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The mass incarceration of african americans
Mass incarceration african americans
The impact of mass incarceration on African Americans
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Throughout the course of the semester our class discussions have centered around the question, how did the United States come to hold the title of the highest rate of incarceration in the world. All of the books and films covered in class have pointed out how race and policing practices are linked to mass incarceration. Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti discusses these issues. In his book Parenti analysis how the criminal justice system came to be what it is today, economically and politically. Parenti then discusses policing and policing on immigrants.
It is also the most incarcerated.” (Hayes, 2017, p. 7) He then backs it up with reputable and eye-opening statistics, such as the fact that nearly one out of every four prisoners in the world is an American, even though the U.S. contains only about five percent of the world’s population. According to Hayes, some have argued the total number of Americans under penal supervision rivals the number of Russians in the gulag(s) under Stalin. Chris continues to expose the disparities of punishment and violence between affluent, predominantly white communities and poor, predominantly black neighborhoods, using the cities of Baltimore and Chicago as the basis for his
Incarceration rates in the United States are extremely higher than other countries. According to Schlesinger in her article “The Failure of Race Neutral Policies: How Mandatory Terms and Sentencing Enhancements Contribute to Mass Racialized Incarceration” there are, “Currently, one and a half million people are incarcerated in either state or federal prisons” (Schlesinger). This number is very high compared to other countries. A large majority of the people incarcerated are African Americans.
Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.
Our criminal justice system is harsh on all the prisoners but especially to the African American prisoners. If our communities, courtrooms, and cell blocks work together, our criminal justice system can be
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.
At the start of the 1970s, incarceration appeared to be “a practice in decline.” One of the largest problems facing the world today is the mass incarceration of African Americans, where many arrest African Americans as they claim they appear more threatening. The government has done us wrong; it can avoid these consequences without the imprisonment of these innocent people for such diminutive crimes. These harsh conditions affect many more than just the families, communities, and individuals, but also the economy as confinement has tremendous costs on society. The sad but true reality proves that any White person can do things far more extreme than a “black person.”
Regardless which side of the political compass a person lies, Americans agree that too many individuals are imprisoned in the United States. In fact, the United States holds about 5% of the world population, but nearly 25% of the prison population (Ye Hee Lee 2015). The advent of dog-whistle politics combined with implicit racial bias has allowed for casual observers and social scientists alike to notice how minorities disproportionately make up the composition of prisons since the 1970s. While no single policy exists that can fix this "New Jim Crow," getting rid of private prisons offers the easiest first step toward mending contemporary racism. Simply put, policy that eradicates private prisons in the United States proves practical as they
One trend that African Americans have developed that best relates to chapter two is the trend to get incarcerated. Incarceration best relates to chapter 2 because of one main statement, “Then there are those who wait to have someone force growth on them. They permit the influences to drive them to prison or drug treatment programs, mental hospitals, or some type of religious cult . . . but as soon as they must take responsibility for their lives they find a way to get “re-canned” (p. 17-18).
The amount of mass incarceration in the United States as reached an all time high over the years. Mass Incarceration is the incarceration of a person or race based off of them being different and can be identified as a trend among law enforcements. These tensions have reached a certain extent and has received the attention of American citizens and the nation’s government. The laws of the United States seems fair, however with the enforcement of these laws, specific groups are targeted and abused by them daily.
In the US, incarceration rates disproportionately affect men of color. 1 in 3 black men will go to prison sometime in their life. For every 15 African American men, 1 is imprisoned, while only 1 in every 106 white men is incarcerated. With the 13th amendment to the Constitution, slavery was abolished, but with one condition.
As we can see, African Americans have endured racial inequality, physical abuse, stripped of their legal rights, and are still at educational, economic, and social disadvantages in society. Despite slavery, and the racial segregation (Jim Crow), African American men are more likely to be in prison than any other race in America. “The growth of the American penal system since the mid-1970s has been concentrated from among African Americans and the poor. During the period of the prison boom, African Americans were about six to seven times more likely than whites to be incarcerated” (3). Unfortunately, race and social class play a significant role in African Americans for imprisonment.
People of all different races and ethnicities are locked behind bars because they have been convicted of committing a crime and they are paying for the consequences. When looking at the racial composition of a prison in the United States, it does not mimic the population. This is because some races and ethnicities are over represented in the correctional system in the U.S. (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018). According Walker et al. (2018), African-Americans/Blacks make up less than fifteen percent of the U.S. population, while this race has around thirty-seven percent of the population in the correctional system today.
Over 2 million people are currently being held in United States prisons, and while the U.S. may only hold 5% of the world’s population, it houses 25% of its prisoners. In the past few years, America’s prison system has fallen under public scrutiny for it’s rising incarceration rate and poor statistics. Many Americans have recently taken notice of the country’s disproportionate prisoner ratio, realized it’s the worst on the planet, and called for the immediate reformation of the failing system. The war on drugs and racial profiling are some of the largest concerns, and many people, some ordinary citizens and others important government figures, are attempting to bring change to one of the country 's lowest aspects.
Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1963, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” , however this dream only became half true. For there is racial inequality in the criminal justice systems. A study says that 7 in 10 african americans and 1 in 4 caucasians recall that African American males have a higher possibility of being incarcerated than a caucasian male. As for all the other ethnicities, they are racially profiled in the education system.
