In American society, race, class, and incarceration play a huge role in privatized corporations and in the lives of Americans. Our country has a tendency of using a person’s appearance and class to its own advantage. The U.S claims to incarcerate the vast amounts of inmates it does in order to protect its citizens but there is more that happens inside the doors of prisons. In this essay, I will argue that the United States profiteers within the prisons, selfishly uses the prison industrial complex to their advantage, and lastly, how race and class effect prisons.
In a remarkable analysis, Alexander (2010) made a fascinating comparisons of the modern struggles of blacks to dating back to the Jim Crow era. Alexander asserts that mass incarceration of African Americans is the “New Jim Crow” because it serves many of the same purposes of slavery over 100 years ago. Such disparity has not been changed as more and more African American men are under some sort of government supervision which are either incarcerated, awaiting trial, on probation or parole than slaves in 1850. For instance, the imprisonment of one in nine black men in 2006, demonstrates that black men were eight times more likely to be in jail or prison than their counterparts. Today’s colorblindness has used “police, prosecutors,
“Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again and that’s what they become” (Adichie, 2014). Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. Forman’s critique of the Jim Crow Analogy appropriately depicts the danger of a single story. While I agree with most of Michelle Alexander’s submission regarding mass incarceration, reading Forman’s critiques about Jim Crow analogy provided a wider horizon and a far more realistic potential at stopping the incalculable damage mass incarceration has inflicted on the US community. I found the following Forman’s critiques as his strongest and most valid arguments:
Drawing upon Lily Song’s scholarship when she states, “…race appears a secondary issue that may have cultural and political significance but is essentially a divisive mechanism that stymies the redistributive agendas or economic programs of class-based movements (Song p. 156).” To expound on this point, black and brown communities have been placed at an economic disadvantage connected to racialized discriminatory practices that have created hyper-segregated spaces with momentous challenges. Therefore, using a ‘one size fits all’ model to combat the crises within these spaces is not practical because it ignores the explicit role that race has played in the subjugation of communities of color. For example, taking a neo-pragmatic approach to eradicating these challenges by utilizing black and brown urban planners who have a greater understanding of the racial implications faced by these disadvantaged groups is a more sensible way to avoid trivializing the historical inequalities faced by people of color. To expand further, Rashad Shabazz details how black masculinity is specifically performed through prison and carceral spaces separate from how white masculinity is executed (Shabazz). Instead of approaching the problems faced by black males that present masculinity through a lens of white masculinity, a deeper analysis could connect how prison culture and the
“Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world,” (Stevenson). The prison population in the U.S. has grown extremely fast over the past three decades. With almost “six million people on probation or parole,” it is clear that there is a problem with our prison system (Stevenson). I believe the prison system in the United States is outdated and unjust because of unfair sentencing, racial discrimination, and the privation of the prison system.
The impact of incarceration on African-American men also results in awful consequences that limit their ability to become employed, to get an education, and even to participate in the political process.
To first start things off the United States has five percent of the world’s population, but have over twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. To me the numbers for that just doesn’t add up. From 1972 to the 2000’s the prison population has skyrocket. Imprisoning many people that have been found to be incident. All because the government sees and try to make society see people of color as animals that should be locked away. The government might as well say, “ No, they don’t need help just lock them away and that should work. And while we are at it when they are finally realised we are going to make in impossible for them to get a job and no voting rights”. Making it even harder for a person of color to adopt and more likely to return to prison. More than fifty-two of released inmates return to prison according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. All because of the image the government and social media plays on African American and other races. These is something that we can see althrought history. From African Americans being called “super predators” ,“danger to society”, and “monsters” all because the government needed the world to fear blacks and if they in fear they can have a reason for the acts of imprisoning so many African
Then next came the fight for civil rights and voting rights. The right to be treated as an equal member of society and have access to fair education, employment, and resources to improve lives. For blacks or African Americans oppression in today’s society has taken a different route, a new form of slavery for the black man has merged; prison. The stark difference in the ratio of black men in prison compared to white men is dubious because in comparison to our smaller, we still statistically have more black men in jail. Structurally, the criminal justice is set up to fail the black men specifically, once you get in its almost impossible to get out, it is like a revolving door for them. Many are locked away for longer periods of time for minor offenses and typically get longer sentences than their white
Many other ordeals lead to the increase in mass incarceration that we have in our criminal justice system today. It is the most damaging thing to do to the black community. It is viewed as a “backlash against the civil rights movement”. When in saw the increase in ...
