Montserratt Perez Mr. De Guzman US Government 22 April 2024 The 13th The film The 13th explores the links between mass incarceration and racism in the United States. Through the perspectives of those who participated in the making of this film, The 13th sheds light on the systematic issues that Black Americans and people of color face. A key theme of the documentary is the concept that the 13th Amendment abolished inherent slavery and instead made it a punishment for a crime. The main argument of the film’s collaborators is that the loophole found in the amendment is exploited by the government as a way to wrongfully accuse and incarcerate people of color. The documentary calls on people to challenge their understanding of the prison system …show more content…
Browder was subject to extreme conditions during his time at Rikers, including being placed in solitary confinement for nearly 2 years. The justice system failed to uphold the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” when they sentenced Browder without having put his case through a proper trial. Before knowing his story, I had never put much thought into how the system is set up against low-income individuals. Browder was not able to pay his bail, which prolonged his incarceration. The events that took place during the years he was imprisoned caused psychological trauma and eventually led to Browder taking his own life at 22 years old. Not being able to afford bail or the things needed to build a proper defense is a harsh reality for many Americans subject to the system. After watching the documentary, I would like to know more about prison reform. This topic hits close to home for me. I have a person in my immediate family who has spent nearly 10 years in prison. Knowing and talking to him, I can understand how living in that environment affects a person both physically and mentally. He entered in his early twenties and was released when he was
After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests. Working in a reception facility, this is a facility where inmates are brought in from the county jails to the state intake facility, we deal with a lot of requests and questions. At times, with the phone ringing off the hook from family members and inmates with their prison request forms, you get a little cynical and tired of answering the same questions over and over. As I read the book I begin to understand some of the reason for the questions. Inmate(s) now realize that the officers and administrative personnel are in control of their lives. They dictate with to get up in the morning, take showers, eat meals, go to classes, the need see people for different reason, when to exercise and when to go to bed. The lost of control over their lives is a new experience for some and they would like to be able to adjust to this new lost of freedom. Upon understanding this and in reading the book, I am not as cynical as I have been and try to be more patient in answering questions. So in a way I have changed some of my thinking and understanding more of prison life.
The movie 13th mainly discusses the problem of racism and mass incarceration after the civil war. Specifically, it is covered in the documentary that many poor black people were put in jail due to minor misbehaviors and were forced to work for the country under convict leasing. Moreover, black people were treated unfairly and sometimes were tortured unlawfully in the society. The “War on drugs” declared by conservative Republicans were biased against black community and resulted in a significant increase in incarceration in the late 20th. In addition, a lot of companies such as Walmart cooperated with States in terms of private prison constructions and gained a huge amount of profits as a result.
The 6th amendement of the U.S. Constituion gurantees the acussed the right to a speedy trial. In New York more specifically, the prosecution must be ready for trial on all felonies except murder within six months, or the charges aginst a defendant can be dissmissed. However, an article written in The New Yorker by Jennifer Gonnerman about a young man named Kalief Browder, sheds light on a situation that is should have been handled more differently. Kalief browder spend three years on Rikers Island in what could only be described as horrible conditions, and suffered appalling violence, without ever being convicted of a crime. The failure of our Criminal Justice System not only deprived Kalief Browder the right to a speedy trial, but also robbed such a young man of an education, and most importantly his freedom. - Thesis Statement .
In the 21 first Century, the United States still has an extremely large number of individuals in the penal system. To this day, the American country still contains the highest prison population rate in the world. Although mass incarceration rates are extremely high, decreases in this number have been made. Since the first time since the 1970s, the imprisoned population has declined about 3 percent. This small step seemingly exemplifies how a vast majority of individuals who becoming aware of these issues and performing actions to decrease these numbers. In the Chapter 13 of James Kilgore’s Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time, he asserts how individuals who oppose mass incarceration
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
We live in a society today filled with crime and fear. We are told not to go out after a certain hour, always move in groups, and even at times advised to carry a weapon on ourselves. There is only one thing that gives us piece of mind in this new and frightening world we live in: the American penal system. We are taught when growing up to believe that all of the bad people in the world are locked up, far out of sight and that we are out of reach of their dangerous grasp. Furthermore, the murderers and rapists we watch on television, we believe once are caught are to be forgotten and never worried about again. We wish on them the most horrible fates and to rot in the caged institution they are forced to call their new home. But, where do we draw the line of cruelty to those who are some of the cruelest people in our country? And what happens when one of this most strict and strongest institution our nation has breaks down? What do we do when this piece of mind, the one thing that lets us sleep at night, suddenly disappears? This is exactly what happened during and in the after effects of the Attica prison riot of 1971. The riot created an incredibly immense shift and change not only in the conditions of prisons, but also in the security we feel as American citizens both in our penal system and American government. The Attica prison riot brought about a much-needed prison reform in terms of safety and conditions for inmates, which was necessary regardless of the social backlash it created and is still felt today.
