Aa Duvernay Analysis

Governor Wilma James’ state is facing severe budget cuts due to economic struggles and drops in tax revenues. The Department of Revenue had informed the governor that she must find ways to reduce the budget by $6 billion. There are several areas which the governor acknowledged as fixed and cannot be touched such as, health care and pension payments. Several proposals were brought to the governor’s attention and the one that stands out the most were the prison system. After conversing with the correctional commissioner, the governor decided to order an early release of inmates whose been charged with drug related crimes. Governor James believes that her action will reduce the state’s budget immensely; however, another problem that may transpire, is the rise of drug related criminal activities occurring all across the state. This essay will briefly highlight the contexts of prison labor and work release programs, and how it would be a better alternative as compared to the early releasing of felons incarcerated for drug related crimes.

currently has the highest imprisonment rate per capita of any country in the world, and although we have about four percent of the global population, we have twenty-two percent of all prisoners. However, it has not always been this way; as only three decades ago our prison population was one eighth of its current size. This unparalleled growth of the prison system has forced America to create a vast prison industry that has become increasingly reliant on private capital. This prison industrial complex has not only turned imprisonment into a profitable business but also reinforced racial disparities in America. The argument that capitalism in this context undermines our democratic values rests of three key points: Firstly, that drug enforcement is racially biased, secondly that private capital has become enmeshed in incarceration industry and thirdly that prison labor is becoming increasingly connected to the United States Economy.

The documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay was a visual masterpiece. The documentary provided its viewers with an array of information that spanned throughout centuries and was eloquently executed in less than 2 hours. The central focus of the film was about how the 13th amendment shaped this country and its prison system. The 13th amendment was the building block for mass incarceration and as time has gone on, new laws and amendments strengthened the process for more people to get incarcerated. Slavery benefited the country as a whole and as the Civil War was winding down, slavery was coming to an end. As the documentary states, the South especially relied heavily on slavery for their economy to sustain. After the passing of the 13th amendment, slaves were freed and it left the South’s economy in shambles. A stipulation within the 13th amendment, that states “Neither slavery not involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been dully convicted, shall exist within the United States.” In turn, mass amounts of newly freed slaves were arrested and deemed criminals. Being criminalized reduced them back to a lower status in the United States, and unfortunately reignited slavery in a new kind of form. The film was not only educational, it also provided its viewers with knowledge about why there is such a disparity in mass incarnations amongst people of color compared to their white counterparts.

The institution of slavery dates back before written records. The term slave was originally a derivative from the historical French and Latin medieval word for Slavic people of central and Eastern Europe. [ (wikipedia, 2010) ] In North America, the class system is systematically at the root of every socioeconomic and political issue resulting in Super companies, multibillionaires and the formation of lobbyists and special interest groups; there always has and always will be the have and have-nots. Unfortunately, for African Americans who have historically been the have-nots, that does not seem to have changed as evidenced by recent events like the Jenna 6. African Americans have a history uniquely

Bohn & Hanley (2011) expresses a clear dramatic increase in the number of people incarcerated in the United States since the early 1970’s, mostly because of drugs (pg. 365). Another notable fact reveals the increase of confinement is the rising charge in price per day to house prisoners; as well, keep jails and prison overcrowded to make more profit (Bohn & Hanley, 2011, pg.369). Although efforts to provide alternatives methods to long-term incarceration exists, the fact still remains that private sectors that own prisons and jails still depend on a high rate of imprisonment (Bohm & Hanley, 2011, pg. 370). Noticeably, the strategic approach taken is to build larger facilities to house more offenders, make more profit from their crimes and

The United States of America, a country that calls itself the land of the free and home of the brave, has 5% of the Earth's population, and is home to the highest prison population in the world. This is the point of focus in the documentary 13th, expertly directed by Ava DuVernay, The film uses many credible sources throughout the footage, essentially Angela Davis, John Hagen, Henry Louis Gates along with plenty of others. Centered around ‘modern’ slavery and mass incarceration especially in the African-American community, the film has expertly woven hundreds of years of history in a less than 2 hour feature by its use of musical scores, strong visual impact, directing and commendable way it presents information. (4) Add 2

Nonetheless, the US increased correctional funding by 50 billion dollars and increased the staff count by half a million, thus making jails and prison the country's third largest employer behind large corporation such as: Manpower, Incorporated, and Walmart (Frampton et al., 2008: 24). The incarceration binge, gave rise to “for profit” private prisons that captured seven percent of the market, which offered more beds than other country’s prisons combined. Hence, the criminalization of poverty of those trapped at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder has been correlated to organizations and programs that are entrusted to assist the poor. However, rather than implement poverty policy, so called government budgetary constraints have converged toward the commodification of incarceration. As such, states now consign large portions of its inmates to private institutions, and subcontract specialized firms to handle the large influx of prisoners, largely revolving inmate offenders; parolees failing to complete the terms of parole make up a third of persons admitted to state penitentiaries every year, and makes parole an appendage of prison, namely extending the prisons reach beyond its walls (Wacquant, 2001: 113). In this way, prisoners, largely, poor minorities are the profitable engine of the prison industrial complex, of which symbiotic relationship between prison and the ghetto is easily

