise makes. The argument is also narrower than the position it defends: it establishes a pattern in one country's justice system while the position asserts white privilege as such, and it does not address the class, geography and quality-of-representation factors a critic would offer as alternative explanations for the same numbers.