The mass incarceration of colored people in the United States is a major issue showcasing much needed prison reform. The number of prisoners has almost quadrupled in the past 50 years . As of 2014, 34% of the 6.8 million people currently incarcerated are African American. African Americans are overall more likely to be stopped by police, arrested, detained before trial, and given harsher sentences
then whites. These racial and ethnic disparities in mass incarceration have become a modern civil rights issue of our time, but what drives this? Why are there such large disparities?
Well to start, oppression and racism have been a trend in the United States, with the Jim Crow era establishing much of what the criminal justice system was built on. Newer policies are another major cause of the gap, and the disparities and bias are shown from the time of arrest all the way to imprisonment.
To combat the increasing war on drugs in the 90s’, the government enacted tough-on-crime-policies, which have led to more individuals who commit less serious crimes, spending longer sentences in jail. This increase also led to African Americans being the most imprisoned race, especially African American men. The increase of harsh punishment policies in the recent years is a major cause or the rise of imprisonment. Though there isn’t a large disparity in more heinous crimes like murder, lower crimes, especially drug crimes, have a huge disparity between races. In state prisons, harsh drug laws are the main reason for racial and ethnic disparities. Even though blacks and whites have around the same drug use rate, blacks are nearly 4 times than whites to be arrested for drug offenses, and 2.5 times as likely to be arrested for drug possession.
Systemic racism, in my opinion, is the main cause of this entire issue. Systemic racism is defined as “systems and institutions that produce racially disparate outcomes, regardless of the intentions of the people who work within them.” Poverty, unemployment history, education outcomes, criminal history and many other factors all fall under this term as being effected by race and contribute to the increased chance of being black and incarcerated. Not only do those factors lead to higher incarceration rates, but because of mass incarceration there are adverse effects on black communities. This then creates cycle of poverty for
blacks in certain concentrated areas.
This notes the structural disadvantage African Americans face outside of the criminal justice system that can be influencing the rate of incarceration. Residential segregation is another institution that even though has been outlawed, it still is prevalent in today’s society. A staggering, 62% of African Americans live in segregated inner-city neighborhoods that are disproportionate in terms of opportunity and socioeconomics. Those living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods with typically higher rates of crime, cause the people living there to be at risk of participating in these crimes. This problem in itself creates a social problem that can lead to crime, which ultimately could lead to incarceration.
Implicit bias comes into play when analyzing the criminal justice system. People’s personal biases are hard to escape and that holds true in the criminal justice system too. On average, African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites. This is partially due to African Americans being more likely to be perceived in a negative connotation, which then leads to harsher punishments and sanctions. Survey data has found that terms such as “dangerous”, “criminal”, and “violent”, are associated with African Americans more than any other race. This association leads to blacks as being seen as a great threats to the community and leading to larger sentences.
So considering all of this, how do we reform this broken system? In my opinion, for the subject matter at hand, a more balanced system is the first acknowledgement in trying to reform this problem. More biases screening and testing of government officials could help lessen the disparity between races. Another consideration is to lessen the severity of federal drug sentences. These policies target black communities, so with a change, the chances of blacks being indicted more than whites is lessened. The decrease in these sentences can also add more focus to drug rehabilitation and education programs. The government could greatly impact the community that is involved in these crimes, while also keeping the individual from serving unnecessary time for one drug offense. Another way to combat this problem would be to enact policies that protected those who did time, and helped them to be able to get better jobs after release. Decent employment opportunities tend to be closed off for those with a record, but with better employment, it decreases the individuals chances of going back to prison and can have an impact on the communities of those individuals. Though these solutions are easier said than done, there are many solutions the government could take to eliminate the racial gap in incarceration rates.
There is a lot of good information within this post. I completely agree with you in that there is a lot of issues with biases within the legal sentencing system. A significant problem with this is that biases are made about a person’s situation, for example, if a police officer walks into a neighborhood known for having a high crime rate, then that police officer will expect more crime from that neighborhood and can project that belief onto others. This can make it so an officer might project a crime onto an individual despite that individual not committing one, all because of circumstance and environment. This cause to behaviour circumstance can be known as attributes. Attributions are the way that we assign cause to behaviour. However, attributions has many errors as people often lack the information, time, motivation, or all of the above along with further factors to make logical accurate attributions, which may lead them to take shortcuts in their reasoning, which can result in bias, whether intentional or not. One such attribute is known as the person bias. In 1958, Heider (https://www.simplypsychology.org/attribution-theory.html) noted that people tended to give too much weight to personality and not enough to the environmental situation when they make attributions about others’ actions of which is known by several names, such as the Fundamental Attribution Error, person bias, correspondence error. The person bias is much more likely to occur if a person’s mind is occupied by other tasks or if they are tired than if they devote their full attention to a task was a theory pronounced by Gilbert. In 1985, Ronald Humphrey set up a simulated corporate office and randomly assigned some volunteer subjects to the role of manager and others to that of clerk. The managers were given interesting tasks and responsibilities whereas the clerks were given routine, boring tasks. At the end of the study, the participants rated the various aspects of the personalities of all participants. The manager role was judged by others more positively and higher in leadership, intelligence, assertiveness, supportiveness, and likelihood of future success in comparison to the clerk roles. This is an example of fundamental attribution error, where the participants attributed the manager in accordance to the situation that the manager was in and doesn’t really take in the surroundings. The manager participant was just an ordinary man, yet he was seen as extroadinary because of his role. This can also be shown with racial bias, where police officers might attribute citizens of darker skin colour to crime more because of where they live, which generally has larger crimes in the past.
