Ethnic Disparity In Prisons

Racial disparity is highly controversial in all areas of our judicial systems starting with the arrest and ending with the imprisonment. Racial and ethnic disparity exists in nearly all of America’s legal systems, despite the progress over the recent years in social and economic status; the numbers still remain high for minorities in our prison system.
Is America’s prison system the new housing complex for disadvantaged minorities? The numbers don’t lie when it comes to the studies completed on this issue there are many reason for minorities in prison. We can start with the high percentages of broken/ fatherless homes, lack of role models, the war on drugs, poor education and racial divide by geographical location. I guess the next question

If I was standing in a group of educated peers and we were having this discussion, my next question would be “What causes so many minorities to commit crimes?”
The many issues of the minority community seem like Pandora’s Box when discussed in certain circles. Many researchers have found that the impact from the high incarceration numbers drastically affect the minority community on levels not seen by the public eye. As we look into how and why this vicious cycle continues to rise and hinder the growth in the minority community, we find that three different aspects are greatly affected family, political, and earning power.
“We do not develop habits of genuine love automatically. We learn by watching effective role models – most specifically by observing how our parents express love for each other day in and day out.”– Josh

According to Western, he states that “incarceration has its most corrosive effects on families” I see this to be very true based of the generational influence from parents, siblings, and close relatives to the next generation of the family. He also feels that incarceration and single parenting coupled with poor education among minority men and women, produces a higher rate of imprisonment among fathers in disadvantaged families. Western was one of the many researchers to look at data to find out how the lack of fathers in homes and communities greatly impacted the families. The fact that these men incarcerated were parents before, during, and after their incarceration has left a visible void in the parenting realm. According to researchers, they estimate that children of prisoners are five times more likely to engage in criminal behavior and or serve jail or prison time than those who never experience the pain of having one of their parents