It would be ignorant to say that racial disparity in the justice system, especially the process of incarceration, is not an issue in our country. There are countless people, more specifically, Black individuals who are wrongfully convicted and/or mistreated by our system. We have a sufficient, or even ample amount of statistical evidence to prove this point.

In order to understand the issue at hand, we have to understand its history. In the last post, we looked at the history of Black individuals in the United States from a legal sense, we now are going to have a quick overview of the prison systems throughout American history to understand the issue more in-depth.

1790: The first prison-like structure was built in Philadephia, Pennsylvania. The structure was extremely isolating, as the goal was to “give offenders time to think on their actions.” (Sweet, 2020).

1866: Convict leasing increases and spreads throughout the country. As the name suggests, convict leasing is the practice of trading an inmate, mostly Black men, to private business owners in exchange for a fee (Sweet, 2020).

1871: American prisons were formally established on a federal level in 1871 – followed by the “Three Prison Acts” which created the first three prisons USP Leavenworth, USP Atlanta, and USP McNeil Island. These prisons had limited supervision of inmates and were overseen by the Department of Justice (Sweet, 2020).

1871: The Virginia Supreme Court in Ruffin v. The Commonwealth deems prisoners as “slaves of the state” and could be denied basic rights as they were not considered to be human anymore (Sweet, 2020).

1928: All states have outlawed Convict Leasing (Sweet, 2020).

1930: Congress creates the Bureau of Prisons. This team would be charged with maintaining humanity in prisons, preserving all prisoners’ rights and health, and upkeeping all federal correctional institutions (Sweet, 2020).

1940: Convict leasing is now formally abolished federally. It is considered involuntary servitude (Sweet, 2020).

The 1970s: The “War On Drugs” begins. This bill passed enacted harsh laws on drug charges, which primarily affected Black individuals in America. During this time, Black individuals consisted of 13% of the population- however black people made up 30% of all drug law violations and nearly 40% of those who were imprisoned for drug violations (The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race, 2015).

1973: The Era of Mass incarceration begins. Due to the rigidness of the War on Drugs, black individuals became the “bad guys” and were much more likely to be punished at a greater rate compared to their white peers. For example, “… among people who received a mandatory minimum sentence in 2011….. 31 percent were Black” (The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race, 2015). Nearly 80 percent of people in federal prison and 60 percent of people in state prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino.(The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race, 2015).

1984: Determinate sentencing became prominent. “Research shows that prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for Black people as for white people charged with the same offense. 17 Among people who received a mandatory minimum sentence in 2011, 38 percent were Latino and 31 percent were Black” (The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race, 2015).

With all of this said, we need to solve the problem of minority groups being incarcerated at a higher rate. Acknowledging the problem without any solutions is pointless. So, here are some solutions proposed by The Sentencing Project, an organization dedicated to the issue at hand.

1. Abolish mandatory minimum sentencing times

These sentencing times are not actually helping the issue at all, it is just wedging a divide between races in our system. By today’s standards, most of the offenders would be out of incarceration if they had committed their crime today. This would open up prison space for violent offenders and would help ease racial tensions (Nellis, 2021).

2. Decriminalizing low-level drug offenses

Decriminalizing low-level drug offenses could do wonders for our system. Not only would it declutter our very populated prisons, but it would help racial disparity as more minority offenders would be free (Nellis, 2021).

3. Require prospective and retroactive racial impact statements for all criminal statutes.

Specifically, this means taking race and racial biases and histories into account when looking at legislation that may be outdated. This will reverse any racial bias and effectively help us move forward (Nellis, 2021).

Sources:

Nellis, A (2021, Oct. 13). “The Color Of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons.” The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/#:~:text=Key%20findings,Black%20Wisconsinites%20is%20in%20prison.

Sweet, J,. (2020, Nov. 5). “History of the US Prison System.” Stacker.  https://stacker.com/stories/4894/history-us-prison-system

“The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race.” (2015, June). Drug Policy Alliance. https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/DrugPolicyAlliance/DPA_Fact_Sheet_Drug_War_Mass_Incarceration_and_Race_June2015.pdf

Betsy, P. (2018, June 27). “Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers.” American Progress.org.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/ending-war-drugs-numbers/

Mauer, M. (2018, Nov, 5). “Long-Term Sentences: Time to Reconsider the Scale of Punishment.” The Sentencing Project.

Long-Term Sentences: Time to Reconsider the Scale of Punishment