You touched on some really great points. The racial disparity of prisons is impossible to turn a blind eye to. Building off of the statistics you presented, I have found articles that talk about how ‘ghetto’ culture and the stereotypes often presented in hip-hop and some ‘black’ media allows for a very singular perception of African-Americans in the eyes of the white majority in America. This article from the City Journal, http://www.city-journal.org/html/how-hip-hop-holds-blacks-back-12442.html, by John McWhorter, goes into how the African-American community learned to distrust authority as authority oppressed and mistreated them, and this deep dislike of authority manifests in rap music so common amidst youth. The rap further propagates black youth’s distrust in the American government and authorities because of the violent and oppressive nature of events told in rap music. While this perspective is completely understandable, it also disadvantages black youth and helps to maintain the cycle of poverty so many black communities are trapped in. McWhorter says that while many blacks may see the themes in hip-hop as revolutionary and full of strength and rebellion, he argues that this “thuggish adversarial stance… retards black success” especially when taught to children. McWhorter references how Martin Luther King Jr. fought segregation: not with an adversary stance but by bringing people together and preaching character and respect, even when he was constantly disrespected and oppressed. McWhorter also mentions themes other than respecting authority, like the praising of drugs and drug users, the common and often vulgar demeaning and objectification of women, both black and of other races, and the image created of the ‘party-life’. Listening to rap sometimes myself, I have often been most bothered by the depiction of women, seeing that the rap industry has maybe 1 or 2 serious female artists out of thousands of men. While McWhorter’s opinion as a black man in America is very insightful, I also feel like the perspective of the white majority in seeing black culture and characteristics as ‘ghetto’, ‘thug’, or inherently violent and inferior, such as common vernacular, fashion styles, foods, etc. is not simply the duty of blacks to fix or the fault of black communities. While hip-hop does contribute to the image of blacks in America, no logical person would conclude it is a representation of blacks as a whole or use it as a foundation for prejudice against individuals. I believe that the connotations of ‘black’ and ‘common black characteristics’ as well as the stereotypes rooted in them need to be dispelled in the eyes of the police, the judges and juries, the government, and the people. While I believe McWhorter is correct in saying that rich black men rapping about drugs, demeaning terms for women, partying, and violence within the black community is not the way to express the African-American experience with the respectful setting it deserves and properly reflecting the black community, I do feel that the responsibility of recreating the black image in America does not just fall onto African-Americans. Internalized prejudices are not the fault of all black people. As this document details, komentoolkits.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Applying-Culturally-Responsive-Communication-in-Black-and-African-American-Communities-B-AA-Comm.pdf, the black community is extremely diverse, and so is their cultures, history, traditions, and trends. McWhorter may be very correct in saying that rap music has created a singular picture of black people. These prejudices won’t go away as long as there are ignorant, racists around to spread their misguided ideas. So while perhaps it is not the responsibility of blacks to recreate their image, it may be the best way to dispel prejudice.
Another positive of hip-hop and other industries like Hollywood, sports, music, and fashion now largely made up of African-Americans, is the ‘going mainstream’ of black professionals and their work and the ‘black hero’ or ‘role model’, as described in the article http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2015/black-influence-goes-mainstream-in-the-us/. While young black children used to see superheroes, musicians, and even athletes as white men, the last few decades have allowed some of the most famous people in the country and in the world to be blacks and minorities. So while McWhorter is correct in his assessment of rap music and the image it creates, the existence of blacks rappers and how they behave may be counteracting some of the music.
While this may not seem to connect to your article, I believe that systematic racism is interconnected with inherent prejudice in people, and by creating a society where police officers, judges, juries, and the public see black people as violent thugs, it will be hard to correct the incarceration disparity and oppression in the judicial system without first addressing how the white majority perceives the black individual and community.
I loved your article and would like to see more on how systematic racism plays a role in America – it is such a complicated issue and I feel ignorant on much that it entails.
I totally agree! I mean it is honestly astounding how much ‘ghetto’ and ‘thuggish’ get thrown around on a day to day basis. I am often questioning myself in using these terms and those similar in fear that I am coercing the ignorance that can come along with these phrases. I like how you touched on rap music and its’ unintentional promotion of the stereotypes. It may not directly relate, but I think it all fits in very well and goes hand in hand when discussing systematic racism.
I totally agree with you here. Racial issues such as this are definitely impossible to shy away from- especially for me as a black man in America. I also like how you gave further insight on the matter providing us with an even more in-depth look on the topic. Great comment!
