Mass Incarceration In The Film 'American Violet'

About twenty five percent of the world’s prisoners are in the United States. This statistic is rather ironic due to the fact that the U.S is the land of the free. Mass incarceration has been an ongoing and prevalent problem within the United States. The 2008 film, American Violet, goes on to expose the horrific truth about mass incarceration within our nation. The movie focuses on Dee Roberts, a young, low income African American woman wrongly accused of distributing narcotics near a school zone by her local district attorney. Strongly opposed to the possibility of losing the government programs she depends on, as well as custody of her children, Roberts rejects her plea bargain and fights the D.A in court with the help of the ACLU. An analysis

of both the film and American society revealed that mass incarceration occurs as a result of racism, plea bargains and poor quality public defenders.
Within the first few scenes of the movie, it becomes eminent that racism plays a large role in the mass incarceration that takes place within the film.

Take the scene, in which Dee’s mother attends a church gathering where a member of the ACLU comes to speak to the congregation, for instance. The speaker, David Cohen, describes how drug laws selectively target black people and that the government gives the counties with the most convictions federal money, thus causing plea bargains to be encouraged to quicken convictions. Similarly, Ian Haney Lopez (2010), writes “The United States today places almost one in every thirty of its residents under correctional control in a racial pattern that generates state prison populations that are two-thirds black and Latino” (p.1025). This further supports the argument that racism plays a large role in regard to mass incarceration, as state prisons are concentrated with minorities more so than whites. Lopez continues to state that “in 2000, black men were more likely to be in prison or jail… than white men in the high crime ages of 22 to 40… (p.1029-1030).” Once again, we can see how race is crucial in regard to mass incarceration. Racial stratification has always been deeply embedded within American society and politics, and in this quote, we can

see how racism puts more African American males at a higher risk of facing incarceration than their white counterparts. African Americans often times have less access to proper quality education, thus leaving them with less occupational opportunities in comparison to their white equal. This often times causes them to find other means to support themselves and their families, which may not always be lawful. Additionally, more since African Americans are often targets for mass incarceration, they’d naturally be more likely to be imprisoned as they are being targeted, whereas whites are not being targeted. Furthermore, I personally felt that the labelling theory could possibly play a role in why more African American males were more likely to end up imprisoned compared to white males. As the 20th century began, the government began to instill a fear within society that black males were criminals. After being clustered into low income areas with few resources and marginalized as criminals, many African American males felt hopeless and turned to the streets. After all, they were just living up to their reputation. Lopez further goes on to mention how it is becoming more common for poor black and brown men to enter the prison system and touches base on the harsher penalties for crack cocaine compared to powder cocaine. Institutionalized racism could be a possible cause for this, due to the fact that laws would be created with the intent to imprison blacks. We can see how this ties in with the documentary 13th’s commentary on the crack cocaine epidemic that was widespread in the late 1900s. The documentary stated how crack cocaine was more common within poorer black communities, while cocaine was more common in suburban white communities. Though both drugs were harmful, the ending result was that punishments for crack cocaine were much harsher than those for powder cocaine.
To continue, plea bargains were also crucial to the growing rate of mass incarceration.

In the movie, we can clearly see how this was portrayed when Dee meets with her attorney (a public defender, as she cannot afford a lawyer of her own) and the assistant D.A after her first court hearing since her arrest. In this scene, the assistant D.A explains how the district attorney has been building a strong case against Dee for months, but is never able to offer any evidence to support her charge, other than saying that the drug task force conducted an impressive operation that convinced the D.A. and grand jury. Soon after, Dee’s lawyer tries to convince her to take a plea bargain in which she would admit to the crime and leave jail that day with a 10-year suspended sentence and small fine, her other options would be to stay in jail for six months and await trial or pay seventy thousand dollars in bail. Comparably, Danny Weil (2012) writes about how regularly people who are innocent take plea deals due to the fact that they’ll face less harsh punishments, rather than if they decided to go to trial. Naturally this makes sense, more than likely whether or not the individual was guilty, they’d be more apt to plead guilty and face a less harsh punishment than risk losing their trial and face harsher punishments. As a result, we can see why mass incarceration is becoming more prominent. These plea deals talk people out of their practicing their 6th amendment right to a speedy and

