The United States has the biggest prison and jail population in the world not only by population, but also by sheer numbers. Many of these offenders are behind bars for nonviolent drug crimes and statistically more of those non-violent offenders are African American. African Americans are 13% of the United States Population but make up over 40% of the current jail and prison population. A black man is five times more likely to be convicted of a crime than a white man in the United States. How far have we really come sinse the Jim Crow laws? During the Jim Crow Era African-Americans in some states were treated as second-class citizens in every aspect of life from how they interact with White Americans to not having the right to vote. Many people would say we as a nation are far passed those times but many African-Americans convicted of nonviolent drug crimes lose their right to vote, lose their chances for jobs and lose any social welfare programs that may have otherwise been given to them for their economic situation. The easy argument here is that a white man convicted of the same crime would lose these rights as well however, why is it that African-Americans are locked up so much more than non-African-Americans. As a country we must ask ourselves has race played a role in the high incarceration of African Americans, and can we compare it to the era of the Jim Crow laws?
My original topic focused solely on the Criminal Justice system of Jim Crow era and excluded any modern day reference or articles, but as more websites began to cite the “new Jim Crow laws” I was naturally interested. Once I began to research the “new Jim Crow laws” , they spiked my attention. I initially found it hard to believe that any current laws could co...
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...o this Criminal Justice System there kids are much more likely to drop out of school, experiment with recreational substances and unfortunately end up in the Justice system just like their parents. This cycle could be part of the reason African-Americans are poorer nationally than caucasians.
This cycle truly began with slavery and then Jim Crow laws, African-Americans were oppressed and treated as less so they never got the chance to start on the same level as whites. We personally have family members that lived in a time when it was regular for and African American man to get lynched, tortured and killed for simply looking at a white girl wrong. We as a culture often forget how recent this really was, and that many social institutions have not fully adjusted. One of those institutions is our criminal justice system that is not as color blind as it claims to be.
Alexander (2010) describes the New Jim Crow as a moment where society have already internalized the stereotypes of African American men as violent and more likely to commit crimes and where mass incarceration has been normalized – especially in poor areas– . That is, today is seen as normal that black parents are missing in their homes because they are in institutions of control (p.181). She also stresses American society denies racism when they assume the justice system works. Therefore, she claims that “mass incarceration is colorblind” (p.183). American society does not see the race biased within the institutions of control.
Michelle Alexander wrote a book called "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." The original Jim Crow was a racial caste system that segregated whites from blacks, where whites were privileged and viewed as the chosen ones while blacks were taught to be minority and used as servants between 1877 and the 1960s. The Jim Crow system kept whites superior to blacks with laws created to keep whites favored. It was a legal way to prevent African Americans from getting an equal education, from voting; it was a system of "Separate but Equal". In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed to outlaw discrimination due to ones skin color. Although this act was passed we still continue to live in a society where discrimination is quite relevant but systemized. Through Michelle Alexander's book we can understand her argument that there is a new form of legal discrimination although laws state that discriminating an individual because of their race is illegal. Michelle explains that there is a current mass incarceration among black men in the United States. The use of, possession of, or selling drugs is illegal but it has been systematically created that laws make it impossible to. She claims that the criminal justice system uses the War on Drugs as a way to discriminate and repress the black man.
“The New Jim Crow” is an article by Michelle Alexander, published by the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. Michelle is a professor at the Ohio State Moritz college of criminal law as well as a civil rights advocate. Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law is part of the world’s top education system, is accredited by the American Bar Association, and is a long-time member of the American Law association. The goal of “The New Jim Crow” is to inform the public about the issues of race in our country, especially our legal system. The article is written in plain English, so the common person can fully understand it, but it also remains very professional. Throughout the article, Alexander provides factual information about racial issues in our country. She relates them back to the Jim Crow era and explains how the large social problem affects individual lives of people of color all over the country. By doing this, Alexander appeals to the reader’s ethos, logos, and pathos, forming a persuasive essay that shifts the understanding and opinions of all readers.
