Reflection On Mass Incarceration

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In preparation for this reflection paper I watched Bill Moyers: incarceration, read two peer reviewed articles, and reflected on my own personal experiences. The book the new Jim crow gave me new insights on mass incarceration in America, and how incarceration has replaced slavery in America today. Growing up I’ve experienced firsthand the affect that the war on drugs can have on a person. Witnessing how the system takes away all your privileges leaving you striped of your American rights. While watching this documentary, I empathized with the struggle the women in this film had with maintaining a normal life after being released from prison. I empathize with them because just like them I grew up in a society where drugs were sold …show more content…

I’ve learned to understand the policy of our criminal system and why the rules are the way they are, and I also learned about the underlying racism that comes with mass incarceration and how our criminal system today reflects that of Jim crow. A major thing that I’ve taken from being an African American and seeing everyone I know fall victim to the cycle of mass incarceration, is that you must decide not to become a statistic, you must decide not to become like the people who you are surrounded with. I think there is some justice in some of the policy’s we have when dealing with mass incarceration, but I ultimately think that officials should take into mind the lifestyle that most African Americans are brought up in. The media does a great job in portraying the rough lifestyle of the average day criminal but what it doesn’t do a great job in is underlying the amount of discrimination African American face daily and how that affects them. From experience, I’ve concluded that as African Americans we experience a different America than whites. The officials who make the policies will never know what it’s like to walk into a job and be discriminated against because of your color, or the feeling of walking down the street in a white neighborhood and be stopped just because you’re black. The system that we are brought up in has never been in the favor of African Americans, these hardship is no excuse for committing crimes but these hardships

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