Between 1980 and 2000 the prison population rose 300 percent (Patten, 2016). About three percent of the United States population is found under some sort of penal control, which was the lowest rate since 1996 (Kaeble, Glaze, Tsoutis, Minton, 2015). However, three decades later that is not much progress. Furthermore, with a broken penal system we see an overrepresentation of African American men. Studies show that black men are ten times more likely to be in federal or state prison than there white counterparts (De Giorgi, 2015). Being that African American’s make up a large portion of the lower socioeconomic class, statistics such as that place African American’s in a more disadvantaged position often causing more deviance. The effects of mass incarceration can have everlasting effects on those caught in the criminal justice system and often have the potential to affect their families as well. It can almost become a cycle because of how prisons function. It is hard to solely blame the political shift and war on drugs for the mass incarceration problem, when the high rates are still lingering in the United States. The disadvantaged make up a large concentration of the incarcerated population (Western & Wildeman, 2009). There are plenty of problems with the legal portion of the correctional system, but there are also sociological
This paper will use various books, journals, and videos to highlight its effect on society. In his book Death of a Negro, Delridge Hunter a professor at Medgar Evers College from 1977-present ,and past director of COSEP Cornell University 1970-1977, gives a view point of the African American that few people have explored. His book covers everything from music to movements. This book is relevant to my topic in that according to him Europe was the place that was chosen to “make the distinction between equals.” Whereby, they occupy the dominant, most favored position, or as in chess, the White position in which it explains how the dominant group that dominates the most valued position has controlled and manipulated various aspects of our society. Moving forward to Michelle’s Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow Laws, Michelle Alexander A longtime civil rights advocate and litigator, who now holds a joint appointment at the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, Alexander's main hypothesis, from which the book gets its name, is that "mass incarceration is, symbolically, the New Jim Crow." . This is relevant to my topic in that even though we minorities have made tremendous contributions to this world we are still looked down upon and still considered to be inferior. In Michelle Alexander’s book
In the 1990s two of the main contributors were drugs and poverty. Today, the trend is similar. However, today’s crime rate also correlate with the well-televised police
In conclusion, Michelle Alexander depicts the grim reality for many young African American men in the era of mass incarceration and exposes the truth of racial injustice in the system of mass incarceration. She reveals how race plays an important role in the American Justice System and mass incarceration. Although some critics disagree, Alexander persuasively argues that the new caste system in today’s society is the New Jim Crow. Using her experience in the field of civil rights advocacy, she illustrates the truth of racial indifference, the injustice in America’s Criminal Justice System, legal misrepresentation, and violations of the Fourth Amendment. She skillfully crafts a book with remarkable detail and logical claims to create awareness of the New Jim Crow and its effect on mass incarceration.
Throughout the history of the United States, gangs have always been groups that regularly use threats to commit crimes. Crime rates escalated during the 1960s and 1970s, partly because of the large number of teenagers involved in crime. During the 1980s, juvenile crime continued to rise even though particular types of crime fell. But according to most reports, “gang activity declined somewhat in the 1990s. Experts attribute the decline to a combination of factors, including an improved economy, a decline in crack cocaine use, stricter law enforcement and more violence-prevention programs” (Teen Gangs). Statistics show that the number of gang members dropped to “780,000 in 1998 from 846,000 in 1996, according to the OJJDP” (Teen Gangs). Another report coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that “the proportion of high-school students who reported carrying a weapon during the past 30 days declined to 18% in 1997, from 26% in 1991” (Teen Gangs). Various people come to believe that membership in a gang is a severe dan...
She notes, “Challenging mass incarceration requires something civil rights advocates have long been reluctant to do: advocacy on behalf of criminals. Even at the height of Jim Crow segregation—when black men were more likely to be lynched than to receive a fair trial in the South—NAACP lawyers were reluctant to advocate on behalf of blacks accused of crimes unless the lawyers were convinced of the men’s innocence”1. Alexander rightly argues that if this bias in advocacy is allowed to persist, the injustices and oppression that are perpetuated in the name of “fighting crime” cannot be resisted in a meaningful way. “Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate. In ‘colorblind’ America, criminals are the new whipping boys. They are entitled to no respect and little moral concern”1. Advocates who would fight against mass incarceration must be willing to openly show respect and concern for the people who have been caged, literally and metaphorically, as