Janae, these statistics are staggering! I completely agree with you that our justice system is in need of reform–especially in consideration to the disproportionate amount of African Americans convicted for lesser crimes. I also agree with you that biases of police officers and judges are significant factors in the current circumstances of our justice system. Following a hunch, I did a little research to determine how our justice system determines the sentencing for people convicted of a crime. It turns out that judges alone have the sole authority to make sentencing decisions (except for the death penalty). While there are laws in place regarding the extent of punishment/minimum punishments for particular crimes in some states, “judges are allowed to take in a number of considerations when determining a sentence for a convicted criminal defendant” (FindLaw’s Team of Legal Writers and Editors). Therefore, judges have the power in some situations to lessen or intensify the sentencing—a decision that can be impacted by personal heuristics and biases. Last semester I took an Honors management class, during which we talked about the basis for “good decision making.” While reforming the United States Justice System isn’t a “business” problem, we learned in my class how personal AND organizational heuristics and biases can cause people and the organizations they represent to make uniformed and poor decisions. Furthermore, we discussed that heuristics and biases are amplified when there are not diverse perspectives available, AKA there’s only one person relying on their past experiences making the decision. This may be one reason/underlying factor for the disproportionate amount of African Americans being arrested and charged more often than whites—seeing as one police officer can make an arrest and one judge can issue a sentence. In my class, we also discussed how to best avoid bad decision making, and the most important thing decision makers can do is incorporate as many diverse perspectives as possible. So, perhaps one approach to reforming our inherently biased justice system is to implement a team-based decision making model. I am proposing that there must be more than one police officer present to warrant a valid arrest and more than one judge present at a sentencing to determine a convicted person’s punishments. This way vital decisions—such as those made for the justice system—are structured to avoid personal bias.
Source:
https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/sentencing-law-faq.html
It’s intriguing to see how your management class can relate to race issues. This is so true, typically we only see one person making decisions and because of the systemic racism Janae spoke about they are usually white. In my comparative politics class we learned about a survey that tests your personal biases, so maybe that is something we can administer to find the root of the problem.
This post was interesting and extremely relevant especially since the Black Lives Matter movement began. Looking at the Black Lives Matter site, I can see all of the topics you discussed in your blog. A lot of these topics that they are focusing on this year are so interconnected like criminal justice reform, economic injustice, government corruption, and healthcare.
You talked about systemic racism and one thing I want to mention is the health of African Americans in contact with the criminal justice system, specifically the women. The Center for American Progress reports that, “infants born to black mothers die at twice the rate as those born to white mothers.” These statistics suggest that stress in female African Americans has been building over generations and that this increased stress leads to increased rates of infant mortality. Infant mortality isn’t the only health issue effected by mass incarceration. Mental health disorders – such as PTSD, anxiety and depression – diabetes, asthma, hypertension, HIV, and Hepatitis C are all impacted by the mass incarceration of African Americans. Family members and children alike can experience these various health issues.
This also impacts the children of African American families that have experience with mass incarceration. Since the 1930s, the number of children who have had indirect contact with the criminal justice system has increased for both African American and white households. However, there is a disproportionate number of African American children compared to white children.
Mass incarceration and system racism keep African Americans at a lower socioeconomic level because, “the financial burden of having an incarcerated loved one means that many families struggle to meet basic food, housing, transportation, and clothing needs.” This goes back to the systemic racism point you made, and it creates a cycle of African Americans that are exposed to mass incarceration, health issues, and poverty.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2018/06/05/451647/mass-incarceration-stress-black-infant-mortality/
https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-matters-2020/
Very interesting point about how the health care system impacts specifically African American women. I was not aware that there was such a disparity in infant mortality rates between races. I learned about infant mortality rates in a geography class and learned that they were a measure of well-being for a particular country, but never did we discuss the disparities seen on a local level. This is an important issue that needs to be heard more often. How can we give all people better access to the health care we need?
The systematic racism is against WHITES!! Blacks are incarcerated at a rate of about 3 times their demographic and yet commit crime at 4-6 times the White rate (depending on the crime). The reason they get longer sentences is because they commit twice as many crimes as Whites before they ever get to court.
America does not have a race problem, it has a Black problem created by the Left-Wing media and 3rd rate educational systems.
“Racism” is not about skin colour, it’s about behaviour; and we all know how many Blacks behave. Be honest.
You have to be crazy if you truly believe that. White people don’t get caught because the justice system is too focused on attacking black people, do you know how many white people smoke literal CRACK and MURDER PEOPLE and get away with it? or get shorter sentences than black people. You are truly insane; you whites need to learn how to behave.
incarceration have become a modern civil rights issue of our time, but what drives this? Why are there such large disparities?
agario unblocked
Can you clarify the source of these statistics, particularly the number indicating 6.8 million people are incarcerated? This is inconsistent with the data from Vera Institute, an organization mentioned in page. They reported in their 2023 publication “People in Jail and Prison in 2022” that the total incarcerated population is just 2.1 million. Moreover, even in 2014, the figure was far below 6 million.
I’m finding these numbers puzzling. Could someone provide some clarification?
Thank you.