African-American Males, Incarceration and Structural

African-American Males, Incarceration and Structural Inequality

Incarceration in the United States is one of the main forms of punishment or as many would like to state forms of rehabilitation. With that being the case, the United States, while being considered one of the most powerful and influential countries in the world boasts the highest “rehabilitation” rate in the world. The staggering part remains that not only do we have the highest prison population but our incarceration rate continues to grow as our creativity or desire to solve this problem continues to stagnate. One of the major issues when researching incarceration rates is the obvious elevated rate of young African-American males that are sentenced. While the percentage of African-American incarcerated males is extremely high the length of their sentences are shockingly elevated compared to the majority of population in the United States. “One in every nine African-American males aged 25-29 were in prison or jail in 2009, compared to one in twenty-seven Latino males and one in sixty white males in the same age group, according to the Sentencing Project”. ("State of Young America," 2009, para. 11) The question currently being dealt with in the United States is how do we accommodate all of these prisoners? Our countries answer has been quite simple, to build more prisons or as some would sugarcoat it, “rehabilitation facilities”. The correct question we should be asking is, why we have so many African-American prisoners, and why do they keep returning to prisons soon after release. These are supposed to be considered rehabilitation facilities? Exactly what is the goal for preparing these prisoners upon release?
In looking for trends one would look no further than the high rate of incarceration of African-American males in inner cities. Drugs have played a large part in the inner city incarceration rate. Education levels have remained predominantly low in these areas. Because of this unemployment rates have continued to swell. “More than one in nine black children has a parent in prison or jail, a rate that has more than quadrupled in the past twenty-five years”("Get The Facts," 2013). Because of this children are being raised without support both financially or spiritually from incarcerated fathers, leaving them to become desperate to find ways without education to support their families at very young ages. “African-Americans compromise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African-American.” (Kerby, 2012) Adding to these percentages has been the recent War on Drugs campaign issued by many state legislatures in which the average drug offense sentencings have been rapidly increasing over a short period of time while it appears that many of the white collar crimes have relative lenient sentences compared to these drug offenses. When observing all of these statistics it appears the easy way out for our government is to just create more prisons, jails or as they like to refer to as rehabilitation facilities that aren’t quite rehabbing these prisoners. However, the answer isn’t quite that simple. This way of thinking has created a snowball effect that has resulted in even higher incarceration rates which has become progressively worse in the African-American and low income communities instead of its intended results.
Instead of dealing solely with results and being content with building more prisons, we as a country based upon opportunity and freedom need to instead investigate the causes of African-American incarceration rates. What are some commonalities of this incarcerated race? What are some ways to attack this problem proactively? What are some ways we can educate this population to lower these rates?
Low income in these societies is a huge reason for the abundance of crime. The low-income population commit crime for a few reasons, some of which are to support their families which are subject to single incomes because of incarceration of the young parents. Children feel pressured in today’s world to find any means to keep up with changing times and needs of the family, therefore are willing to take risks in order to provide necessary means for their families. Another issue facing young African-Americans today is the absence of proper guidance while growing up. As stated earlier with 1 in every 9 parents incarcerated, guidance is lacking and role models become people in these poverty stricken areas which many times are the drug dealers or thieves who seem to have money and a fancy lifestyle. However, what is not seen by the young community is what is actually lost and how the incarcerated individuals are never given the opportunity to recoup their time, money and opportunity during incarceration which effects the chance for an education and subsequently a good job. As prison population continues to rise so does the rate of increased prison sentences as well as increased amount of drug dealing and drug abuse. Because of these increasing rates racial profiling has come into play as many communities policemen will routinely question or pull over young African-Americans “just because” they look guilty.
“Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The commission also reports that African-Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.”(Kerby, 2012). Though African-Americans make up a small percentage of drug users in this country, they are incarcerated and sentenced at an obviously high rate. Research has proven that African-American serve almost the exact amount of prison time for a drug offense as whites do for violent crimes. It appears that the crackdown on drugs has predominantly been enforced in low income areas which would be focused on many African-Americans. Once incarcerated weather because of racial profiling or not, the next issue is why are the prison sentences so high compared to white collar crimes? It appears there is a mixture of prejudice and circumstance involved here. First is the idea of a crackdown or war on drugs as stated by our government. Why are drug cases any more or less important than other serious offenses such as violent crimes? Many of the young African-Americans incarcerated for drugs are considered drug dealers not addicts who become dealers as a way out of their poor communities. These people would seem much better candidates to be rehabilitated and reintroduced to education and given more assistance in finding quality employment than violent offenders who have been receiving comparable prison sentences. The other issue which for the most part goes unnoticed about high prison sentences in the African-American community is the fact that minorities have less money for quality legal representation and frequently are subject to public defenders while white collar crimes are represented by renowned attorneys who are better equipped to field much lower prison sentences for the defendants.
