What Is Racism In The United States

After 245 years of slavery, the United States consistently tries to redefine itself as an inclusive country in attempt to erase their past. In reality, those who are in power have found new ways to enforce their power on non whites, specifically African-Americans in America, one of which is through the prison system. Eller mentions that although the percentage in the American population of black men are 12 percent, they constitute for 44 percent of arrests for violent crimes (Eller, pg. 280). In addition, African-Americans are given longer prison sentences for the same crime committed by

There have been 100,000 African Americans in prison since Brown vs Board of education. The article states that the trend will continue, 1 of every 3 African American males are apparently born today can expect to go to prison in their time, 1 in 6 Latino males, compared to 1 in every 17 White males. But for women, it is much lower, but the ethnicity does not change: 1 out of 18 African Americans, 1 out of 45 Hispanics, and finally 1 of every 111 White females, are expected to serve some time in prison. At any given day, 1 in every 13 African American males between 30 to 39 will incarcerated in a state or federal prison on any given day. This compares to the demographics of the group because in communities of color they are not affected only by incarceration but by high

American has a legacy of the mistreatment and disenfranchisement of African Americans. The same bad treatment that many think only took place in the past is in fact still intact, it’s just presented in a new way. The mass incarceration of blacks in the Unites States can be attributed to the “racial hierarchy” that has always existed. The U.S contributes to about 5% of the worlds overall population, and about 25% of the worlds prison population (Holland 1), “if those rates reflected jail, probation and parole populations, the numbers would rise exponentially”(Griffith 9). Statics show that there is a chance that about 1 in 3 black males are expected end up in prison (Jacobson). Although, in terms of the entire United States population African Americans only make up about 13% (Prison Activist Resource Center. Racism Fact Sheets: “ Latinos and the Criminal Injustice System.” 2003). There is a huge number of African Americans involved in the criminal justice system in some way. The average person does not know about mass incarceration nor about the racism that is in just about every part of the criminal justice system. When most people think about racism their thoughts often drift to slavery or Jim Crow laws, but for most, they do not consider how the amount of African Americans in prison today could be due to bias or racism. A significant cause of mass incarceration is the same racism that produced the Jim Crow era.

Statistics show that throughout American history, African American’s incarceration rates have always been higher than white American’s incarceration rates. The actual incarceration rate in America started dramatically increasing during the 1970’s and the US continues to be the country with the highest incarceration rate. To get a sense of just how much it has grown, in 2011 the prison population was at more than two million compared to 300,00 in 1970. Just in 2009 alone, the incarceration rate of African Americans was 3,119 per 100,000 Americans, compared to the rate of white Americans which was only 487 per 100,000 Americans.2 The gap is huge, especially since white American incarceration rate wasn’t even close to being in the thousands and this statistic makes the disparity glaring. The future and predictions aren’t looking any better either, in 2001 the Bureau of Justice

In the year of 2009, the United States population consisted of approximately 195,629,400 million Caucasians and 36,285,000 million African-Americans (Perez). Seems like a huge differ- ence, right? Also, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2009, there were 5,382,464 million Caucasian criminals and 2,472,370 million African-American criminals (Table 49). Those numbers are close, and that is the point. To back this up, in 2000, 12.3 percent of the United States population were African-Americans, according to the United States census data. Also, information from the Department of Justice says that approximately forty percent of all criminals that went to prison were African-Americans. People can tell that from these statistics, the average African-American is more likely to commit a crime than the average Caucasian indi- vidual

The United States currently has the highest incarcerated population in the world with 2.2 million adults incarcerated in 2014 (Kaeble, Glaze, Tsoutis, & Minton, 2016). African American males represent a disproportionate amount of the incarcerated population, which is defined by those confined in either prison or jail (Crutchfield & Weeks, 2015). Although, African-Americans account for roughly 13% of the United States population, they comprised 37% of the male prison population (Carson, 2015; U.S. Census Bureau, 2016) and 35.4% of the male jail population within the United States in 2014 (Minton & Zeng, 2015). The imprisonment of over 750,000 African American males constitutes a social issue because it targets a historically oppressed minority causing rippling social and economic effects throughout the country.