Today, more African American adults are under correctional control than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began (Alexander 180). Throughout history, there have been multiple racial caste systems in the United States. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander defines a “racial caste” as “a racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom” (12). Alexander argues that both Jim Crow and slavery functioned as racial caste systems, and that our current system of mass incarceration functions as a similar caste system, which she labels “The New Jim Crow”. There is now a silent Jim Crow in our nation. Mass incarceration today serves the same function as did slavery before the Civil War and Jim Crow laws after the Civil War - to uphold a racial caste system.
Throughout the semester, we have discussed many different issues that are currently prevalent in the United States, specifically those related to racial discrimination. One specific issue that I have developed interest and research in is that of institutionalized racism, specifically in the form of mass incarceration, and what kinds of effects mass incarceration has on a community. In this paper, I will briefly examine a range of issues surrounding the mass incarceration of black and Latino males, the development of a racial undercaste because of rising incarceration rates, women and children’s involvement and roles they attain in the era of mass incarceration, and the economic importance that the prison system has due to its development.
Much progress has and is currently being made over history for the laws concerning the equal treatment, but this civil rights crisis seems like the criminal system does not follow its own laws. There are more African American males arrested and incarcerated than Hispanic or White males. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2010, the Black male imprisonment rate was 3,074 per 1000,000 U.S. Black males in total. They are incarcerated at seven times higher than Whites (The Sentencing
America has been the site of discrimination in race for years. The Black Codes were laws each state came up with on their own that limit certain rights, prevent them from voting, and keep the black slaves under white control. Even after the Black Codes ended, a new way to keep African-Americans unequal came up. The Jim Crow laws were a series of laws passed in order to keep African-Americans unequal from white Americans. Every state had their own form of the Jim Crow laws. African-Americans used to be treated very poorly by the rest of the United States. They were still treated as though they were slaves until the end of the Jim Crow laws. Even after that, southern states still attempted to keep African-Americans from being equal to the rest of Americans. Taxes were put up in order to vote, which kept African-Americans from doing so because most were very poor. They still did not have equal opportunity in the work force either. African-Americans were not the only ones being treated like this either. Native Americans and Hispanics were treated the same way that African-Americans were. The United States used to treat immigrants inadequately.
However, there are still those who are racist and discriminate against people of different color. Even if slavery had ended and people may not talk about it much openly, racial caste and discrimination still goes on in the modern times. From the article, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander states how America has entered the era of “post- racialism” which is said to be the colorblindness era. Alexander states how racial caste is still alive in America and just merely redesigned it. It is those who are poor and colored that “amount to a new caste system- one specifically tailored to the political, economic, and social challenges of our time. It is the moral equivalent to Jim Crow”. The problems with police brutality, drug war, and the expansion of the America’s prison system all got to deal with those who are poor and colored. People of color are more likely to get the racial profile and abused by the police, even if they didn’t do anything wrong. They become labeled as “criminals” and then become part of the practice America has left behind towards slaves. The person of color labelled as a criminal have all their rights taken away from them like a slave. This interferes with their employment, housing, denial of having the right to vote, and excluded from jury
Disproportionate Incarceration of African Americans The disproportionate numbers of African Americans in the prison system is a very serious issue, which is not usually discussed in its entirety. However, it is quite important to address the matter because it ultimately will have an effect on African Americans as a whole. Of the many tribulations that plague Americans today, the increase in the number of African American men and women in prisons is unbelievable. It would be nave to say that the increase is due to the fact that more African Americans are committing crimes now than before.
