Preview

Racial Inequalities On African Americans In The Prison System

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
339 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Racial Inequalities On African Americans In The Prison System
The racial inequality against African Americans in the United States prison system is one of the largest issues to take place for many years. In the nineteen-thirties, blacks were three times more likely to be imprisoned than whites. In the nineteen-nineties the ratio increased to more than seven times that of whites. Til this day, this country has about three hundred million people, with two million people behind bars. But within those two million people, African Americans - black men, in particular, are the majority of prisoners despite whites being the majority of the United States. Many African Americans who came out of the prison system are at a disadvantage when it comes to starting their life as a free individual, getting a job, or even

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    The Sentencing Project also illustrates that the black community is intentionally targeted through mass incarceration. Their article, entitled “The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons” states that in sixteen states, black people are more than seven times more likely to get imprisoned than their white counterparts (“The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State…

    • 1407 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander examines our current criminal justice system and the mass incarceration of African Americans in the United States. She argues that the War on Drugs and drug offense convictions are the single most compelling cause for the magnitude of people of color behind bars. Prisons are used as a system of racial and social control that function in the same way as Jim Crow laws. It is no longer legal to discriminate against people based on race. By targeting black and minority communities through the War on Drugs and labeling them as felons, all the old forms of discrimination became legal. The racial caste systems of slavery and Jim Crow have not disappeared, but…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racial Bias Research Paper

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages

    “The Scourge of Racial Bias in New York State’s Prisons.” New York Times, 3 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/nyregion/new-york-state-prisons-inmates-racial-bias.html?_r=0. Accessed 22 Feb. 2017. This article shows the underlying racial bias in New York prison systems. Clinton correctional Facility in New York has 998 white guards, and only one black guard. Due to a lack of exposure to any people of color, many of these guards only interactions with black people are with those that are prisoners -- leading to overall demonization of anyone who is black. This is reflected in longer prison sentences, more time spent in solitary confinement, and even cases of black prisoners getting beaten by guards for committing no crimes. Throughout American history, the demonization of black men is not uncommon or rare. Just look at Minstrel shows, extremely popular during the 19th century -- white men would paint their skin black to portray black people as selfish, lazy, and cowardly. America’s long history of mistreating black people stems from the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade when white people would import Africans to work as slaves on their plantations. Even after the abolition of slavery, racial prejudice still held, with Minstrel Shows, lynchings, and segregation being the…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Growing up in America, , as a black male in Philadelphia, Pa, throughout my life I have seen many of my ethnic group arrested and convicted for various crimes and offences. This has had a profound effect on my perspective of the Pennsylvania Judicial system, including police, courts and prison. Being in an environment that glorified violence, I saw young men fall victim to the delusion that we could avoid the consequences of crime. But I have also seen the unfairness of the system and the bad results of incarceration for individual and families. Since attending Community College of Philadelphia, I have taken two classes that have given me a better insight into this subject. Academic work for History 101 and English 102 have shown me the nation we live in has been built off the exploitation of lower class citizens, who as a result live in environments cut off from mainstream society. These citizens often experience discrimination as well.…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States accounts for 5% of the world population but has nearly 22% of world prison population. This means that nearly 2 million people are incarcerated, and 1 in 3 black men will go to prison or jail if this trend continues (Amnesty International). Mass Incarceration has been one of the major debate recently in Politics. The politician has been debating on a method to reduce the prison population, and to do that they need to find the cause of it and the different contribution. In recent year, there has been a cut in funding for many states rehabilitation, education and other programs because the costs to accommodate an inmate is escalating upward. At the same time, laws are put in place that put disadvantaged people within the criminal…

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The U.S has roughly 5 percent of the world’s population, but about 25 percent of its prison population. Further, over two million Americans are in prison or jail. Crime statistics and incarceration rates reveal that young African American men are prosecuted and imprisoned at higher rates than their Non-Hispanic White counterparts. Appallingly, of those incarcerated just under half (40 percent), are African American (Lawrence, 2011, p. 4). To put this statistic into perspective, as of 2010, African Americans…

    • 4949 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A prison that houses mostly African-American prisoners is set on a place that was a slave plantation before the civil war.…

    • 149 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Slavery ending in the United States in 1865, once slavery ended there was the belief that the end racism and oppression would soon follow. However, almost 150 years later racism and the oppression of people of color is still very present in society. The most prevalent form of racism in the United States is institutional racism. Institutional racism is any kind of system of inequality based on race that can occur in institutions. Once slavery ended slaves did not automatically become integrated in society.…

