It is time to stop treating injustice as solely about race; sexism in the US justice system needs to be addressed as well. Eric Garner, Antonio Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice: Race wasn’t the only thing they had in common, and this isn’t just a coincidence. They weren’t just black people, they were black males, an important point that should not be glossed over. Indeed, the numbers show that their gender likely had at least as much to do with the incidents as race did, and sexism against men in our justice system is as serious as racism against blacks. Compared to women and whites, men and black people are more likely to be stopped and searched by police, more likely to be arrested, more likely to be victims of police brutality, are more likely to be charged, more likely to be convicted, and receive harsher punishments for the exact same crime.

According to figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics [Table 5] unarmed Blacks and Hispanics are, respectively, 4.36 and 2.15 times more likely to be killed by police than unarmed Whites (after adjusting for their relative proportion in the general population). This, obviously, represents a significant racial issue in our society. But while many people are aware of this discrepancy (even if they don’t know the exact numbers), there is far less discussion about the gender discrepancy. According to these same statistics, unarmed males are 26.64 times more likely to be killed by police than unarmed women. Combining the numbers gives a startling statistic: An unarmed black male is over 100x more likely to be killed by the police than an unarmed white female. This isn’t two groups being treated differently, this is two groups living in two completely difference worlds. One could argue that men are more likely to put themselves in situations that warrant being shot by the police. Then again, that same argument could be made about the racial discrepancy. And it may account for some portion of both the racial and gender disparities. But even the more than 4-fold difference between blacks and whites seems unlikely to be entirely explained by non-discriminatory factors, and I find it implausible that unarmed black men are genuinely over 100 times more likely to deserve being killed by police than unarmed white women are.

But while death at the hands of the police is a serious issue, it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the discrimination that racial minorities and men face in our justice system. The fact that police target males and blacks is only half the problem with cases like Eric Garner. The other half is that society and our legal system don’t seem to care. After the deaths of Garner and Brown failed to result in even a grand jury indictment (which are known for having a very low burden) due to seemingly apathetic prosecutors, protesters took up the slogan “Black Lives Matter”. A look at the numbers tells us something we already knew: Black lives do not actually matter as much as white lives, at least as far as our justice system is concerned. This is not just limited to cases where the victim is killed by police. One study analyzed vehicular homicides and found that drivers who kill blacks get 53 percent shorter sentences than drivers who kill whites. Other studies have analyzed the effect that the race of the victim has on sentencing, but this study’s focus on vehicular homicide is particularly interesting because the nature of the crime means that there are no circumstantial factors to account for. The victims are random and there aren’t factors like self-defense or provocation to worry about. Thus, the racial discrepancy is likely due entirely to racism (combined with classism, due to the correlation of race with socioeconomic status). But black lives aren’t the only ones being devalued. That same study also found that drivers who killed a woman received a sentence that was 56% longer than drivers who killed a man. It is important for our legal system to stop placing less value on the lives of racial minorities, but it is also important that we stop viewing men’s lives as expendable.

There are also broader problems of discrimination throughout our justice system. Wikipedia even has an entire article titled “Statistics of incarcerated African-American Males.” The Wiki page cites a statistic that “one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime.” But why does everybody always ignore the “male” part of that, focusing only on the race aspect? It’s great that our society is having a growing awareness of the fact that black people are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, but what about the fact that men are fourteen times more likely to be imprisoned than women? All discussions about black males in prison compare the rates of black men with white men, but why not also compare black men with black women? Or even white women? Combining the 6x disparity between races with the 14x disparity between the sexes, black men are roughly 84x more likely to be imprisoned than white women. Let me repeat that figure: A black man is eighty-four times more likely to end up behind bars than a white woman. That is an astronomical disparity that is difficult to even wrap my head around, and it is not something that should be so lightly brushed aside.

I can already hear some of you claiming that it’s because black men commit more crimes than white women. Yes, that would undoubtedly account for some of that 84:1 ratio. But there is also clear evidence of both racism and sexism in how police and courts treat individuals of different races and sexes. A study on racial bias and police policy in New York City analyzed the arrest rates of misdemeanor marijuana possession (misdemeanor possession means personal use only, they were not looking at drug dealers) broken down by race and sex, over a 10-year span from 1997-2006. The study found that marijuana usage among races and sexes differed only slightly, but the likelihood of being arrested for misdemeanor possession differed greatly. Blacks and Hispanics comprised 52% and 31% of those arrested yet were only 26% and 27% of the population, respectively. Meanwhile, whites accounted for only 15% of the arrests, even though they make up 35% of NYC’s population. Blacks and Hispanics are, respectively, about six and three times more likely to be arrested for this same crime as whites are. This is a significant racial issue that needs to be addressed, but the numbers show that sexism is an even more significant issue. While the study found that men were only slightly more likely than women to use marijuana, males were roughly 10x more likely to be arrested for it. That means that not only were black males 60 times more likely to be arrested than white women, but even white males were almost 1.7x more likely to be arrested than black women, indicating that gender, not race, is the most significant factor here.

This bias in arresting men and racial minorities is also reflected in the numbers from New York’s controversial “Stop-and-Frisk” policy. In 2013, 56% of those stopped were black, while only 11% were white. Again, adjusting for population differences this means that blacks are nearly 7x more likely to be stopped under the policy than whites. Stop-and-Frisk has frequently been criticized for this documented racial bias, but once again the more significant problem is gender bias: 92% of those stopped were male, making men 11.5x more likely to be stopped than women. Related to this is the bias in conducting a search of a vehicle during a traffic stop. During routine traffic stops, police are three times more likely to conduct a search of the vehicle if the driver is black than if the driver is white, and five times more likely to conduct a search if the driver is male than if the driver is a woman. This tendency of police to stop and search men and blacks at a much higher rate than women and whites is likely a large part of why black males are arrested and incarcerated at a much higher rate than white females.

It also appears that it is easier to convict men and blacks, even when the defendant is innocent. For example, the innocence project has had twice as many blacks as whites prove their innocence, which given the differences in the general population indicates that blacks are over 10x more likely to be falsely convicted than whites. On the gender side, virtually all of those who are convicted of serious crimes and later able to prove their innocence are male.

And of course, the racism and sexism continue after conviction. One study found that after controlling for factors such as prior criminal history, blacks receive a prison sentence that is 12% longer than whites convicted of the same crime, and men also receive a sentence that is 12% longer than women convicted of the same crime. [page 16]. Another study which did a broader analysis, including pre-trial factors such as the effect of plea-bargains, placed the gender gap at 60%, with women being twice as likely to avoid any jail time at all if convicted.

The justice system in the US has many problems (including a growing number of private for-profit prisons), but these problems are largely being ignored because it’s black males, not white females, that are the primary victims. If we want to know why the drug war is still going on, if we want to know why we still haven’t seen prison reform, if we want to know why police brutality goes unchecked, we need go no further than to look at who is being harmed by the current system: Men and blacks, two groups that our society has little empathy for and frequently demonizes and stereotypes as the “bad” group. Police and security guards often target them for their race/gender, we feel less empathy when they are killed, we are more readily willing to believe they are guilty of any crime they are accused of, and we have less compassion when it comes to doling out harsh prison sentences for these groups. Recently, we have finally seen a greater awareness of the racial problems in our society as we have national discussions about how our justice system mistreats blacks. But it is time to start having these same discussions about gender and how our justice system mistreats men as well.

As a final note, while systematic sexism and racism at all levels of our justice system are obviously large factors in these discrepancies, those who seek to dismiss this problem are correct in pointing out that black males also commit crimes at a higher rate than white females. However, that in itself is indicative of larger racial and gender issues in our society, and begs the question of why women and white people find it easier to lead a crime-free life in our culture than men and black people. When black men feel the need to rob convenience stores and sell drugs while white women do not, it might be time to take a deeper look at how our society treats blacks and men, and why they often aren’t getting the same support that whites and women do. That can be left for another discussion.