Now when the word slavery comes to mind in our current modernized society, majority of people think of it as something that has long gone and past, a long and tragic historical event that has happened decades and decades ago. A time where human beings were exploited and had no freedom of movement and far from the modernized world we currently live in. But unfortunately slavery still exists to this very day and believe it or not, even in a more prominent scale. Although slavery has been prohibited, the practice of slavery still exists albeit in different

These are two very important facts about the “real” history of this country. Not the Christopher Columbus story we actually celebrate and consider a federal holiday. Two particular groups were treated poorly by the “white” population and enslaved for no other reason but to gain wealth, and prosperity. Blacks were not even allowed to consider themselves as people, but regarded as property- like a chair, table, or hog. Indians were lied to continuously and “tricked” out of their land by Whites by believing the promises (promised land) made to them leaving them displaced, and many lost their lives in the process on the Trail of Tears (ushistory.org). I assume this “promise” was similar to the “40

With the 13th amendment, forced servitude was rendered unlawful, yet remaining shrapnel of the bomb that is slavery continues to strain the nation’s body today. While the northern states of the US abolished slavery in the early 1800s, the rest of the country did not do so until decades later. Despite the fact that slavery is over, more than half of our nations African American citizens continue to be bound by chains as part of the correctional system. Sure, America has claimed responsibility for its wrongdoings towards an entire race, but a question remains. How come it took over a hundred years for slavery to be abolished? Especially considering that the single unsubstantiated excuse for slavery was that the Africans were “sub-human”. The

Slavery in America can be traced all the way back to colonial times, or as historians have dated; 1619. Although slavery had technically been abolished by the late 1800’s, issues over race still remained prominent. Regulations such as “Jim Crow Laws”, that claimed to provide “separate but equal” facilities, only helped to segregate minorities and treat them as second class citizens. In response to such suppressive inequalities, the United States decided to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major

In America, people know that slavery existed for about four- hundred years. The enslavement of Africans was probably the most horrific events in American history. Within these 400 years not only were people taken against their will and put to work for no pay. This time can even be considered a Holocaust in America. Many slaves were beaten, raped and killed because of it, several lives were sacrificed throughout this disgusting era in American history. Slavery was definitely the roughest time period in America for any race, but at the time America loved slavery. For slaves were the key component in the upbringing of American in its early stages. Slaves were forced to give free labor, which allowed slave owners to thrive financially due to not having to pay their workers any money. But what exemplified the entire system of slavery that made it such a successful venture at the time was, it was legal. Yes, to strip a human being from any rights, break up family, take away their dignity as a human, and force them to tireless hours for no pay was completely legal. This system gave people rights of people, “Slave Owners” where within the rights to claim other human beings their own property, with no penalty or repercussions. If you were African in America you no longer able to keep your name. As a Slave, you were given a new name, you were no longer treated like a man or a woman but like property. With all these terrible things there had to be a system put in place to make sure

Slavery is a black eye on the soul of America’s history. There has never been an excuse for one human to own another. We humans as a species should always have been treated equally. Why should people own other people? Are human beings animals? How can you hate someone so much by the colour of their skin? There simply is no answer. Slavery began around the 1600’s when the first black man was used as a servant. The slavery continued on, all the way through to the 1900’s where the servants were used to clean, cook food, babysit and do the dirty work around the house while a racist extremist group called the Ku Klux Klan that believed in Hitler’s message abused them with hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism. Black people were treated like they were the scum of the earth; they were abused, spit on, beaten and in worst case scenario, murdered. They weren’t allowed to go to the same stores, schools, diners, and churches as the white people in America which was a huge

Slavery, American capitalism, and modern-day prison labor are inextricably linked to a greater extent than is usually recognized. There are a number of specific reasons why this is true. But, before we dive into this topic it is important to understand the intentional diction in which every sentence is formatted in this paper. It is not meant to contain normative language (the way things should be) rather its purpose is to shine a light on certain ideology (the way things are) in a manner that is easy to understand. This is tricky because while outright spoken racism is becoming harder to find on the surface, it is most assuredly lurking beneath. This particular ideology mutates and evolves to meet the demands of its time proving itself to be essential to upholding any system of oppression. This new implicit form of racism is very alive today but rarely shows its’ face, rather it hides in the shadows only to be seen by a trained eye. Hopefully, after reading this paper you will have an eye for this type of corruption like a hawk.

As stated in the introduction, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. In “Correcting Course: Lessons from the 1970 Repeal of Mandatory Minimums” (2008), Molly Gill states, “Many of the offenders are not murderers, robbers, or rapists, but drug users, addicts, or sellers” (Gill, 2008, p. 55). When charting the history of mandatory minimum sentencing, from 1951, to their repeal in 1970, and their reinstatement in the mid 1980’s, much of the evidence regarding its successes is questionable. Mandatory minimums fail with respect to reducing drug use and drug crime. The Boggs Act, in the 1950’s, attempts to curb the use and distribution of drugs with strict minimums, but fails, as evidenced by excessive use of marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960’s. The harsh reality of mandatory minimums is they are not working or discouraging drug use. What they are doing is contributing to the exploding cost of corrections, and imposing heavy burdens on families because the wage earner is serving a lengthy prison sentence. In the ten years prior to 2000, drug offenders account for more than half of the federal prison population growth. In 2000, more than half of federal prisoners are serving sentences for drug offenses. By 2007, close to five and half billion dollars is being spent to incarcerate federal inmates. The author notes that mandatory minimums create disparities in sentencing and federalizes offenses that fall under state jurisdiction. By the