Op-ed: Mass Incarceration and Its Effects
In June 1987, Walter McMillan, a 46 year old African American man, was arrested for being falsely accused of the murder of a White woman in Alabama. He was tried by a jury of eleven White people and one African American man. He spent six years on death row until the court was found to have been withholding exculpatory evidence that would prove his innocence. Six years were taken from him for a crime he did not commit, and still his story pales in comparison to the countless others which involve racist prejudice impeding the judicial process.
After slavery was officially “abolished” in 1865, the subjugation of Blacks manifested itself in more systematic and insidious ways. An Edition of Smithsonian Magazine writes about how free black people were often prohibited from getting jobs and the few black owned businesses were harassed and terrorized. As a result, blacks were obligated to find alternate methods of acquiring wealth to feed themselves and their families. These methods were often in violation of the law. Volunteer police forces led by whites were established to maintain order over “hostile and unruly blacks.” Many blacks were arrested and jailed for life for nothing more than loitering or being outside past “curfew.” To make up for the loss of free slave labor, the mass incarceration of freed slaves helped assuage the damage done to the economy, especially in the south. Although the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery, a loophole in the 13th Amendment allows for punitive “compulsory labor” in prisons when the suspected criminal has been “duly convicted.” This mass incarceration has persisted into the 21st century and still disproportionately afflicts people of color today.
America has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, and black people are arrested at a rate four to five times that of white people. This statistic however, does not mean that black people commit more crime. In a New York Times article in 2019, several former Brooklyn police officers admitted to being told by their police chief to “leave white and Asian people alone.” One policeman in particular continued to say, “I got tired of hunting black and Hispanic people.” Although this type of blatant discrimination may surprise some people, it is only one small example of the immense problem within our own government. For example, whites and blacks tend to use marijuana and other drugs at similar rates, yet blacks and other people of color are arrested for drug abuse at much higher rates. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the marijuana usage rates among whites and blacks are roughly the same, yet blacks across the country are four times more likely to be arrested, and in some states are up to ten times more likely to be arrested. Thus, when presented with the argument that black people commit more crimes because they represent a high percentage of the prison population, it must be remembered that black people are also racially profiled, arrested and jailed at much higher rates, many times for minor crimes or no crime at all. According to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, there are more African American men in prison or on probation than there were enslaved in 1850. We have to acknowledge that the law cannot not provide an accurate representation of morality if the law itself is corrupt.
Due to the fact that African Americans are targeted and arrested at such high rates, poverty and violence increases in majority black neighborhoods. In many cases, one or even both parents in a family are arrested and jailed, leaving a firstborn child, an elderly grandparent, or a grossly inadequate foster care system to be responsible for the livelihood of an entire family. Over five million children have or have had an incarcerated parent. Many Black and Brown high school students have to manage the tasks of raising their younger siblings, cooking, maintaining a steady place of shelter, and getting through school. The constant stress and emotional trauma of living without parents is often and understandably overwhelming, and it often causes these students to drop out of high school or engage in illegal activity to acquire money. African Americans often find themselves caught in a cycle of incarceration, due to the lack of rehabilitation programs upon release and the overcriminalization in the workplace. It is considerably more difficult for formerly incarcerated people to find work in America, and formerly incarcerated black people are twice as likely to be denied jobs compared to other convicted felons. Many turn back to crime as their only source of income.
Black people have also been persecuted in social settings for decades. Segregation furthered the dehumanization of African Americans and still has lasting effects today. Housing discrimination, red-lining, and a lack of school funding created generational poverty and significant levels of unemployment rates among black people. Moreover, according to a study in 2014, black people with a college degree are still twice as likely to be denied a job than other graduates. Job discrimination creates a sense of apathy among young African American students who have come to realize that our society may never see them as equal, regardless of their academic achievements.
The police, the Judicial System, and the United States Government as a whole are all meant to serve and protect, to provide everyone a fair and speedy trial, and to work to maintain freedom for all. Yet, it is often forgotten that when those initial oaths and promises were made, black people were never considered. Although this fact may damage some people’s fantastical perceptions of their perfect America, this country has never truly been the home of the free. The Constitution was written with concern only for whites, specifically white men. America has only been the land of the free for white people, while everyone else, women, people of color, and black people especially, have been denied equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal justice. Confronting racism is not an attack on America, it is an honest and necessary effort to solve an issue that has persisted for far too long. Engaging in difficult discussions is the only way to begin to salve these difficult and complex issues.
It is also important to consider the issue that more Americans feel emboldened enough to be overtly racist or to carry out hate crimes because they have a confidence that our governmental institutions will not hold them accountable. We live in a country in which the KKK is yet to be considered a terrorist organization and where black men, women, and children are killed in the streets with no justice for their murders. This I believe is the most immediate problem that we face as a nation. Racism is so deeply ingrained in our society that it has become accepted and tolerated. Racism is indeed a virus. It spreads and presents itself in different ways. As a country we may never be able to completely prevent everyone from having racist beliefs, in the same way that we may never be able to stop every single person from having sexist presumptions. Nevertheless, what we must do as a country is create a government and culture that does not allow people to act upon their hateful and racist impulses to inflict harm on another person without facing definite consequences.
As student athletes, we do not yet have the power to make real change at the governmental level, however, we can all do our part to move the social climate in the right direction. Educating ourselves and others and donating to civil rights organizations is the first step in that direction. Furthermore, as more and more of us reach the age of 18, it is imperative that we exercise our right to vote.
I believe that with the power of social media and the determination of our new generation, we can finally begin to make real change in the United States and see a world in which the generation after us no longer has to be affected by racism and where love and acceptance governs all.
Works Cited
Goldstein, Joseph, and Ashley Southall. “'I Got Tired of Hunting Black and Hispanic People'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Dec. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/nyregion/nyc-police-subway-racial-profiling.html.
ALEXANDER, MICHELLE. NEW JIM CROW: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. NEW Press, 2020.
Connie Hassett-Walker Assistant Professor of Justice Studies and Sociology. “The Racist Roots of American Policing: From Slave Patrols to Traffic Stops.” The Conversation, 23 Dec. 2020, theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816.
Kopf, Lucius Couloute and Dan. “Out of Prison & Out of Work.” Out of Prison & Out of Work | Prison Policy Initiative, July 2018, www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/outofwork.html.
“Is the Criminal Justice System Broken?” The Atlantic, 14 Aug. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc8OHFjDR9A&feature=youtu.be.
Kendi, Ibram X. “The American Nightmare.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 3 June 2020, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/american-nightmare/612457/.
Preston, Caroline. “'It's Really Hard to Parent from behind Bars'.” The Hechinger Report, 27 June 2020, hechingerreport.org/its-really-hard-to-parent-from-behind-bars/.
“Why Mass Incarceration Defines Us As a Society.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Dec. 2012, www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/why-mass-incarceration-defines-us-as-a-society-135793245/.
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/catosletterv9n1.pdf