Black Men Overcrowding

The reason for overcrowding is the disproportionate amount of black men to white. It is evident that,“Communities of color are politically marginalized by laws that disenfranchise voters for felony convictions and provide economic incentives for rural communities to embrace prisons as a form of economic development” (Smalls). This ties in with the war on drugs, the police targeted young black men as a method to keep them off of the streets,“...the consequence of criminal justice policies and law enforcement actions that disproportionately target young black men from economically disadvantaged urban communities” (Warde 463). Young black men from poor families are stopped because they look suspicious and arrested for a maximum sentence on minor charges. This problem in the U.S. legal department shows the long-standing segregation and tension between black America and law enforcement.

Black men are not the only ones affected by what is happening in their community, “...because black men from economically disadvantaged urban communities are disproportionately represent among these populations, they, their families and their communities more acutely feel the consequences” (Warde).

Black men are usually the providers of their families, especially young black men, like Bigger, taking care of their mothers and siblings. Often times because their fathers are already victims of the system, or worse, victims of the streets. So, when police target these men and take them away from their homes, it directly affects everyone they know. The women have to become independent and go find work and try to raise a family by herself, it causes many black families to become poor and in need of

welfare.
The disproportionality in prisons is very apparent, you are able to see that there are many more black men in jail than white, “...black males were twice as likely to go to jail as their white counterparts” (Black 108). The racial disparities in prisons have become such a huge problem that often times people refer to the justice system as a new form of Jim Crow, “The population of black and brown men and women behind bars has caused our prisons to look like antebellum plantation” (Smalls).
The increasing number of black men being put into jail is causing an uproar in the black community, people want justice, “Could criminalization be revised in ways that are less racially prejudice? Yes, of course” (Block 116). Recently there has been more and more media coverage showing the tension between the African American community and law enforcement. Surronding events like the Trayvon Martin shooting, the #BlacklivesMatter Movement and the revival of the Black Panther Party.