Not only do these prison sentences effect the individual African-American. These high and frequent sentences influence an entire family and in turn cause a damaging effect on the minority communities. The increasing incarceration and poverty rate starts with a cycle beginning with poor parenting. Parents caught in this low income web are uneducated with a lack of knowledge on how to escape this cycle. What they do know is that crime is a way to gain what is needed to survive and provide for their families. This lifestyle is passed on from generation to generation. With parents in prison the younger generation becomes unaware of the importance of education because what now is important to them would be finding ways to survive with incarcerated parents and no money. Because of these unfortunate series of repetitive events, children become uneducated which in turn makes them unemployable. Once unemployable these young men become bitter, feel as though there is no way out of this snake pit and realize they have to survive so they then begin an unhealthy lifestyle. Living conditions deteriorate causing poor morale and more importantly poor health. These are just some of the causes of incarceration that never seem to become addressed. Embarrassingly, we as a country are content to put an immense amount of capital into revamping and building new prison system but turn a blind cheek and not look for solutions to change things. It has been stated that the average cost to house a prisoner in the United States is around 45,000 dollars per year. However, none of that money is spent rehabilitating these inmates and preparing them to be released into the real world. The money is spent building facilities, paying for the daily life of the prisoner, any medical necessities and upkeep of these facilities. Minute amounts of money are spent on counseling and guidance to prep these prisoners on avenues for success upon release from prison. Therefore, upon release from prison there is a high rate of this population returning to prison because with all of the money being spent on prisons none is spent proactively, inmates are unable to adjust to life in the real world and find it is easier to go back to crime and attempt to earn money illegally, which in turn causes them to go right back to prison.
The criminal justice system has been broken for many years. Of the active U.S. circuit court judges, 51.2% are white men, 25.3% are white women, 16.7% are non-white men, and 6.8% are non-white women. (McMillion, 2014, para. 7)Today, white males are overrepresented on state appellate benches by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Almost every other demographic group is underrepresented when compared to their share of the nation’s population. There is also evidence that the number of black male judges is actually decreasing. (Torres-Spelliscy, Chase, Greenman, & Liss, 2010, para. 4) This is something that has been attempted to be swept under the carpet by politicians who not coincidentally are mostly white Americans who have minimal knowledge and apparently little care about why our society has moved away from trying to rehabilitate those who commit crimes and feel it’s morally acceptable to punish these individuals by putting them in prisons. Not only are we putting these young individuals in prison for long periods of time and paying an astronomical amount of money to keep them there but upon release from prison they were not taught any skills to be able to find any type of employment upon release. So now we have just paid to have someone incarcerated for let’s say around 10 years for a non-violent crime and now have to invest even more money because this individual now needs welfare because they have had minimal counseling or interaction with any type of social worker. In order for change government must be willing to admit that mass incarceration is not productive but the exact opposite. In 2008 the United States had spent 47 billion dollars on corrections and a fraction of that was set aside for counseling. As previously stated African-Americans make up the majority of our prison population with mainly non-violent crimes and are not given the option for rehabilitation or given the knowledge of available resources to become productive members of society upon release. Why wouldn’t this be considered a horrible display of racism? Our judicial system has invested billions of dollars housing prisoners and setting them up for failure on release. The answer sits right in front of the politicians. Lower prison sentences, decrease prison population, spend less on our prison systems. With this freed up money states can now propose quality mandated drug treatment programs as well as various employment services for people convicted of non-violent crimes. Financial incentives from individual states regarding education would motivate minorities and perhaps lower the reentry incarceration rate. The problem of mass incarceration did not start overnight. Therefore, it is going to take many years, a lot of sacrifice and open minds that are free from discrimination to rectify a problem that has been ignored for many years and has frankly ruined millions of children’s opportunities for a productive life that could have lead them out of poverty.

References
Get the facts. (2013). Retrieved from www.Drugwarfacts.org
Kerby, S. (2012). 1 in 3 black go to prison. Retrieved from www.alternet.org/story/154587
McMillion, B. J. (2014). U.S. Circut and District Court Judges: Profile of Select Characteristics. Retrieved from fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43426
The State of Young America: Facts and Statistics on Young African-Americans. (2009). Retrieved 2011, from www.demos.org/publication/state-young-america-facts-statitics-young-african-americans
Torres-Spelliscy, C., Chase, M., Greenman, E., & Liss, S. M. (2010, March 3, 2010). Improving Judicial Diversity. Brennan Center For Justice. Retrieved from https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/improving-judicial-diversity