Bryan Stevenson's Effects On Mass Incarceration In The United States

Bryan Stevenson isn't just a great lawyer, or the founder of one of the most influential practices in the United States (Equal Justice Initiative,) but he is also an inspiration to many and a powerful speaker. Stevenson is a best-seller but also can explain his feelings just as well as write them. Stevenson said in his TED talk that "you judge the character of a society...by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated." If that's true then 99% of societies character is cruel (and unusual) because the incarcerated (and condemned) are especially treated poorly and looked down upon. In some cases, I can understand looking down on people locked away because they are true criminals, but according to Stevenson, there are many cases

For decades prior, the incarceration rate was 100-125 per 100,000 people. In 1987, it was up to 200. In 2000, it went up to 300. Now the incarceration rate is 500+ of 100,000 people. Stevenson claims that the main reason for this rise in prisoners annually is related to racism, "The War on Drugs," and tough-on-crime oneupmanship. Stevenson thinks that racism is an effect on mass incarceration because the U.S. prison system has produced large racial disparities.As of 2007, African Americans comprised 900,000 of the country’s 2.2 million inmates (according to the Sentencing Project). In 2011, Hispanics comprised more than half of new admissions to the federal prison system run by the Bureau of Prisons. At any given moment, 10 percent of the country’s 18-to 24-year-old African-American men are living behind bars. In 2010, researchers calculated that young Black men without a high school diploma are more likely to be living behind bars in the United States than to be employed. Stevenson feels that judges and jurors are skewed by these results and presume things because of them rather than listening to the evidence presented no matter what race. "The War on Drugs" is a big impact because Misguided drug laws and draconian sentencing requirements have produced profoundly unequal outcomes for communities of color. Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial and ethnic lines, blacks and Latinos are far

This is a movement that came to rise in the early 1970's that is still having affects (if not it's biggest affects now.) The policy emphasized punishment as a primary, and often sole, response to crime. It's main purpose was to prevent crimes from happening by scaring criminals straight. However, the ironic part is that these policies main goal was to stop crime, yet according to Stevenson, these policies are a crime themselves because of the innocent people that are sent away due to the "Three Strikes" policy. The effects of these policies are alarming. Local, state and federal governments have all adopted and implemented these policies resulting in enormous increases in drug arrests, more punitive sentencing proposals, resurgence of the death penalty, departure from juvenile justice systems, and increased racial profiling (funny how it always comes back to this.) So in the end, "The Three Strikes" policy affects racism, "The Drug War" affects racism, and racism affects judges and jurors decisions and judgement which doesn't give justice to the innocent defendants. The counterargument to this that some people will have is that the more prisoners there are, and the more strict the laws are, the greater the chance there is that the worst criminals won't be out in public and will be behind bars. While this is true, Stevenson states in "Just Mercy" that "there are more people framed per year than