Race And Just Us Or Justice For All

Due to the tight labor market, companies are relying on prisoners to provide them with labor. As of now, private prisons have become one of the largest powers in the “prison-industrial complex.” There are approximately 18 private prison corporations, which guard 10,000 prisoners, and more than 37 states have legalized the contracting of prisoners by private companies (Prison Slave Labor: Fascism U.S. – Style). For both the prisons, and the companies, it’s a good deal. Whyte and Baker list the benefits for those who utilize prison labor: no unions, strikes, health benefits, unemployment

Has the criminal justice system always been unfair to minorities? Lauryn Hill, a famous songwriter talks about several things that opened the eyes of citizens everywhere across this nation in her album MTV Unplugged No. 2.0. In her song, “Mystery of Iniquity” she exposes the unjust court system and how everyone plays a part. The word iniquity means immoral unfair behavior. In the song Lauryn is trying to understand the meaning of the unfair behavior by the criminal justice system. She released this album in 2001, and she was not wrong for publicizing her views on this masterpiece of an album. We tend to forget that under President Clinton’s term, he enforced the 3 strikes and you're out policy, which placed more African American men in person for using crack cocaine than ever before. In the early 2000s, African Americans made up nearly 80% of a prison's population due to the federal crack cocaine laws and they also served more time in prison for drug offenses than their white counterparts. However, during this time period more than 67% (⅔) of crack cocaine users were either white or Hispanic.

The Inmate Work Act has fueled rapid expansion of Oregon prison industries in the past few years and has paved the way for many joint ventures” (Oregon). “In addition, during the last 20 years more than 30 states have passed laws permitting the use of convict labor by commercial enterprises. These programs now exist in 36 states” (Whyte).

The United States accounts for 5% of the world population, but our prison population makes up 25% of the world’s (Nagin, 2014). African Americans account for the largest percent of our prison population because they have the highest incarceration rate compared to other races. This essay will argue that African Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate than Caucasians. Proven by statistical data, there are grounds to establish that the racial disparity in incarceration rates is a social problem. To address this social problem, public policy should be implemented by the Federal Government.

In today’s society, discrimination is an issue that is considered to be a thing of the past. In a country with such diversity it is hard to believe that people living in the “land of the free” face issues of racism. This paper will focus specifically on the social problem of mass incarceration of minority groups and how the criminal justice system targets these groups. Although this social problem can be linked to specifically African Americans, the impacts of mass incarceration can be felt by almost everyone. I have chosen three articles that focus on how the criminal justice system is masking mass imprisonment a major problem in minority communities.

Minorities remain overrepresented in crime, offending, victimization, and all stages of the criminal justice process especially confinement. Overrepresentation alludes to a situation in which a greater part of a particular group is present at various stages within the justice system than would be expected based on its part in the general population (Rosich, 2007). Minorities have always had a larger population in the prison system and after the Civil War they were overrepresented in American prison. There are a few reasons as to why races are disproportionately which are denial of jobs, poverty, and it is felt that police have bias and

Racial inequality is growing. Our criminal laws, while facially neutral, are enforced in a manner that is massively and pervasively biased. My research will examine the U.S. criminal justice policies and how it has the most adverse effect on minorities. According to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, out of a total population of 1,976,019 incarcerated in adult facilities, 1,239,946 or 63 percent are

The Prison Industrial Complex flourished during the Reagan Administration. It was a way for Corporate America to use cheap prison labor to make huge profits for their corporations. With 42% of the prison population being black and only 13% of the country being African American, it’s easy to realize that the government was exploiting the black prisoners with cheap labor, no union representation, and huge profits that did not get passed on to the prisoners. According to author Michelle Alexander, there are more blacks in prison today than there were enslaved in 1850. This is what she refers to as “The New Jim Crow.” In her argument, she states: “In this era of colorblindness, it was not socially permissible to use race as a tool for disfranchisement, marginalization and discrimination” (Module 9/ Page 6).

The Prison Industrial Complex can be described as a contract or lease from a private corporation that allows them to contract convict labor. The government argues that they are merely converting public tax money when in reality it has only provided profit for private corporations. It serves two purposes. The first is

Few in this country would argue with the fact that the United States criminal justice system possesses discrepancies which adversely affect Blacks in this country. Numerous studies and articles have been composed on the many facets in which discrimination, or at least disparity, is obvious. Even whites are forced to admit that statistics indicate that the Black community is disproportionately affected by the American legal system. Controversy arises when the issue of possible causes of, and also solutions to, these variations are discussed. It’s not just black versus white, it is white versus white, and white versus oriental, whatever the case may be, and it is not justice. If we see patterns then the judges should have the authority to say something. Jury nullifications cannot be overturned regardless of the cause. Exclusionary rule, according to CULS (2010) – Prevents the government from using most evidence gathered in violation of U.S. Constitution; like unreasonable search and seizure (Fourth Amendment).

America’s prisons are the most populated in the world, and they are disproportionately populated by minorities due to the set of mandatory imprisonment policies set in place. Over the past five decades, the disparity between races has widened dramatically according to the National Center on Institutions. In the 1950’s, blacks and Hispanics were the minorities in the prison system, whereas today whites are. Is this due to poverty? I’m sure poverty plays a big role in most cases.

Undoubtedly, race defines nearly aspect of the criminal justice system, from police profiling/targeting, to crimes charged and sentencing, to rates of conviction and incarceration. Blacks and Latinos make up sixty-three percent of the prison population while only making up a quarter of the total population (Hunter & Wagner, 2011). According to Michelle Alexander (in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, “More black people are in prison or jail, on probation or on parole than were enslaved in 1850”, despite the fact that whites and blacks engage in criminal activities, especially drug offenses, at roughly comparable rates (2010). Historically, there has been a tendency to strip black and brown bodies of their humanity,

Prisoner outsourcing in the United States is originally attributed to New York’s Newgate Prison in 1802. The prison was able to contract with local manufactures, effectively offsetting rising prison costs. By 1825, prisons throughout the country, including Auburn, Baltimore, Charlestown, and Wethersfield, were realizing profits resulting from “prison contracted labor industries.”

While looking at the massive number of people incarcerated in the United States, it is easy to see that a major disparity presents itself when looking at the races of those incarcerated. The numbers are astonishing: “Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”, n.d.). These questions arise: Is our criminal justice system discriminatory? Or, do minorities actually engage in more crime than whites? The statistics are clear:

Currently, many prisons are beginning to be run by private corporations. If a company is running a prison then they need prisoners to stay in business. Around 1 in every 107 Americans is currently being housed in a prison. The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population yet 25 percent of its prisoners(ACA, 2008). This is the easiest way to maintain a large prison population is by maintaining the current drug war. The largest private prison company in the United States is Corrections Corp. of America(ACA, 2008). In the last twenty years, CCA has donated nearly $5 million dollars to certain political