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Racism in the criminal justice system in america essay
Racism in the criminal justice system in america essay
Racism in the criminal justice system in the united states
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The issue of mass incarceration that our country as a whole faces is very extreme from a sociological standpoint. as a society due to hundreds of years of racial discrimination formed very long lasting wounds for a lot of races. most are oblivious to the fact that our nation as a whole today is racist. and our prison population and specific areas where crime rates are high have the statistics to back the fact that the laws and regulations the government has put in place over time are the cause of a lot if not most of the generalized racism which causes more than two thirds of the prison population to be black or hispanic. This is just one of many issues with our prisons today. This is not the only issue racial discrimination has caused. Everyday
In The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander introduces readers to the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the United States and challenges readers to view the crisis as the “ the most pressing racial justice issue of our time.” In the introduction, Alexander writes “what the book is intended to do and that is to stimulate much needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States.” We come to understand, How the United States create criminal justice system and maintain racial hierarchy through mass incarceration? How the current system of mass incarceration in the United States mirrors earlier systems of racialized
Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow is the direct consequence of the War on Drugs. That aims to reduce, prevent and eradicate drug use in America through punitive means. The effect of the war on drug policies returned de jure discrimination, denied African Americans justice and undermined the rule of law by altering the criminal justice system in ways that deprive African Americans civil rights and citizenship. In the “New Jim Crow” Alexandra argues that the effects of the drug war policies are not unattended consequences but coordinated by designed to deny African Americans opportunity to gain wealth, be excluded from gaining employment and exercise civil rights through mass incarceration and felony conviction. The war on drugs not only changes the structure of the criminal justice system, it also changes the ways that police officers, prosecutors and judges do their jobs.
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.
In conclusion, we realize that the mass incarcerations in the United States exist and it is only a disguised Jim Crow law. It is evident as even the critics of Michelle Alexander’s argument against mass incarceration admit to the Jim Crow Law. Discrimination against black Americans should be rectified and avoided to ensure stability of a country.
The United States of America has the world’s highest incarceration rates, for several reasons. The United States of America doesn’t necessarily possess any unique strict laws in comparison to other countries of the world, yet we still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. More federal level and state level prisons are built in order to control and hold more prisoners because most are reaching its full capacity. The United States of America’s “crime rates” increased about 40 years ago when there became a new focus in the areas of crime. The President of the United States of America at the time Richard Nixon used the term “a war on drugs” in order to shed light on public health due to substance abuse. Initially, these policies created
For the past two decades, the criminal justice system in the United States has been undergoing a tremendous expansion. There are now more than one million black men in jail and that one out of every four black males will go on prison in there lifetime. Knowing these statistics it put a burden on the black community because many families are left with single family home, the unemployment rate for black male go up, they can not vote and now they make jail seem like it is fun to go to.
This is true not only in the workforce, but in their personal lives as well. They are placed back into fragmented populations, however, this time, it’s much worse. Their communities cannot sustain their emotional unravelling after the disturbing realities of serving time in prison. In the article “The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Poverty” written by Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon, they claim that the impoverished communities of color need the removal of imprisoned individuals for the improvement of local economics. However, the article “The Effects of Mass Incarceration on Communities of Color” claims that it does nothing to help these communities.
In recent decades, violent crimes in the United States of America have been on a steady decline, however, the number of people in the United States under some form of correctional control is reaching towering heights and reaching record proportions. In the last thirty years, the incarceration rates in the United States has skyrocketed; the numbers roughly quadrupled from around five hundred thousand to more than 2 million people. (NAACP)In a speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, Hillary Clinton notes that, “It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40
Mass incarceration may not seem like major issue to people, but according to article by Melinda D. Anderson it is causing the life of some children also their families. The growth of incarceration of black people presumably seems to be increasing, particularly more within the US. According to Naacp.org, “African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites” therefore as those people are being incarcerated, it’s causing problems not only for them but also for their families as well. The children of incarcerated people are being criticized in school by their friends. Without having proper guardianship, a student’s academic life tends to fall. The article “How
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.
In todays society the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This high incarceration rate is due to the growing phenomena known as mass incarceration. This phenomenon has led to massive increase of people being placed in prison and the amount of money being used for these prisons. The book, Race to Incarcerate by Marc Mauer, focuses on mass incarceration as our default social policy because of the weak welfare state in the U.S. In the book Mauer discusses the causes and the problems with this policy.
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001.
These statistics demonstrate that racialized mass incarceration exists in the U.S. There are a few reasons why African Americans are discriminated against 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 Americans that are victimized by whites. It is unequal enforcement because discriminatory treatment of African Americans that are labeled as criminal suspects is more accepted.
The definition of mass incarceration is a term used by social activists to describe the significant increase in the number of incarcerated people in United States ' prisons over the past forty years, from 1970 to 2005 the number of inmates has risen 700%. Lawrence (2011) has stated that more than 2.3 million people in America are in jail or prison and sixty percent are African American and Latino. In this paper, I will present information on mass incarceration of black males, the development of a racial injustice due to rising of incarceration rates, and the financial standing that the prison system has, due to its massive expansion.
The most problematic conclusion about Mass Incarceration, whatever the causes or practices, is that currently America has had the highest national prison rates in the world; furthermore, the rates of minorities (particularly African Americans) are extraordinarily disproportionate to the rates of incarcerated Caucasians. Despite the overall rise in incarceration rates since the 1980s, the crime rates have not been reduced as would be expected. Researchers, activists, and politicians alike are now taking a closer look at Mass Incarceration and how it affects society on a larger scale. The purpose of this paper is to examine the anatomy of Mass Incarceration for a better understanding of its importance as a dominant social issue and its ultimate relation to practice of social work. More specifically the populations affected by mass incarceration and the consequences implacable to social justice. The context of historical perspectives on mass incarceration will be analyzed as well as insight to the current social welfare policies on the