public trial, which is another example of institutionalized racism due to the fact that the government scares people of color from being able to exercise their rights due. Weil (2012) went on to mention that less than 10 percent of criminal cases go to trial, which in turn fuels for profit prisons with large amounts of prisoners. Here we can see how mass incarceration is not only a social issue, it is also an economical issue as it provides for-profit prisons with free labor. Looking at plea deals from a racial perspective, according to Borchetta and Fontier (2017), the Carlos Berdejo of Loyola Law school found that “…white people with no criminal history were more than 25% more likely to have charges reduced than black people who also had no criminal history (p. 1).” This quote demonstrates how racism is intertwined with plea bargains. Here, African Americans are being treated unfairly as they face harsher punishments than their white counterparts, despite the fact that both have clean records. The study further goes on to say that prosecutors were more likely to base someone’s likelihood of recidivism based on their race to determine what plea offers they are given. Statistics show that people who have been incarcerated have a higher risk of being imprisoned again, therefore, facing a higher risk of recidivism. Seeing that blacks are imprisoned more than whites, they inherently are more prone to recidivism, leading them to have more punitive pleas compared to whites. The fact that some prosecutors use race to essentially determine their plea bargains, gives African Americans a disadvantage because their race is more disposed to recidivism. In regard to plea bargains, the film 13th discussed how 97% of people of color from low income neighborhoods who are incarcerated are in prison because they settled with a plea bargain. The film stressed the fact that often times innocent blacks were forced to plead guilty just so that they could walk free, despite it costing them a clean record.
Lastly, poor quality public defenders are also responsible for the ever-growing dilemma of mass incarceration. In the film, Dee is given a public defender due to the fact that she cannot afford a lawyer of her own. Shortly after her first appearance in court following her arrest, she meets with her attorney and the assistant D.A. In this scene, it becomes evident that her attorney has no intentions of helping her. Rather than helping Dee build a case, he pushes for her to follow through with the plea bargain, despite her claim of being innocent and her reluctance. When looking at the public defense system, we find that often times people cannot afford their own attorneys and in fact depend on public defenders. Alexa Van Brunt (2015) writes, “According to the US Department of Justice, in 2007, about 73% of county public defender offices exceeded the maximum recommended limit of cases… (p.1).” This quote shows that all too often, the public defenders are swarmed with an outrageous amount of court cases that they can’t handle, resulting in poor quality public defense. One can only imagine how many cases are given the attention necessary to win a trial. Personally, I believe that because public defenders are given too many court cases, naturally they cannot properly prep each case to win in court and as a result push defendants to settle for plea bargains as a way to make their jobs easier. Brunt (2015) continues on to mention how some states have implemented restricted service plans, in which public defenders no longer take on new cases. This once again creates a disparity for African Americans as they are the majority of citizens being charged for crimes, with less public defenders at their aid, they are more than likely to take plea bargains and contribute to our nation’s growing issue of mass incarceration. Lack of funding and excessive cases are not the only components that create poor quality public defenders, racism also plays a large role as well. This can be attributed to implicit bias. Implicit bias usually occurs non-consciously and is when individuals associate negative characteristics with certain races. Public defenders may occasionally be unaware that they do not give their African American clients necessary attention due to the fact that they may judge them based on stereotypes, and are less likely to develop a successful case for them. For instance, Richardson and Goff (2013), write, “There is ample reason for concern that IBs will affect public defenders’ judgments because IBs thrive in situations where individuals make decisions quickly with imperfect information” (p. 2631). This quote derived from the Yale journal, and further proves that racism, although unintentional, results in poor quality public defenders. The fact that public defenders have numerous cases and are pressed for time, they may feel as though their client is guilty and that taking the case to trial will be a waste of time, thus giving African Americans further disadvantages within our legal system.
Overall, after considerable analysis between the film American Violet and numerous reputable articles and essays, we can see how our nation’s fast-growing problem of mass incarceration occurs as a result of racism, plea bargains and poor quality public defenders. Each of these constituents are deeply intertwined, whether it be laws selectively created to imprison blacks, to plea bargains with harsher punishments being heavily enforced among African Americans due to the implicit bias and overworked public defenders. In this essay, I made a point to demonstrate how each of my main points resulted in higher rates of mass incarceration among minority groups, specifically African Americans, as well as the fact that racism played a prominent role within each point.