In the United States, the rate of incarceration has increased shockingly over the past few years. In 2008, it was said that one in 100 U.S. adults were behind bars, meaning more than 2.3 million people. Even more surprising than this high rate is the fact that African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated, especially low-income and lowly educated blacks. This is racialized mass incarceration. There are a few reasons why racialized mass incarceration occurs and how it negatively affects poor black communities. Blacks are overly portrayed in jails and prisons. Bobo and Thompson stated that in 1954, 98,000 African Americans were in jail or prison. By 2002, there was an increase of 900%, 884,500 African Americans were in jail or prisons. In 2007, blacks made up 39% of detained males in prisons or jails however they make up 12% of the total adult male population. White males make up 36.1% of the male inmate population but they make up 65.6% of the total male population. These statistics demonstrate that racialized mass incarceration exists in the U.S. 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. Another reason racialized mass incarceration takes place is because of the high rates of poverty and unemployment for inner city African Americans, especially those with low-education and low skill levels. Urban ghettos have been associated with the problem of social disorganization and crime. The biggest reason for this is the war on drugs. There is no substantial proof that verifies African Americans are more involved in illegal drug consumptions than other groups are. However they are arrested more than other groups. Bobo and Thompson stated that blacks are almost 34% involved in drug-related arrests though only 14% of those are among regular illegal drug users. Among drug related convictions, African Americans make up half of the cases whereas only 26% of the white population is convicted. As Bobo and Thompson stated, “Illegal drug consumption seems to know no race. Incarceration for drug-related charges, however, is something visited in a heavily biased manner on African Americans.” The war on drugs is greatly concentrated on cocaine and even more so on crack cocaine.
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
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.
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 issue of racial disparity in the criminal justice system has been a longstanding debate in this county. According to Tonry (as cited in Cole & Gertz, 2013) African Americans make up to 50% of the prison population but are only 12 % of the total United States population. Bobo and Thompson (2006) stated that Hispanics make up to 18 % of the prison population but are only 14 % of the total United States Population, while Caucasians make up to 75 % of the total population and are only 35 % of the prison population in American. (Coker,2003) supports Cole and Gertz and states that African Americans make up to half of the prison population while only accounting for 12 % of the population in the United States. According to NACP statistics (http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet) African American and Hispanics make up 58% of all prisoners even though African Americans and Hispanics make up 25 % of the United States population. According to Hurwitz and Peffley (2010) Caucasian men older than 18 have a 1 in 106 chance of being imprisoned, while in comparison to a 1 in 16 chance of being imprisoned for African American men in the same age range. According to (Coker,2003) estimated that 28 % of African Americans will be incarcerated at one point in their lifetimes. Small (2001) stated that one out of three African Americans in their twenties are either in jail, prison, on probation, or parole. Small (2001) stated that although African Americans make up 13 % of all drug users in America, they are 35 % of the people arrested for drug possession and 55 % of the people convicted for drug possession. According to Small (2001) African American men are sent to prison for drug offenses at rate 20%-57% times great...
Although people of color commit most crimes at the same rate as Whites, the unequal targeting and treatment of people of color throughout the criminal justice system from arrest to sentencing results in the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color. The criminal justice system has driven a wedge between black men and society. African American men are involved in the criminal justice system, whether though incarceration, probation, or parole, at near epidemic levels. At the same time, the criminal justice system has encouraged and persisted in racial and discriminatory actions continuing the emancipation of blacks from society. Consequently, African American families are harmed in countless ways, form psychological to material suffering experienced by the entire family.