We live in a Nation that has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world, standing at about 700 for every 100,000 people are incarcerated. To put that into perspective that's about 1.6 to 2 million people of the 315 million people in the U.S. With about 40% of them being African American. 40% may not sound very high but, the surprising fact around all of these statistics, is only 13% of the entire population is African American. You may ask yourself how is this possible? Well let’s talk about that. The three major factors that contribute to high black incarceration rates are due to broken black communities/growth roots, the recidivism cycle and prejudice among police forces.

The number of African American males in prison is astounding. I feel that without a doubt, blacks are no more criminal than anyone else in our society. Yet, it is as if blacks are more familiar with the criminal justice system than anyone else. It is almost as if

A problem in the United States today is that there are too many people in prison, especially African American males. “African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 5.1 times the imprisonment of whites” says FARS News Agency. Many conservatives say “ do the crime do the time”, but are African-Americans committing as much crime as the incarceration reports tell us? Michelle Nealy’s Diverse Issues in Higher Education “Black men: left out and locked up” informs the reader “There are an estimated 1.5 million African American men in prison and another 3.5 million on probation. Black males make up more than 70 percent of the total prison population, even though they make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.”(Nealy). Majority of African American men are put in an environment where there are high rates in poverty, availability of drugs, low employment rates, and low graduation rates. These are all important factors to consider because they all

According to Frank Schmalleger “On January 1, 2013, the nation’s state and federal prisons held 1,571,013 inmates, of which 1,512,391 were serving sentences of a year or more. Slightly more than 7% (or 108,866) of those imprisoned were women” (Schmalleger, p. 429). After further examination of prison statistics based on race a huge disparity was evident between blacks and whites in prison. “ Whereas only and estimated 1,001 white men are imprisoned in the United States for every 100,000 white men in their late 20s, figures show and incarcerations rate of 6,927 black men for every 100,000 black men of the same age—seven times greater than the figure for whites” (Schmallager, p. 430).

“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.

African Americans have always been degraded ever since slavery. We are looked upon as the scum of the earth. In today’s society, racism is shown towards African Americans the U.S. strongly. Especially when it comes to prison. African Americans are in prison darn near six times the rate of whites. African Americans and Hispanics make up 58% of prisoners in prison. This data was taken back in 2008 but statistics show that there are more African American men in college than in prison. This chart shows the number of African American in college outweighs the number of African Americans in prison. These results also show that the negative thing society says about African Americans is becoming less and less true each day.

I would always read these statistics online about how there are more African Americans incarcerated than any other race. Before I came in to the prison, I honestly thought those statistics were maybe over exaggerated, but once I entered the majority are indeed African Americans, which is very upsetting. I saw a couple of white people and the rest were Hispanics mixed with African Americans, which is extremely disappointing to see. This also doesn’t help the stigma that is going on throughout the country with people of color.

Over the last decade there were more than 1.4 million sentenced inmates at the end of 2003, an estimated 403,165 were Black men between ages 20 and 39. Compared with 12.3 percent of young Latino men and 6.7 percent of young white men, 76 percent of young black men are behind bars (AP, P50). . When compared to other races. What is the real issue of what's going on when it comes to black men in America? Is this a from of self-destruction?

One in three Black males will go to prison in their lifetime . That horrendous fact, isn't because black men are more dangerous or more risk averse, it is because of the society we live in. In his article “White Racism, Black Crime, and American Justice,” criminologist Robert Staples argues that the legal system was made by white men to protect white interests and keep blacks down. Staples goes further to say that the system was characterized by second-rate legal help for black defendants, biased jurors, and judges who discriminate in sentencing .