“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow did is represented the anti-Black racism. Further on, In 1970’s the term “War on Drugs” was coined by President Richard Nixon . Later President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war. In reality the war had little to do with drug crime and a lot to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a strategy of used by the government. The President identified drug abuse as national threat. Therefore, they called for a national anti-drug policy, the policy began pushing for the involvement of the police force and military in drug prohibition efforts. The government did believe that blacks or minorities were a cause of the drug problem. They concentrated on inner city poor neighborhoods, drug related violence, they wanted to publicize the drug war which lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it. The war on drugs targeted and criminalized disproportionably urban minorities. There for, “War on Drugs” results in the incarceration of one million Americans ...
There are a few reasons why African Americans are discriminated by the legal system. The primary cause is inequitable protection by the law and unequal enforcement of it. Unequal protection is when the legal system offers less protection to African Amerians that are victimized by whites. It is unequally enforcement because discriminatory treatment of African Americans that are labeled as criminal suspects is more accepted.
The prison system exists as a form of formal punishment for persons of wrongdoing and serves as a secure dwelling to protect the public from persons who engage in illegal and or violent behavior. Minorities are the majority of the prison population. Because of possible ingrained stereotypes regarding racial groups and drug related criminal offenses there are an elevated number of minorities in United States prisons (Tamborini, Huang, Mastro, & Nabashi-Nakahara, 2007, p. 342). Legal authorities and juries may show bias towards minority groups resulting in a disadvantage when it comes to charging those of the African-American race. African-Americans are generally more frequently targeted than Caucasians regarding drug related crimes. Due to the nature of inexpensive forms of illegal substances more frequently used in inner-cities, African-Americans may be more easily and more often pursued (Staples, 2011, p. 34). Opposition shapes the notion that minorities make up the majority of drug related criminal offenders. There are more persons of the African-American race charged for drug related crimes but this can possibly be attributed to skewed perceptions of a particular races’ tendency to engage in illegal behavior as well as lack of financial options and socio economic status to hire an attorney to defend their case, which negatively influences sentencing outcomes and statistics.
In 2003 in a rural southern town of Jena, 6 black students were jailed and sentenced for a minor assault. They were tried by an all white jury, which deemed it necessary for a 10 year sentence. However much does the government try to change the views that blacks are not inferior, it is hard to change the image that has been burned within the back of the people?s minds, there will always be a glass ceiling and all men are not equal.
Constitution, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million”. The African American Community is still “enslaved” to an idea that some of their lives can be bought and worth so very little. “Today’s slavery focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people like before, but about using them as completely disposable tools for making money” (McNally). Along with exploitation through the workforce and big business, this population continues on with day to day struggles such as profiling and misjudgment of their character based on their physical appearance and stature in certain areas of the country. Our criminal justice system exploits the minority by jailing their generations. Government systems fund for “fundamental testing” to the younger crowd of African Americans as well as the poorer minorities and neighborhoods for future projections of increased incarceration to come. Juvenile justice systems serve as a barrier between teen and adult criminality but make it possible for a widespread of ages in the black community to be held captive. Children and teens are impressionable in both negative and positive ways. More often than not, kids and teens alike stay in the system after being exposed to the condemning life of “crime” and soar through the system even in the days of adulthood after early exposure to the unequal way things work in the criminal justice
Imagine living in a world at which you are harassed and abused just because of the color of your skin. Since the beginning of America’s existence, Whites have had this strong hate towards the black population. The whites wanted to continue to have the power and control in their hands. In order for them to achieve this, the white southerners came up with the Jim Crow laws to prevent the African Americans from achieving their god given right of being free and equal. This did not end the African hope of becoming equal. After many years of mistreatment, African Americans knew that change in society was necessary. The members of the black population have been enslaved, beaten, abused, neglected and just taken advantage of, since the end of the civil war, even into present times, African Americans have struggled for equality and rights that white Americans often take for granted. Arguably, no post-war struggle was larger or more significant than the movement to eliminate the Jim Crow laws from existence in the South. As a large portion of the Civil Rights movement, many works are dedicated to the efforts put forth and the ensuing results, including “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka”, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, “Black Revolution”, “Bigger Than a Hamburger,” and the act from Rosa Parks.