Causes Of Minority Incarceration

When you think of mass incarceration it is imperative to look at the causes that affect minorities. One major thing that produced an increase in mass incarceration is the war on drugs. The war on drugs has impacted minorities in a major way. The war on drugs pushed policymakers to structure laws that were targeting underprivileged individual mainly minorities group. In addition, “The deinstitutionalisation of people with mental illnesses, and punitive sentencing policies such as three-strike laws (mandating life imprisonment for third offences of even relatively minor felonies) and mandatory minimum sentences for specific offence, even for some first0time offenders undoubtedly helped to both launch mass incarceration and keep it going” (Wilderman, & Wang, 2017, p. 1466). The war on drugs came during a time when crack cocaine became widespread in the black community. The popularity of crack cocaine became prevalent and accessible for many low-income individuals. Therefore, the high rate of crime that was induced by the crack epidemic forced many jobs to leave the communities. However, the structuring of laws put more emphasis on crack cocaine than powder cocaine. Not to mention, crack cocaine is prevalent in minority communities, and powder cocaine is present in the majority community. According to Martensen (2012), “Not only does this deny accessible goods and services to local residents, it likewise decreases the local job opportunities available for community members” (p. 214). Consequently, many African American called on the police to take action against the same people that looked just like them. Crutchfield, & Weeks (2015) states, “Some of the changes during this period of increased incarceration that disadvantaged people of color coming into the justice system were implemented with the help and support of African American political leadership” (p. 109). Therefore, lawmakers had to come up with a solution to address the issue. Law-makers created laws that put emphasis on arresting drug dealers for selling drugs. These small-time drug dealers were becoming a hazard to the community. However, the laws begin to cause harm to all that looked brown or black whether

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe (Pettit, 2004). In the 1980s, U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to decrease steadily. Many urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law

The criminal justice system in the United States promotes the mass incarceration of blacks can be seen through the high number of African-Americans going to jail for drugs compared to any other race. According to www.naacp.org “about 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug”; if someone was to calculate this that means five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans.

The trend of African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 has seen a dramatic increase of incarceration. Attention has been focusing on areas of housing, education, and healthcare but the most prominent problem for African American males is the increase in the incarceration rate. African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 incarceration rate has been thought, by many, to be caused by economic factors such as under employment or unemployment, poor housing, lack of education, and lack of healthcare. Yet, others believe it is due to the imbalance of minorities within the criminal justice system, such as judges, lawyers, and lawmakers.

African Americans constitute 12% of the U.S. population, 13% of the drug using population and fully 74% of the people sent to prison for drug possession. Studies have shown that minorities are subject to disparate treatment at arrest, bail, charging, plea bargaining, trial, sentencing, and every other stage of the criminal process. These disparities accumulate so that African Americans are represented in prison at seven times their rate in the general population; rates of crime in African American communities is often high, but not high enough to justify the disparity. The resentment destabilizes communities and demeans the entire nation. (Justice, 2004)

The “War on Drugs” established that the impact of incarceration would be used as a weapon to combat the illegal drug problem in this country. Unfortunately, this war against drugs has fallen disproportionately on black Americans. “Blacks constitute 62.6% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons in 1996, whereas whites constituted 36.7%. The drug offender admissions rate for black men ranges from 60 to an astonishing 1,146 per 100,000 black men. In contrast, the white rate begins at 6 and rises no higher than 139 per 100,000 white men. Drug offenses accounted for nearly two out of five of all black admissions to state prisons (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.

In the prison system today, there has been an explosion of minorities being incarcerated for offenses that may not have gotten jail time if they had not been of a certain race. Although the overall numbers of incarcerations may have dropped just slightly for the first time in over 35 years, the amount of inmates

Of the many tribulations that plague Americans today, the increase in the amount of African American men and women in prisons is unbelievable. It would be naïve to say that the increase is due to the fact that more African Americans are committing crimes now than before. When in actuality it has very prevalent connections to a systematic plan to incarcerate a race of people by creating harsh drug laws to

The past quarter century has seen an enormous growth in the American incarceration rate. Importantly, some scholars have suggested that the rate of prison growth has little to do with the theme of crime itself, but it is the end result of particular U.S. policy choices. Clear (2007) posits that "these policy choices have had well-defined implications for the way prison populations have come to replicate a concentrated occurrence among specified subgroups in the United States population in particular young black men from deprived communities" (p. 49).

“The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison” (Alexander, 2012). The numbers tell the story better than words can: black people are more likely to go to prison than any other race in the United States, shown by the fact that more than 60% of the prison population is composed of people of color (The Sentencing Project, 2016). These statistics can be traced back to several different cause, including the Era of Jim Crow and the War on Drugs, both of which led to higher policing in minority areas.

In the black community, prison is a very real, significant problem. Through real life experiences and media, incarceration of black people has been normalized. In addition, black Americans are arrested and incarcerated at rates that are disproportionate to their population makeup (which is only 13% of the U.S. population in comparison to 63% of their white counterparts.)

America is known for having the largest number of prisoners in the world. One out of 10 adults in the United States has been to prison. The United States holds 25% of all prisoners in the world. The increase in the number of prisoners throughout the years since 1970 has been caused by factors like the dismantling of the mental health system in the country, introduction of mandatory minimum sentence laws, and laws that allow for harsh punishment on any person caught dealing or using drugs. However, within the prison population, there are worrying and disturbing racial disparities. According to the National Associated for the Advancement of Colored People, African Americans make 34% of the 6.8 million prison population and are imprisoned 5 times more than Whites. “If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40%” (NAACP).

Statement of Facts: High incarceration rates have been an issue in criminal justice over the past forty years. The issue can also affect the perception that the public has on the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, over the past forty years it has been a negative issue that has impacted the public perception. Some people may view the criminal justice system as a broken system due to the high rates, but fortunately it is not the case. High incarceration rates “do not simply reflect a rising crime rate that has strained the capacity of a besieged justice system. Crime did rise during this period, but the main reason for the stunning growth in prison populations was that the courts and legislatures did indeed get tougher on offenders.” (Currie, 1998) One particular group that may have a negative perception of the criminal justice system due to the high incarceration rates is the African-American population “The rise in incarceration rates has also disproportionately affected minority populations.” (Collier, 2014) The African- American population statistically contributed around forty percent of the prison population back in 2011, even though they only make up approximately 13 percent of the United

In the work racial politics, racial disparities, and the war on crime, the author Tonry describes how the criminal justice and system in America has always been biased against the black Americans (Tonry, 1994). There has to be a number of studies related to the disparities in the criminal justice. As per the author, stereotyping plays a major role; however, it's also the drug policies and political corruption which leads to more black people being imprisoned (Tonry, 1994). Since the 1980s, the war on drugs encouraged incarceration. The bias against Blacks was particularly brought about by the Reagan and Bush administration, according to the author. The increasing pattern of racial disparities in American prison is evidenced by the percentage of black jail inmates.

Racial Disparities in the Criminal justice system are evident as shown by the higher statistic of one particular race or ethnicity within an institution such as jail or prison is higher than the statistic in the community. There are clear signs of racial disparity in the sentencing of criminals for similar charges (Nellis, A., 2016). For example, the war on drugs, which purpose is to eliminate all drug use within the United States, but sentencing for drugs such as cocaine and crack cocaine which chemical composition is similar are sentenced differently. The disparities become apparent when observing where the usage of each drug exists. Despite polices and procedure set by law enforcement agencies racial disparities are present within policing. Some officers use racial bias policing or excessive force when patrolling their jurisdiction. The uses of racial bias policing are due to prejudices help by the officers or bigotry.