Racism In Prisons

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

In 1950, 70 percent of whites were imprisoned and in 1990 it flipped to 70 percent of African Americans and Latinos imprisoned. In 2008 a study showed that 68 percent of those in prison were African Americans and among drug offenders who were released, 92 percent were black (Vogel, 2016). Nearly 14 million whites and approximately 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug (Criminal, 2016). In 1980 whites were more likely to sell drugs than blacks by 45 percent. In 2012, 6.6 percent of whites sold drugs compared to just 5 percent of blacks. However, blacks are 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession of drugs. (Rothwell, 2014). Blacks make up 12 percent of the total population of drug users, but 38 percent are arrested for drug offenses. African Americans essentially serve as much time for drug offenses as whites do for violent offenses. Yet blacks are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites (Criminal, 2016). “Jerome Miller analyzed arrest statistics from several American cities to determine the impact of the War on Drugs on policing. He found striking racial disparities in how drug arrests were made. In many jurisdictions, African American men account for over eighty percent of total drug arrests. In

According to the thirteenth amendment, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The purpose of the thirteenth amendment was to end slavery or any form of involuntary servitude everywhere among the United States. There was new hope for African Americans throughout the country but unfortunately their freedom had a limit and coincidentally, President Lincoln was assassinated shortly after. Jim Crow laws were established among the states and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the southern states of the United States up until 1965. This is how white southerners

When we think about prisons, jails, and courthouses, our minds are meant to draw a connection to cold, hard, justice and fair punishments for guilty and deserving parties. Yet, in our judicial and prison systems around the world, this idea is nowhere close to reality. From inhumane punishments, to mass incarceration, and “trapping” people in the system based on race or financial status, justice is far from being served.

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.

Ratified by the states in the winter of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was put into play. It declared, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (Primary Documents). Officially, this amendment outlawed the practice of slavery, there was, however, an exception. That exception was the use of involuntary servitude, or slavery, as a form of punishment. More than four million African Americans walked free in 1865, this had a rather negative impact on the Southern economy. And so came the Convict-lease system. Many white Southerners saw this system as a solution to their economic hardships; nonetheless, it was often seen as being worse than slavery. In addition to the convict lease system was the practice of Sharecropping and Peonage. These forms of subjugation brought even greater distress to the newly freed African Americans. Despite the ratifying of the Thirteenth Amendment the abhorrent treatment of this newly freed race did not change significantly thanks to programs like the Convict Lease system, Peonage, and Sharecropping.

As agreed by Prisons: Problems and Prospects Prisons and the War on Drugs, “incarceration rates for murderers, robbers, and burglars have remained steady over the years, but the number of drug offenders who have been imprisoned has steadily escalated”. The “war on drugs” has, for the most part, added to prison overcrowding. However, it has particularly extended the degree of minorities who are sent to prison. Further readings by Nathan James (2016), “mandatory minimum penalties have contributed to the growing federal prison population”. In addition, this report also added some alternative to this development problem, “Even if Congress chooses not to repeal any mandatory minimum sentences, policymakers could review current mandatory minimum penalties to ensure that they are (1) not excessively severe, (2) narrowly tailored to apply only to those offenders who warrant such punishment, and (3) applied consistently” (James, 2016). “(1) Today narcotics offenders occupy 61% of the beds in federal prisons. (2) Meanwhile, 1 in 7 state facilities continues to operate beyond capacity. (3) Ohio leads the pack with a stunning 182% of capacity” (Smolowe, 1994).

needed as workers and were therefore used as so . What are Blacks needed for

I just want to take a second and have all of you guys close your eyes and think, think about you walking down the street drinking Dutch bros and your stopped by a police officer because of the color of your skin. How would you feel, (pick another person at random). Ok so imagine the people that have been victim to this, men and women of color who were stopped frisked, beaten and thrown into jail. Or the families who have lost love ones to corrupt, ignorant police officers. It’s sad. And it happens on nearly an everyday basis. Actually, a black man or black woman are killed about every 28 hours by law enforcement. Now isn’t that heartbreaking. Studies are shown that the legal system targets black and Hispanic men and women, and their communities. Another thing is that black and Hispanic people are given harsher punishments than white people for the same or similar offences. This study has been proved accurate multiple times. A 2012 research from washingtonpost.com that white people comprise about 62% of the U.S population and are victim of 49% of fatal police shootings. And black people comprise about 13% of the total U.S population and are victim to approximately 24% of all fatal police shooting. Black men and women have 2.5x more chances of being shot and killed by law enforcement and 5x more chances of being shot and killed if unarmed. 14% of monthly drug users are

The United States currently has the most prisoners than any other industrialized nation in the world. In December of 2013 there were more than 1.57 million inmates in federal, state and county prisons and jails. There has been a 500-790% increase in prison population in the last 30 years, resulting in overcrowding and lack of funds to support the system. More than half of the prison population are minorities. One in nine men are likely to be in incarcerated compared to one in fifty-six women. However, African American men have a higher possibility to end up in jail compared to other ethnic groups (e.g., 1 in 1 black men, 1 in 6 latino men, 1 in 17 white men, 1 in 18 black women, 1 in 45 latina women and 1 in 111 white women). Clearly, evidence demonstrates a racial disparity among the prison population in the United States.

Currently there are over 1.5 million individuals in the United States that are behind bars. The highest population of incarcerated individuals in the world. Since the passing of the War on Drugs and Crime under President Nixon the rate at which individuals especially African Americans are incarcerated has dramatically increased. 1 in 3 African American males are expected to be incarcerated at sometime within their lifetime. With the War on Drugs and different acts such as mandatory minimums and three strike policies in place the rate at which people are incarcerated will continue increasing at alarming rates. This paper will further explore these issues and ways in which this issue can be solved.

“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 early to mid-1980, there was a drug epidemic in urban cities across the nation. As a result of this, Congress created the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which gave drug offenders a higher sentence in the criminal justice system. Over the past thirty years, the United States has seen an unprecedented rise in the rate of incarceration. Between the years 1972-2000, the rate of incarceration has risen at an astonishing rate of 500%. This act in particular, had no toleration towards these offenses, consequently leading to the disappearance of probation “federal courts sentenced [twenty-six] percent of convicted drug offenders to probation. By 2014, the proportion had fallen to [six] percent, with judges sending nearly all drug offenders to prison” (“Public Safety Performance”). Not only has the rate of incarceration increased so has the sentences for these offences “from 1980 to 2011, the average prison sentence imposed on drug offenders increased [three] percent—from 54.6 to 74.2 months—even as it declined [three] percent for all other offenders” (“Public Safety Performance Project”). This leads to the larger issue in the incarceration system, which is that penalties do not match the offenses. With the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 in practice, it influenced the establishment of a five-year mandatory minimum for small drug traffickers. If a

Black people are more likely to work in public sector jobs where they suffer due to the disproportionately from the rejections of the public sector that is brought by the universal reduction of government. In the United States capitalism is well looked after and reproduced behind the Black community. The Black men, women, children live and the community are destroyed as custody gives profit through payments that are being transferred to the private corporations for building prisons. In many prisons, the prisoners are not allowed to make a vote and in some they lose their right to vote after they are released. In the year of 2015 there was a case about a victim named Michael Brown.