America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, in which most inmates are Black and Hispanic. Blacks are perceived as socially deviant, so society easily deems them as being criminals. Assata Shakur was convicted and prosecuted for numerous charges, including resisting lawful arrest, possession of an illegal weapon, intention to kill, physical assault, robbery at several locations, and other charges (13). Although Shakur was not at the scene of these alleged crimes, law enforcement decisively arrested and charged her. If Shakur was White, rather than a Black woman, the legal system would have perceived her as innocent and treat her leniently. Nevertheless, Law Enforcement carries a bias prejudice towards Blacks, and benefits from their oppression. Similarly to the New Jim Crow, in which incarceration is utilized as a means to exploit Blacks and empower Whites. Shakur believes, “Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery… They certainly aren’t planning to put white people in them. Prisons are part of this government’s genocidal war against Black and Third World People” (Shakur, 65). The privatization of prisons has increased and pursues to capitalize on minority inmates through the production of goods, while lawfully abiding by the 13th Amendment. Likewise, One who is convicted of an alleged crime is faced with a trial that is skewed to oppress Blacks from
The documentary, Hard Time: Worse of the Worse offered an eye-opening glimpse into the American prison system. The film showed the American prison system is one with strict rules to follow, ran with a zero tolerance policy. The documentary was an accurate portrayal of how prison life is that offered adequate information of how inmates behind bars live their lives day to day in a maximum-security prison. It was interesting to see a documentary on a maximum-security prison, since it is less common amongst the security types. The documentary depicted the American prison system to be ruthless, rule orientated, and militaristic with high security discipline, and its own prison subculture.
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.
In the graphic novel Race to Incarcerate the mass incarceration of black men is refereed to as a new form of slavery. The system is set up to drag minority men into imprisonment. Once blacks are arrested they are more likely than white counterparts to be charged, convicted and serve harsher prison sentences. Sentences that go on their permanent record, that is if they are released. In numerous cases black defendants are unable to higher a lawyer, and given a Public defender, who tend to push plea deals onto clients. Plea deals can be pushed even if the person is truly innocent, as a way to end the case. And the very few cases that make it to trial with jury’s have a disproportionate number of all white jury’s and black defendants. Ultimately, these factors increase the likelihood of imprisonment for African Americans. But perhaps the most significant factor in the astonishing rates of blacks behind bars is the ongoing and longest war in American
Although our present day society still questions whether the rights of the Individual should outweigh the public order or the social order of our country should outweigh the individual rights has enlightened me to a distorted vision and a compromised system and questionable Leadership. “African- American men comprise less than 6% of the U.S. population and almost one-half of its criminal prisons.” Quoted by the Bureau of justice statistics. When research is conducted by another other than oneself yield such great crippling results, it does hold truths to be true to that which began before our awakening
In Ava DuVernay’s film 13th she analyzes the pioneering events that led up to this toxic system known as the Prison Industrial Complex. She critically examines how the same golden ticket that, supposedly, granted our freedom was the same rabbit hole that kept black Americans in a cycle of slavery. DeVernay illuminates the ideology that if this system of “militarism, racism, and capital” could somehow manage to criminalize black Americans their institutions could continue and perhaps excel. Jordan Camp & Christina Heatherton’s Policing the Planet expounds upon this ideology that allowed those systems of “militarism, racism, and capital” to maintain power. Broken windows policing, “emerges as an ideological and political project,”(2) ideological in the sense of DeVernay’s examination of embedding criminality on the character of the
Bibliography:.. **Parenti, Christian, Lockdown America (London; New York: Verso, 1999) 17-19. Lynch, Michael J. and Patterson, Britt, Race and Criminal Justice (New York: Harrow and Heinstien, 1991). *Ranese, Celia "Todays Prison system vs. Yesterdays Slave System" USA TALK 13 March 1999. *Palmer, Louise "Numbers of Blacks in Prison Nears 1 Million" The Boston Globe Seattle Post Intelligencer *United States Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics: Prison Inmate Statistics, Washington 1998 *Polowsky, Robert, "Liberal Legacy" Prison Activist Resource Center (weekly).
The American criminal justice system has long been plagued by issues of racial injustice and mass incarceration, deeply entrenched within its historical roots. Through literature and film, authors and filmmakers have sought to illuminate these systemic injustices, shedding light on the myriad factors contributing to the pervasive presence of mass incarceration, particularly among marginalized communities. Jesmyn Ward's novel "Sing, Unburied, Sing" and Ava DuVernay's documentary "The 13th" are potent vehicles for exploring these complex issues. In this essay, we will examine how these works intersect and complement each other in their exploration of racial inequality, the legacy of slavery, and the profound impact of mass incarceration on individuals
2nd ed. of the book. USA: Penguin Books, Ltd. [Accessed 01 January 2014]. The Prison Reform Trust.