Between 1980 and 2000 the prison population rose 300 percent (Patten, 2016). About three percent of the United States population is found under some sort of penal control, which was the lowest rate since 1996 (Kaeble, Glaze, Tsoutis, Minton, 2015). However, three decades later that is not much progress. Furthermore, with a broken penal system we see an overrepresentation of African American men. Studies show that black men are ten times more likely to be in federal or state prison than there white counterparts (De Giorgi, 2015). Being that African American’s make up a large portion of the lower socioeconomic class, statistics such as that place African American’s in a more disadvantaged position often causing more deviance. The effects of mass incarceration can have everlasting effects on those caught in the criminal justice system and often have the potential to affect their families as well. It can almost become a cycle because of how prisons function. It is hard to solely blame the political shift and war on drugs for the mass incarceration problem, when the high rates are still lingering in the United States. The disadvantaged make up a large concentration of the incarcerated population (Western & Wildeman, 2009). There are plenty of problems with the legal portion of the correctional system, but there are also sociological
Overall, the study paints a very clear picture: Black people are disadvantaged within the criminal justice system, leading to massive disparities even among those who are entirely innocent. The causes we have identified run from inevitable consequences of patterns in crime and punishment to deliberate acts of racism, with many stops in between. the researchers found that some of the disparity is driven in large part by higher homicide rates in black communities.
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 a remarkable analysis, Alexander (2010) made a fascinating comparisons of the modern struggles of blacks to dating back to the Jim Crow era. Alexander asserts that mass incarceration of African Americans is the “New Jim Crow” because it serves many of the same purposes of slavery over 100 years ago. Such disparity has not been changed as more and more African American men are under some sort of government supervision which are either incarcerated, awaiting trial, on probation or parole than slaves in 1850. For instance, the imprisonment of one in nine black men in 2006, demonstrates that black men were eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than their counterparts. Today’s colorblindness has used “police, prosecutors,
The United States’ prison system is filled with unjustifiable, blatant racism. However, as stated in the documentary 13th, many U.S. residents do not realize the corruption assimilated into their prison system. Due to how secretive the U.S. prison system is, the mistreatment of ethnic minority groups, specifically African-Americans, is not prevalent to the public. Nevertheless, this documentary indicates the mass incarceration of African-Americans in the United States and how its prison system accomplishes it. With its depiction of modern-day slavery, the U.S. prison system is at fault for the vast inequality in state prisons. Similarly, as noted in the article The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons by Ashley Nellis,
This stat is straight from the NAACP, the stat states, “African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population”. Almost half the people in the United States of America in prison/jail right now are black men and women. It’s certain that some of the inmates have done wrongdoings and deserve to be there, but to realize that 45% of the people locked up in jail cells are African American tests the whole ‘Equality’ matter. Furthermore, another stat by the NAACP, they say, “About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug”. It showcases that white people have used more illicit drugs than black people yet more and more black people are getting charged for possession of narcotics. All in all, all races will commit crimes, but the way that prosecutions are executed are unfair and
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.
According to John Kuroski, assistant editor of All That is Interesting, only thirteen percent of the U.S. population is Black, although our prisons have about triple that amount of Black men at thirty-seven percent (Kuroski). The racial disparity in prison is a troubling issue. When minorities are highly over-represented in prison populations it is necessary to look at the regulations, laws and practices that perpetuate this problem. When a minority population is jailed at triple the amount than should be expected, things need to be delved into more deeply to find underlying causes. Kuroski’s data shows that Black men are five times more likely than white men to be put behind bars (Kuroski). This system, that the U.S. has perpetuated, of continually exploiting the Black population is horrifying, while also easy to ignore if one is not constantly aware of the issue. This may be in part to the continuing racial discrimination laws such as stop-and-frisk, which often targets young Black men. According to Kuroski, African-Americans are imprisoned at ten times the rate for drug offences, even though whites are five time more likely to be using drugs (Kuroski). This data shows the racial biases held by law enforcement and the U.S. judicial system. The War on Drugs was a devastating, calculated governmental attack on minorities. This notion
The war on drugs has produced greatly unequal consequences in racial groups, displayed through racial discrimination by law enforcement and unequal drug war despair suffered by communities of color. African Americans comprise 14% of regular drug users, but 37% of those are arrested for drug-related offenses.
America has seen an explosion increase in the incarceration rate of criminals followed by an increase in crime. The American prison system has increased by a jaw dropping “790 percent” (Flatow, 2013). As I stated earlier that there was a significant increase in inmates “since 1980 from about 25,000 inmates to 219,000 in 2012 according to a new Congressional Research Service report.” (Flatow, 2013). These numbers show the increasing problems we have in America but the main issue is that African Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate according to the NAACP “From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people.” ("Criminal Justice