    • 1489 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1998 a national picture shows an indication that African Americans account for about 35% of adults on probation, about 49% of adults in prison, and about 44% of the adults on parole (Jones-Brown, 2002). Marc Mauer indicates that the prison populations has been on the rise for number decades, and continues to climb. From 2001 to 2004 Marc Mauer concludes that the prison populations have grown by two million incarcerations (Mauer, 2004). Marc Mauer breaks down his numbers like this: one in every African American male between the ages of 25-34 is put behind bars on any day, and about 32% of the African American males born today will do some time in a prison during his lifetime (Mauer, 2004).…

    • 2143 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I totally agree with your post. I believe when we look at the disparity of inmates in prison show us the real fact of our correctional system. In term of racism is this country, it has gradually decreased and in the current society people are segregated by class and that fact will never change no matter how many time we debate about that topic. Because if we look at other countries, where there is no racial discrimination exists, there is a bias towards the rich and the poor, but apparently will never change, because it is the divide line in every…

    • 102 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    African-American Prisons

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Thirteenth Amendment was designed to free slaves. However, the prison system appears to be a form of slavery itself with the high number of Africa-American incarcerated. Out of the whole prison population, about 80 percent or more are of African descent. After the Civil War, an enormous amount of African-American men were being sent to jail or prison for a long time because of petty crimes such as loitering. That was in the late 1800’s and it is still going on today. The tension between law enforcement officers and African-American is caused by the way police officers are portrayed to African-Americans and how African-American are portrayed to police officers.…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Over the last 40 years the prison population has increased 600 percent and it has negatively impacted young Black males, especially those living in socially disorganized neighborhoods (Childress, 2014). In 2001, Bonczar (2003) notes that Blacks accounted for nearly seventeen percent of individuals previously or currently incarcerated, which was six times more than White males. Besides having a higher chance of serving a prison term, African American are also likely to be sentenced to longer sentences than White Americans for the same crime. According to Kahn and Kirk (2015), in 2012, Blacks received a federal prison sentence ten times longer than their White counterparts. Bonczar (2003) explains that one in…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dating back some time ago, the African American race was brought into this country for to become slaves and serve the White American race. All of this was established based on the tone of their skin being ugly and seen as being deformed and the white American race were destined to be the superior race overruling African Americans in every aspect giving them basically no rights at all. Although slavery days are long and gone some may say that the White American race still has an upper hand on the African Americans by using the criminal justice system against them. This topic of racial inequality within the criminal justice system of the United States also known as “the land of the free” has become more and more relevant based upon the rising number of arrests and the highly populated penal institution mostly occupied by African Americans. These rising numbers of African Americans in penal institutions have contributed greatly to the stereotype of a young African American male. Most African American males today either has family incarcerated or know someone that is and people on the outside looking automatically thinks that that young male will experience life inside of a facility at some part of their life. Almost at every stage of the criminal justice process white Americans have a better chance of getting off than African Americans while they might be accused of committing the same exact crime. White and African Americans are said to be using the same amount of drugs and narcotics at about the same rate but statistics show that African Americans are .highly outnumbering white Americans inside of penal institutions for nonviolent drug offenses. This paper will go in depth with the more proof such as statistics and facts that African Americans are experiencing racial inequalities within the criminal justice…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history, Mass Incarceration has heavily affected groups of African- Americans living in the United States. The War on Drugs launched the increase of the imprisonment of young black males across the country. Although, The War on drugs began over 30 years ago, it is a battle that we Americans continue to fight today. It is a battle, we have not yet conquered. With the launch of Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, thousands of people have been incarcerated for crimes that are not violent, but drug- related. Every year, the United States spends an excessive amount of money to lock up criminals, and often convict people who can benefit from rehabilitation and counseling as opposed to a three year sentence. It is a substantial issue in…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Lowering Incarceration

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Over the past twenty to thirty years the United States incarceration rate has gradually been climbing to its present day rate of 738 incarcerated citizens per 100,000 in the population. That number is 153% higher than Russia who is 2nd in line with the most imprisoned citizens and a whopping 2000% higher than countries such as Nigeria and Nepal (Hartney 2). The problem with this nations incarceration rate is not due to the amount of crime that goes on, “For some crimes, the US has higher crime rates than other countries, but not at levels that explain the high rates—and costs—of its current use of incarceration” (Hartney 5). The United States is also at fault for having the highest minority incarceration rates having three times as many women imprisoned than any other nation. The minority problem doesn’t stop at the women but Latinos composed 19% of Americas prison population while African Americans make up 41% (“More”). The other potent issue with this problem is that it is not being considered as one and the rates are continuously growing. Jails…

    • 2094 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays