America is a home of the brave and a land of equality and justice, but only for those whose biological demographics align with the majority.

This month, a WSU student was charged with one count of first-degree felony theft, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree felony and was sentenced to two days in jail and a month of community service after embezzling $10,000 from the university last August.

Another WSU student, charged in February, pleaded guilty to two counts of cocaine possession and was sentenced to three months in jail and fines totaling about $1,800.

The sentencing on these two offenses was dramatically different – two days in jail plus community service pales in comparison to three months in jail and a $1,800 fine.

Sentencing, I’ve learned, follows no real pattern. Sure, there are guidelines and certain mandatory restrictions, but overall, no two cases are ruled the same.

Daniel LeBeau, senior deputy prosecutor for Whitman County, said there are many factors that can go into any case.

“Judges tend to look at a person’s history and similarly situated people are treated the same,” LeBeau said.

For example, drug possession and delivery require an entirely different sentence parameter under the Washington Sentencing Reform Act of 1981 than does stealing money from an organization.

LeBeau said most cases follow the same policy.

Case-by-case sentencing makes sense: I wouldn’t want someone with no history who stole socks from Walmart to receive the same sentence as an affluent young man with multiple priors who stole a television from a mom and pop store.

The premise is sound, but unfortunately, it is impossible for human beings to be aware of every thought we have on a subconscious level.

Because of this, we find an unfortunate tendency in the U.S. to enact harsher punishment for certain offenders and more lenient punishment for others through every step in the judicial process.

The reality of the fact is that these guidelines alone are not enough to make a sound and just ruling.

The judicial system takes into account prior history, situations that led up to the incident, socioeconomics and results of illegal actions, but neglects to check itself and curb overtly racist authority.

The Sentencing Project, a national organization advocating for a change in criminal sentencing policy, defines racial disparity as when “the proportion of a racial/ethnic group within the control of the system is greater than the proportion of such groups in the general population.”

For example, drug use among whites and blacks is about the same (9.5 percent among whites, 10.5 percent among blacks) according to the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Incarceration rates, however, are staggeringly atypical and feature over-representation of blacks and Hispanics and under-representation of whites, according to the Prison Policy Initiative from the U.S. Census 2010 summary.

The statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prisons show that individuals identifying as black or African-American constituted about 37 percent of total jailed inmates in 2016.

This is a serious discrepancy considering that only about 13 percent of the U.S. is comprised of black or African-American individuals.

It also reinforces the illustration of the unjust criminal justice system of “driving while black,” wherein a traffic stop is unwarranted unless the supposed perpetrator adheres to a culturally specific demographic.

The Guardian performed a study in the U.S. and found that “young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers in 2015.”

From the same study, it was shown that, when adjusted for population, “black people killed were found to be twice as likely to not have a weapon.”

In any case, racial disparity in the justice system is indicative of a greater societal problem – a tight grasp to long-standing prejudice and unjust discrimination.

Acknowledging the snowballing nature of sentencing disparities in the criminal justice system – that is, understanding that justice is not always blind to race and socioeconomic status – is certainly something to be aware of if we are to better the criminal justice system.

Tyler Delong is a senior communication major from Moses Lake. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of The Office of Student Media.